He could have been stopped: How one pedophile kept coaching gymnastics

He could have been stopped: How one pedophile kept coaching gymnastics

AN INDYSTAR INVESTIGATION TRACED THE PATH OF FORMER COACH RAY ADAMS ACROSS A DOZEN GYMS IN FOUR STATES.



http://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2016/12/18/he-could-have-been-stopped-how-one-pedophile-kept-coaching-gymnastics/88825826/



Jenny Brannan answered the phone, and 20 years of fear bubbled to the surface with the caller’s first question: "Do you know who Ray Adams is?"

Silence.

The Missouri woman spent most of her life trying to forget that name. In 1993, when she was 12, she accused the charismatic gymnastics coach of sexually abusing her. But the case never went to court.

Now a Florida prosecutor was on the phone, asking Brannan to share her story. Adams had hurt another little girl.

Brannan’s first thought: "He's still doing it?"

He was.

Brannan would eventually learn that Adams had been accused of inappropriate conduct involving 15 other girls. Over the years, he had worked in at least a dozen gyms in four states. He had been fired at least six times. He had been criminally charged four times. Once he was acquitted. Another time he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery for abusing four little girls. Now he was facing two new criminal prosecutions in Florida.

Yet, somehow, Adams kept getting hired, even by elite gyms that produced Olympians for USA Gymnastics.


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