IOWA CITY, Iowa — More than three years after sexual abuse claims were first reported to authorities by his students, the FBI has arrested a former girls’ coach at an elite U.S. gymnastics academy in Iowa on a child pornography charge.

The abuse investigation into Sean Gardner, formerly of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, is testing the reforms put in place after the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal rocked USA Gymnastics.

An Associated Press review found that while Gardner was swiftly removed from coaching in 2022, a criminal investigation stalled, the public was kept in the dark about the claims, and Gardner was able to get a job at an Iowa hospital.

Gardner faced multiple claims of sexual abuse by students over a period of years at Chow’s, and had installed a hi

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