WAG Geddert charged with human trafficking

[NutterButter]

My take is the trafficking refers to the fact that as coach, he was in a place of authority over the girls on his team. He sent them to Nassar, for injuries, for treatments. His overbearing control on the girls didn't allow them to say no. He had knowledge of what Nassar was doing - so in effect, he was "trafficking" girls to Nassar. The racketeering leads to the fact that he profited from from all of this.

I understand all that. I'm fairly well-versed in human trafficking (though admittedly not as well verserd in this Geddert flavor of trafficking). I guess what I was getting at, and failed to communicate, is how a trafficking charge in THIS case could eventually alter the way abuse is framed, discussed, prosecuted, etc. For example, I don't see much difference in the way trafficking is being discussed related to Geddert as say the way some NCAA athletes are treated and the cover-up attempts when abuse scandals have been uncovered. Discussing his abuse through the lens of human trafficking alters the conversation around abuse enough where there could be opportunity to apply this other areas.

 

[TumbleTimes4]

@NutterButter do you think it makes somewhat of a difference that Geddert’s victims were minors and NCAA gymnasts typically aren’t?

 

[NutterButter]

@NutterButter do you think it makes somewhat of a difference that Geddert’s victims were minors and NCAA gymnasts typically aren’t?

This is a good question that I considered last week when the news broke. No, I don't think it makes a difference. The abuse extends beyond minors when other members of the family are threatened or coerced (which is what Geddert did). Also, human trafficking in the sense that most of us are probably already familiar with (sex workers) is not based on whether a person is a minor or not. Adults are trafficked all the time. Going back to the words, 'involuntary employee' - this would fit many NCAA athletes and the schools make millions of the backs of athletes (think football!). Perhaps applying human trafficking as a description of NCAA is extreme...but some of the stories coming out of NCAA scandals are extreme and I just wonder if seeing these actions through a human trafficking lens changes the conversation. Perhaps.

 

[mommyof1]

USAG needs to crack down on the practice of nominal transfers of gym ownership between spouses when one is sanctioned.

 

[Aussie_coach]

The human trafficking charge was one that surprised me. It seems a little grey, as to what would constitute this, and while obviously there were big issues with Geddert.

I think they need to make it very clear what determines human trafficking, as others say, it could be claimed that it is going on in many gyms to a lesser extent. Where is the line? It needs to be made very clear.

 

[gymgal]

I took the trafficking charges as specifically Geddert forcing the girls to see Nassar (likely while knowing that N was abusing them). If that's the case, then I don't see how trafficking could be used in other gym abuse cases or the NCAA. I get nutterbutter's take on involuntary-employees but with the NCAA, this is not the case. It may certainly be unfair practices and we can all debate whether student athletes should be paid for their image/likeness but it does not appear to be at the level of trafficking. The athletes are entering into a contract where they are receiving a 4 year education for their work and they can leave at any time.

 

[chalkbowl]

He has been on the banned list since he "retired" in 2018 and turned the gym over to his wife.

Nope, he was only suspended. Still listed as suspended as of today: Link Removed

ETA: Here is the permanently banned list: https://usagym.org/pages/aboutus/pages/permanently_ineligible_members.html

 

[chalkbowl]

I took the trafficking charges as specifically Geddert forcing the girls to see Nassar (likely while knowing that N was abusing them). If that's the case, then I don't see how trafficking could be used in other gym abuse cases or the NCAA. I get nutterbutter's take on involuntary-employees but with the NCAA, this is not the case. It may certainly be unfair practices and we can all debate whether student athletes should be paid for their image/likeness but it does not appear to be at the level of trafficking. The athletes are entering into a contract where they are receiving a 4 year education for their work and they can leave at any time.

The Michigan Attorney General has specifically said the ONLY count related to Nassar is the count about lying to police.

 

[chalkbowl]

Here are the court documents (obviously some of these are pretty graphic...so trigger warning for those reading through them): https://www.wilx.com/2021/02/26/swear-to-documents-in-michigan-v-john-geddert/

 

[Flippin'A]

The human trafficking charge was one that surprised me. It seems a little grey, as to what would constitute this, and while obviously there were big issues with Geddert.

I think they need to make it very clear what determines human trafficking, as others say, it could be claimed that it is going on in many gyms to a lesser extent. Where is the line? It needs to be made very clear.

This is one of the reasons why it was so damaging to allow Geddert the chance to avoid his trial. Had we all been able to hear the prosecutor argue the case in court this would have been made clear. In general, whatever the full justification might have been, I have a strong suspicion that this isn't the sort of charge they would lodge against a coach without the accompanying sexual assaults. It took years of investigating to get to this point with Geddert and they're not going to do that for someone whose complaints are "just" verbal and emotional.

