A former gymnastics coach who once trained promising young athletes at a prestigious Iowa gym has been sentenced to 90 years in federal prison after admitting he secretly recorded underage girls in a bathroom at a Mississippi gymnastics facility.
Sean Gardner, 39, received the maximum possible sentence Wednesday, October 14, after pleading guilty to three federal counts of producing child sexual abuse material.
U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson ordered Gardner to serve three consecutive 30-year prison terms, a punishment that could effectively keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.
The disturbing case has also raised serious questions about whether gymnastics officials missed opportunities to stop Gardner years before his arrest.
According to federal investigators, Gardner installed a hidden camera inside a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, where he recorded young female students between December 2017 and April 2018.
Authorities said the recordings captured at least 10 minors in private moments while they were undressing or using the bathroom.
The videos remained undiscovered for years until investigators examining separate allegations of sexual misconduct involving Gardner recovered the material from his computers.
The FBI arrested Gardner in August 2025, bringing renewed attention to complaints made by former athletes at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa.
The prestigious training center was founded by renowned gymnastics coach Liang “Chow” Qiao, who helped develop Olympic champions.
Gardner had worked with promising young gymnasts and served as director of an annual winter gymnastics competition that attracted hundreds of athletes.
Several former students have since accused Gardner of exploiting his position of authority to sexually abuse them. Those allegations have been detailed in police reports and civil lawsuits.
Gardner has not been criminally charged in connection with the Iowa allegations. Police previously indicated they would evaluate their next steps after the federal proceedings concluded.
But the controversy extends beyond Gardner himself.
Civil lawsuits have accused USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, organizations responsible for protecting athletes, of receiving warnings about Gardner’s behavior as early as 2017 without taking sufficient action to prevent further alleged misconduct.
Gardner continued working in the sport for years before SafeSport temporarily suspended him in 2022 following a sexual abuse allegation from a gymnast at Chow’s. The gym fired him that same year.
SafeSport later said its investigation found that Chow and other coaches had been aware of allegations involving Gardner but failed to report them as required under the organization’s policies.
The revelations have renewed concerns about athlete safety in gymnastics, a sport that has spent years confronting institutional failures surrounding sexual abuse.
Gardner’s federal sentence resolves the criminal charges stemming from the Mississippi recordings, but it does not resolve the separate allegations made by former Iowa athletes or the civil litigation involving gymnastics organizations.
For the young athletes and families affected, the case has become another troubling example of the consequences when allegations involving trusted adults in youth sports are not promptly addressed.