Former U.S. champion Chris Riegel was suspended by USA Gymnastics for three years in 2015 after admitting making inappropriate comments to a teenage female gymnast, the Southern California News Group has learned.
Riegel’s membership was suspended in February 2015 for “behavior (that) was inconsistent with our safe sport policies” following a USA Gymnastics investigation into “allegations of sexual misconduct” specifically “that Riegel engaged in inappropriate communication with minor athletes,” according to USA Gymnastics and U.S. Center for SafeSport letters and emails obtained by SCNG. There were no allegations of inappropriate touching or physical abuse.
The 2015 suspension came 20 months after USA Gymnastics first received allegations from a parent in July 2013 that Riegel had sexually harassed, bullied and made inappropriate comments to teenage female gymnasts while coaching at the Trinity Gymnastics Academy in Lake In The Hills, Illinois, according to USA Gymnastics documents, statements by two former gymnasts and interviews with two mothers of gymnasts at the gym.
Riegel was also placed on an interim measure suspension in June 2018, four months after his original suspension ended while the U.S. Center for SafeSport reviewed the case, according to USA Gymnastics and SafeSport documents. The suspension was lifted in October 2018. Riegel’s name is not listed on either USA Gymnastics’ or the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s list of suspended individuals.
Riegel continued to work at clinics, camps and periodically in gyms, some affiliated with USA Gymnastics, during the national governing body’s investigation as well as his suspension. Riegel said he was cleared to continue working at clinics and camps during his suspension by then USA Gymnastics chief executive officer Steve Penny.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee created and funded U.S. Center for SafeSport recently encouraged Riegel to apply for a spot on an athlete advisory team it is launching.
“I think you would be a great asset,” Libby Bailey, a senior investigator for SafeSport, wrote in a June 21 email to Riegel in which she attached an application for the advisory team.
SCNG was first made aware of the allegations against Riegel by two parents and two former gymnasts who trained with him at Trinity after an SCNG profile of Riegel was posted online last Friday.
Riegel alleges in the profile that he was sexually abused between the ages of 8 and 16 by his coach Larry Moyer in the late 1970s and early 80s. He also alleges that top officials and coaches with USA Gymnastics, then known as the U.S. Gymnastics Federation, ignored his repeated complaints about Moyer’s alleged abuse.
Former U.S. Gymnastics CEO Mike Jacki confirmed in the story that he told Moyer to leave the sport in 1991 or Jacki would go public with Riegel’s allegations. Moyer agreed to remove himself from the sport but was never formally banned by the U.S. Gymnastics Federation or USA Gymnastics. The U.S. Center for SafeSport has begun an initial investigation of Moyer, according to a person familiar to the case.
Moyer denies sexually abusing Riegel.
“Any disciplinary document, record or communication is confidential. USA Gymnastics typically does not comment on a membership matter unless the resolution involves a public-facing result. Mr. Riegel acknowledged he was suspended in the letter he sent to the USA Gymnastics Board of Directors last fall and, based on the recent story, has shared that letter with the (SCNG),” USA Gymnastics said in a statement to SCNG. “As a result, USA Gymnastics confirms it suspended Mr. Riegel’s membership for three years (February 2015-February 2018) following an investigation into Mr. Riegel’s conduct referenced in his letter to the Board. In June 2018, USA Gymnastics issued an interim measure suspension under USA Gymnastics Bylaw 10.5 due to new concerns related to the circumstances for Mr. Riegel’s original suspension. His name was placed on the interim measures list on the website after USA Gymnastics forwarded the matter to the U.S. Center for SafeSport for further review. Mr. Riegel’s name was removed from the suspended list in October 2018 when the Center closed the matter.”
The allegations were also reported to local police first by parents at the gym and later by USA Gymnastics, according to interviews and USA Gymnastics emails. Local law enforcement decided not to pursue charges, according to the parents and USA Gymnastics emails.
Riegel denied all charges and allegations but acknowledged making a comment alluding to masturbation in a conversation with a female gymnast.
“I just saw her falling apart. She confided in me. I was trying to protect her,” Riegel said. “She was having sex with her boyfriend. I told her my god how dumb this is right now. You’re a Level 10 (gymnast), you’ve got to be smarter. You know there are other ways.’
“I scolded her. ‘Jesus Christ there are other ways if you need it that bad. This boy is no good. He’s bad news.’ She was crying. Given the situation, the same girl, same situation on in her life I would do it again. She came to me. She broke down. I would do it again.”
Riegel left coaching in 2013 and has not renewed his membership with USA Gymnastics but he continues to conduct clinics at gymnastic clubs across the country.
“Chris had this talent. He was always told he was special, So there was not a normal grounding. So you have a narcissist in development,” said Amy Collins, a parent who filed the complaint with USA Gymnastics against Riegel in 2013. “Then layer on top of that the abuse he went through, that’s the world he circled back to. That’s what he was taught, what he knows. Yes, maybe he didn’t touch anybody. But it’s still abuse.”
