Olympic Gymnastics Training Facility Sexual Abuse of Minors Class Action

As a young teenager, plaintiff Marcia Frederick was an elite-level gymnast who won world-class competitions. Unfortunately, the complaint for this class action alleges that she was also the subject of sexual abuse by her coach, Richard Carlson. The complaint also alleges that those who could have stopped the abuse did nothing, nor did they report it, even after the passage of the Safe Sport Act in 2017.

The class for this action is

• All current or former USAG or USOC amateur athletes
• About whom USAG, USOC, or their agents received information about an incident of child abuse, including sexual, emotional, and/or physical abuse, and
• Either failed to report incidents occurring after February 14, 2018 to law enforcement within 24 hours of learning of them, or
• Failed to report incidents occurring before February 14, 2018 to law enforcement within 24 hours of Congress’s enactment of the Safe Sport Act.

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is a nonprofit with oversight of US participation in the Olympics and Paralympics. It acts as a governing body for Olympic teams, and has the power to remove certification from groups that select Olympic teams.

United States of America Gymnastics (USAG) is the national governing body for gymnastics which selects and trains young athletes for Olympic teams and World Championships. It certifies and trains coaches, sanctions gyms where athletes work out and compete, and sponsors competitions. It had oversight of the American Gold Gym (GAG), where Frederick trained, and which employed the coach who abused her.

Around 1975, at the age of 13, Frederick joined GAG, which offered housing, schooling, and training for minor athletes. Frederick trained there, working after 1978 with Richard Carlson. She lived in a single room in the dorm. Carlson was a “dorm parent” who lived there and had charge of the minor gymnasts at the facility and while at competitions outside of the gym. 

The complaint claims that Carlson abused Frederick numerous times on the GAG property and while traveling for competitions, between 1978 and 1980. According to the complaint, Frederick believed she had to submit to this treatment to continue training for the Olympics.

Frederick was the first American female gymnast to win a gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championships. She qualified for the 1980 US Women’s Olympics Gymnastics Team.

After hearing of the US boycott of the Olympics in 1980, Frederick finally reported the abuse to at least two people at GAG. However, they failed to take action. Frederick stopped competing in 1982, because, the complaint says, “she was afraid to and physically could not continue training with Perpetrator Carlson and at the GAG Gym.”

When other allegations of assault and abuse emerged in 2017, Congress passed the Safe Sports Act, which required all abuse to be reported to law enforcement officials by February 15, 2018. GAG never reported Carlson’s abuse of Frederick, the complaint says, and it cites violations of the Safe Sport Act, as well as such things as negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. 

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Civil Rights
Tags: Children/Minors, Sexual Abuse