Congress chartered the U.S. Center for SafeSport in 2018 in response to the sexual abuse scandal of Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics, with its original mission to protect youth athletes from sexual abuse in sports environments. Today the center’s scope has become “safeguarding amateur athletes against abuse, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, in sports.” Combined with expansive definitions of “abuse” and “power,” anonymous reporting, and non-adversarial adjudications, the center has become a vehicle for intimidation, reprisal, and personal destruction.
Last month, Judge John Woodard of Seminole County, Florida, found evidence of SafeSport’s “fraud, collusion, [and] pretense” in its withholding of exculpatory evidence over the course of a three-year investigation. The center “perpetrated a fraud upon the Court, the People of the State of Florida, the [Seminole County] Sheriff’s Office, the State’s Attorney Office,” and the defendant, a female athlete who had just turned 18 years old when two other teenage athletes accused her of battery. The court held that the center acted in “bad faith, intentionally, and with malice,” and granted the defendant’s motion to expunge and seal all records relating to the case.
The accusers reported the defendant to the center in February 2022. That April, the SafeSport “investigator” (the court itself placed this title in quotes, showing just what they think of it) provided documents from his investigation to the Seminole County sheriff in support of the battery charge. By August, the sheriff and state prosecutors realized that SafeSport had “filtered information” by withholding exculpatory information and witness statements that were favorable to the defendant.
That kicked off nearly two years of court orders and subpoenas ordering SafeSport to provide all of their evidence. Judge Woodard stated that SafeSport’s lawyer, Joseph Zonies, repeatedly refused to comply with these orders. In one email, according to the order, Zonies miscited a clause of the federal law governing SafeSport’s operations before ignoring an adjacent clause in the same law that explicitly requires SafeSport to cooperate with criminal investigations.
While the state prosecutors were trying to get answers from SafeSport, the Seminole County sheriff was investigating the credibility of the key witnesses. In September 2024, one admitted that “she reported the wrong date, wrong time, and wrong location” to SafeSport. Worse still, “[s]he admitted that SafeSport knew the information was false.”
Another Flawed Investigation
This is the second time in four months a SafeSport investigator has come under a court’s scrutiny. The first generated congressional interest. In February, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a “what did you know and when did you know it” letter to Ju’Riese Colón, the CEO of the Center for SafeSport.
Last November, the center fired one of its investigators, Jason Krasley, after he had been arraigned on evidence of tampering and theft from his time as a member of the Allentown, Penn., police department in 2019. Krasley faced two more arraignments, in December 2024 and January 2025, on an escalating series of violent and sexual felonies alleged to have occurred in 2015.
Grassley asked Colón to provide information about how SafeSport vets prospective employees, including background checks and speaking with applicant references. While Krasley did not have a criminal record until last November, asking around the Allentown Police Department would almost certainly have given SafeSport reason to inquire deeper.
Grassley may now want to expand his inquiry into how SafeSport sources its litigators. Zonies, the lawyer whom Judge Woodard zeroed in on, is not a SafeSport staff attorney — he has a mass tort and personal injury practice in Denver, Colo., where the center is based. SafeSport often contracts outside lawyers to represent them at trial, given the limited resources and litigation experience of their in-house counsel.
A Blacklist Without Due Process
While a chastisement of an external lawyer by a Florida state court may not spur reform within the Center for SafeSport, the center is currently facing more significant legal challenges. It is the defendant in a growing number of federal cases that question the constitutionality of the center and its authorizing legislation, the 2018 amendment to the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, on grounds of violating the accused’s due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. Woodard’s ruling will surely find its way into many of these filings.
Congress gave the center, an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit, significant leeway to craft its own policies around reporting, investigations, and adjudication. One of the few requirements Congress imposed was a publicly accessible database of everyone the center has suspended or banned from sport.
More than an industry blacklist, the Centralized Disciplinary Database is a sword hanging over coaches and athletes. Being listed means sharing space and a place in the public’s mind with Larry Nassar himself, regardless of whether one’s offences come anywhere close to Nassar’s crimes.
Simply being charged with a crime is a violation of the SafeSport Code, landing the accused individual on the Center’s Centralized Disciplinary Database. The Florida investigation and court order saved the defendant from a lifetime ban from sport, and the attendant defamation by association with Nassar via the Centralized Disciplinary Database.
Harassing Women Who Oppose Trans Athletes
Judge Woodard’s ruling validates the athletes and coaches who have been the victims of malicious accusations and investigations laundered through SafeSport. Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson said in 2022 that a transgender activist reported her to SafeSport because she wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee regarding transgender athlete participation policies.
“[SafeSport] is currently harassing several who spoke up for women,” she said, which other cyclists have confirmed. Coaches in different sports have committed suicide after being suspended and listed by SafeSport. I spoke recently with one coach who is still on the blacklist nearly three years after a judge dismissed the charges against him because the prosecution could not produce a single witness to substantiate the allegation.
Given SafeSport’s recent record, Colón may also be receiving a letter from the House and Senate Committees on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which oversee the Olympic movement. Last March, Colón testified that the center needs about $30 million each year to handle the growing backlog of cases.
The center receives $20 million each year from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. In December, as the news about Krasley was emerging, Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., introduced H.R. 10326, the “Safer Sports for Athletes Act of 2024,” which would appropriate $10 million annually for the center.
The center spent more than two years investigating allegations that it knew were false and fighting the Florida state court and sheriff’s office that uncovered their actions. On top of the constitutional concerns, Colón should explain how efficiently her organization is allocating the resources they have before asking for more.
George M. Perry is a sports performance coach, sports businessman, and writer. Before going into the sports industry, he was a submarine warfare officer in the United States Navy and briefly attended law school.
Jesus Christ is King