As I said above, my only real hope is that this causes coaches who use similar methods to reexamine the way they coach and recognize that "the way things have always been" is damaging and abusive. If the fact that they're hurting children doesn't get through to them, maybe the fear of getting in trouble will.

 

[profmom]

The trafficking charge was novel, and it's not 100% clear to me that it would have stuck. I have to imagine, though, that it's got a lot of people paying attention -- both prosecutors and gym owners. If trafficking can work, that opens up owners to criminal conspiracy charges under RICO for harboring an abusive coach and a whole host of related bad stuff, including forfeiture.

 

[B&M's mom]

I took the trafficking charges as specifically Geddert forcing the girls to see Nassar (likely while knowing that N was abusing them). If that's the case, then I don't see how trafficking could be used in other gym abuse cases or the NCAA. I get nutterbutter's take on involuntary-employees but with the NCAA, this is not the case. It may certainly be unfair practices and we can all debate whether student athletes should be paid for their image/likeness but it does not appear to be at the level of trafficking. The athletes are entering into a contract where they are receiving a 4 year education for their work and they can leave at any time.

Just to clarify, not all student athletes get a scholarship. Some walk on or are recruited but not given scholarships. Those students have to comply with the same rules as the scholarship students. While it's easy to say that they could just leave at any time, if they want to continue to compete, they have to navigate the transfer protocols which means finding a new school that will accept them, dealing with the transfer of credits which may require additional semesters of work and leaving a school that they selected.

 

[mommyof1]

The trafficking charge was novel, and it's not 100% clear to me that it would have stuck. I have to imagine, though, that it's got a lot of people paying attention -- both prosecutors and gym owners. If trafficking can work, that opens up owners to criminal conspiracy charges under RICO for harboring an abusive coach and a whole host of related bad stuff, including forfeiture.

I had similar thoughts about where the trafficking charges were meant to lead. I also wondered whether the prosecutor expected Geddert to take the case all the way to trial, which would have led to a lot of public discussion of the trafficking charges even without a conviction (assuming he wasn't able to get them dismissed before trial). I can't understand why they announced the charges before he was arrested.

 

[Madden3]

Here are the court documents (obviously some of these are pretty graphic...so trigger warning for those reading through them): https://www.wilx.com/2021/02/26/swear-to-documents-in-michigan-v-john-geddert/

Thank you so much for posting this link. I strongly urge every parent to read this in total. Do not turn away because it is horrible. Read and understand and think about what happened, for years, often in plain view. Please pay attention to the statement of victim M.T. on page 9. This is the culture of abuse I have written about before on this forum. If we are ever going to learn from these horrible situations in a way where we can prevent them before they occur, we need to understand that the Gedderts and Nassars of the world are symptoms of the larger problem, the problem of abusive cultures and how they entrap and manipulate children and adults. This goes way beyond gymnastics or sports in general.

I was very curious about the trafficking charges and criminal enterprise charge. After the Court (the judge) asks the Witness (the DA) to (basically) be more precise about the facts for each count that the court needs to make a decision on what charges can go forward, each proposed count of human trafficking was similar whether the victim was a minor or not. The gymnast was abused in various ways over time, and in some cases made to continue to train/compete while injured, while the parents paid for the training. It was also alleged that Geddert made the gymnasts keep training despite injury so that the parents would continue to pay, and also that he intimidated and stalked gymnasts who left or wanted to leave for a different gym, including calling the new gym or coach to trash the gymnast. To boil this down, unless I am misunderstanding, what was alleged is that the abuse was used to force/coerce gymnasts to train with Geddert, specifically, so he could gain from the money that came from their own parents. This then feeds into the criminal enterprise charge, where it was alleged that Geddert's abuse itself was a scheme to achieve a profitable business.

 

[Tigtimes]

s I said above, my only real hope is that this causes coaches who use similar methods to reexamine the way they coach and recognize that "the way things have always been" is damaging and abusive. If the fact that they're hurting children doesn't get through to them, maybe the fear of getting in trouble will.

I read the document. It is beyond horrible. My hope is that not only coaches see it but parents. Kids with horrific injuries going back to practice on them, where were the parents. Your kid breaks their neck but then they are running in practice the next week and you as a parent don’t see a red flag. Perhaps at that level the manipulation of the parent is well versed and that olympic or college dream is dangled in such a way that it blinds them? Please I am not blaming anyone but the document is just so horrific and sad in so many ways. These kids were failed at every single level for years and years.