Riegel said the allegations by Collins and the other families are “absolutely ludicrous.”
“So, what, I’m Moyer’s monster now?” he said. “The monster he created? I’m going around the country abusing kids, continuing the family business? My God. Have I committed a crime? No. Did I have one step over the line one time with that inappropriate comment? Yes. But I’m not a monster.
“Believe me having had my youth stolen from me I can appreciate the irony of this.”
After a decade away from the sport, Riegel returned to the gym as a coach in 2004, later taking a job coaching girls at Trinity Academy of Gymnastics, an hour northwest of Chicago, in 2010.
Before long both Riegel and Adam, his son by his second marriage, grew close to several of the families whose girls trained with him, both Riegel and parents from the gym said. Riegel said he was instrumental in 12 gymnasts receiving college scholarships.
“He was family to us,” said Daisy McConnell, a Trinity parent. “We had him for Thanksgiving.”
But in 2013 another coach in the gym and eight gymnasts began sharing with their parents the allegations of inappropriate conduct, according to Collins and McConnell. Riegel was accused of “slut shaming,” calling at least one gymnast a whore and another derogatory term, making inappropriate comments about their bodies, trying to control all aspects of the gymnasts’ lives, including who they dated, said Collins and McConnell and two gymnasts who asked not to be named. Riegel warned the gymnasts not to share their conversations with him with their parents, reminding them he controlled their hopes of college scholarships because of his connections in the sport, the four women said.
Riegel was not accused of physical sexual abuse.
“What he did, he was constantly talking to them about masturbation. ‘If you need help, I’ll help you.’ He was very perverted with them,” McConnell said, acknowledging that Riegel did not actually use the term masturbate.
Riegel said he was “an open book” with the gymnasts and their families, even sharing with them his abuse.
“I talked to the older girls about my abuse. They knew about it because I told them and I told them because I wanted them to be educated in the system they were coming up in,” he said.
Collins reported the allegations to USA Gymnastics in July 2013 shortly after Riegel left Trinity. USA Gymnastics forwarded the allegations to local law enforcement in Illinois that fall, according to USA Gymnastics letters and emails.
“Last fall, we came to a point in the investigation where we found it necessary to report our findings to law enforcement. The police asked us to suspend our investigation while they looked into the matter,” Renee (Posan) Jamison, USA Gymnastics’ director of administration and Olympic relations, wrote in a June 19, 2014 email to Amy Collins, the mother who filed the initial complaint nearly a year earlier.
“Since then, we have checked in with the police every few months for a status update. Unfortunately, our latest update was not encouraging and we learned law enforcement will not be pursuing the matter. As such, USA Gymnastics has re-engaged our investigator who is currently completing the interviews he did not get done last fall.
“I should also note that Mr. Riegel has not been informed about the complaints and the resulting investigation as of yet, but that will likely happen as we continue the process.”
Riegel said he was informed of the allegations shortly after the Jamison email and was interviewed by a USA Gymnastics investigator. During that interview he acknowledged making an inappropriate comment but denied all other allegations.
He was suspended in February 2015, more than a year-and-a-half after Collins first reported the allegations.
“We have completed our review of the matter and have determined that Mr. Riegel’s behavior was inconsistent with our safe sport policies,” Jamison wrote in a February 4, 2015 letter to Collins.
The public was unaware of the ruling during the majority of his suspension. Suspensions were kept private by USA Gymnastics until it changed its bylaws in December 2017 under growing pressure related to the Larry Nassar scandal. The rule change making suspensions public took effect in January 2018, a month before Riegel’s suspension expired. There is currently no mention of the suspension on the USA Gymnastics’ or U.S. Center for SafeSport websites.
“After reviewing the matter it is the Center’s decision that there is not sufficient basis to initiate a formal process through Center, and thus the Center’s file related to this matter will be administratively closed,” Michael Henry, U.S. Center for SafeSport chief officer for response and resolution, wrote in an October 26, 2018 email to Riegel.
While Riegel was prohibited from being a member of USA Gymnastics or coaching at clubs sanctioned by the national governing body, he said Penny cleared him to continue working at clinics around the country. In the first 10 months of his suspension, Riegel made at least nine appearances at clinics, camps or coached for a day or two at gyms, according to his Facebook page.
Riegel said he was surprised the allegations against him are resurfacing.
“Why would I go public with my story if I had something to hide?” he said. ‘I haven’t heard one god damn word from those girls, from those moms since I left. Not once did Amy or Daisy try and come and talk to me. I mean what do they want?”
To Riegel’s last question, Collins doesn’t hesitate.
“I want Chris out of the sport,” she said. “Chris has a problem. He needs to get help, get some therapy, but stay away from kids. Just stay away from kids.”
Riegel has no plans for reapplying for membership with USA Gymnastics or coaching for a club but said he will continue to conduct clinics around the country.
“I’ve never touched a kid, never even thought about touching a kid, would have killed anyone touching a kid,” Riegel said.