 

[cogymmom2dd]

Here are the court documents (obviously some of these are pretty graphic...so trigger warning for those reading through them): https://www.wilx.com/2021/02/26/swear-to-documents-in-michigan-v-john-geddert/

I read these documents from beginning to end. I felt physically ill reading about this. But, in the back of my mind, was thinking ‘Where are the parents?!’ There is a 100% chance that the victims were minors and the parents were paying for training. Did the parents think that these types of training methods and injuries were to be expected, par for the course of high level or elite gymnastics and turn a blind eye? Were these girls so scared to talk that they couldn’t even tell their parents what was going on? Maybe a combination of both.
Sounds like there were reports made with USAG at least as early as 2014 that went either without investigation or were ‘investigated’ and swept under the rug.
And, still radio silence from USAG except the 2 sentence statement that stated with sorry and ended with but let’s focus on Winter Cup because these athletes worked hard to get here. Ugh makes me want to boycott paying membership for my kids next year or find another organization to support.
And, unfortunately, I know of some gyms in my area who have coaches/owners who exhibit the same behaviors- underreported head injuries, stepping on shoulders when the kids are in their splits, eating disorders ,etc. I hope this serves as a wake up call for everyone- coaches who may need to rethink their ways, gymnasts for knowing it is NOT okay for adults to treat them like this and they need to tell someone they trust right away and it may not be the parent because they may be just as complicit as the coaches in everything that is going on (hopefully unknowingly), and parents to realize that this is not ‘normal’ ways of coaching gymnasts.

 

[Happyfeet]

I had similar thoughts about where the trafficking charges were meant to lead. I also wondered whether the prosecutor expected Geddert to take the case all the way to trial, which would have led to a lot of public discussion of the trafficking charges even without a conviction (assuming he wasn't able to get them dismissed before trial). I can't understand why they announced the charges before he was arrested.

I agree the trafficking charges are interesting. On pure speculation on my part I can only figure out a couple of scenarios where human trafficking seems to apply:

Scenario 1 (which was not the case as the prosecutor has stated these are related to labor trafficking and not sex trafficking nonetheless...):
Geddert was referring underage females to Nassar and he was providing Geddert kick-backs or payment for referrals, rental space etc. It could be argued that Geddert was aware of abuse and providing Nassar victims and then taking payments for this disguised as another legitimate expense such as rent or referral bonus etc. This would constitute sex trafficking (ie. using force, fraud or coercion to lure victims for another party's financial gain)

Scenario 2:
I am having more difficulty figuring out a scenario where labor trafficking is involved with the main difficulty being who is paying Geddert for services that underage gymnasts are performing? If Geddert is the trafficker, the gymnast is the victim who is the customer?

The only scenario where this seems to make some sense in my head is if Geddert was in an agent type of role for his gymnasts. For instance, Geddert does have some high profile athletes who could be getting endorsements, paid to demo at clinics etc. If this is the case and Geddert was doing something shady such as I got you a job such as a clinic demo and all the money made will go back to the gym and I will give you a discount off of gym tuition and then pocketing the extra money or telling gymnasts the job was unpaid and keeping the cash. This could be considered labor trafficking especially if gymnasts found out and did not want to do the jobs and Geddert told them in order to train at the gym they would have to do these work events or he would kick them out of the gym, bad mouth them to other gyms so they wouldn't be able to train anywhere else etc.

I think in order for trafficking charges to stick there needs to be a cash flow which is what I am having trouble envisioning here and Geddert would have to be profiting in some way (in addition to profits made to coach). Simply having parents pay a coach to coach and being threatened while is abusive and poor business practice does not meet threshold for human trafficking charges. Certainly it's an interesting case with much that has not been publicly released.

 

[cmg]

That report was very hard to read. I can't imagine being a parent in this situation and leaving my daughter at his gym, but as you say he made promises and I suspect that parents were not allowed to watch. The gymnasts were so scared they could not say anything to their parents for fear of more abuse. What an awful way to be trained. I am so sorry for all the gymnasts at his gym. I just hope they can recover and know they did not deserve that treatment. And shame on USA Gymnastics for not doing more to intervene in this case. Ally Raisman spoke on CNN and I agree with her 100%.

 

[gymgal]

I have read the entire document and I am still not understanding the trafficking charges. The only thing I can think of is that the DA is stating that the parents were continuing to pay while the gymnasts were injured - forcing the gymnasts to train while injured so that he could still get paid. But paying fees during an injury is not unusual. Gyms set the tuition as a yearly fee that the family is required to pay whether injured or not, whether you move gyms, etc. So the notion that G was forcing the gymnasts to train in order to boost his revenue is presumably inaccurate. I just don't understand the trafficking charges when they could have gone with straight abuse.

 

[Aussie_coach]

So hypothetically, had this gone to court. What sort of sentence would he be looking at?

If this happened here, it would not constitute a life sentence, not even close. Hence, his suicide seems disproportionate.