Facing mounting criticism in 2008 for his organization’s handling of a decade old sexual abuse case, USA Gymnastics chief executive Steve Penny hired attorney Suzette Bewley to review the Indianapolis-based national governing body’s child sexual and physical abuse prevention and response policies.
USA Gymnastics’ Participant Welfare Policy, enacted in 2009, was based on a report by Bewley.
Bewley has played a leading role in shaping the sexual and physical abuse prevention, response and education policies of USA Gymnastics and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, according to a Southern California News Group review of hundreds of pages of USA Gymnastics, USOPC, U.S. Senate and legal documents.
Bewley worked closely with USA Gymnastics on athlete safety issues from 2007 to 2017, according to documents. She served on a USA Gymnastics medical task force with disgraced U.S. Olympic and national team physician Larry Nassar in 2012. She also worked for Baker & Daniels, USA Gymnastics’ longtime law firm, from 1998 to 2004. Bewley served on a USOPC working group on Safe Sport issues in 2010 and appeared at a USOPC seminar as a consultant to USA Gymnastics in 2012.
Bewley currently works as a top law clerk for the judge mediating disputes in USA Gymnastics bankruptcy case.
The judge, James M. Carr of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Indiana, was also a partner at Baker & Daniels from 1975 to 2012. He was appointed to the court in January 2013.
Attorneys for the more than 500 women who allege they were sexually abused by Nassar said they were not aware of Bewley and Carr’s connections to USA Gymnastics and the USOPC until it was brought to their attention this week.
“I’m not going to comment on the judge because this is an ongoing matter, but I will say that if what you represented to me is true about (Bewley’s) activities as a lawyer for USA Gymnastics, I’m at a total loss as to why their lawyers didn’t raise this with the judge and disclose it,” said John Manly, who represents more than 100 alleged victims of Nassar and other USA Gymnastics coaches.
“She not only was apparently a longtime lawyer for them, she was the architect of their child protection plan,” Manly continued, referring to Bewley’s work for USA Gymnastics both with Baker & Daniels and as a consultant. “Now she works in the office of our neutral trying to settle these cases. That to me is irreconcilable, very troubling and deserving of further investigation.
“(Bewley) is not only (USA Gymnastics) attorney, she’s a witness. In my head, I don’t know how I tell my clients that an attorney working for the judge mediating this case served on a medical task force for USA Gymnastics with Larry Nassar. I’m at a loss for words and I feel sick.”
Bewley, Carr and USA Gymnastics did not respond to requests for comment. The USOPC declined to comment.
USA Gymnastics, facing hundreds of lawsuits from alleged victims of sexual and physical abuse, filed for protection under Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy for the Southern District of Indiana in December 2018.
Carr was appointed as the mediator in the case on Sept. 2, 2020. In a sworn statement filed with the court on November 20, Carr stated “I know of no reason that would or could (a) affect my neutrality or impartiality as a mediator, or (b) result in my disqualification to the Bankruptcy Rules for the Southern District of Indiana.”
In another Sept. 2 order by Robyn L. Moberly, chief judge for the Southern District, attorneys in the USA Gymnastics case were instructed to send proposals for Carr to Bewley and another clerk in the office.
The survivors in the case have rejected a proposed $217 million settlement agreement that attorneys for USA Gymnastics filed with the bankruptcy court in early 2020. The women and their attorneys rejected the proposed settlement in large part because it called for the release of USA Gymnastics, the USOPC, Penny, former national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi, and former U.S. Olympic team coach Don Peters (who is banned for life) from all claims, but does not address the extent USA Gymnastics and USOPC officials were aware of the predatory behavior of Nassar and others, and what steps, if any, they took to conceal that sexual abuse from unknowing potential victims.
Settlement talks have also been stalled by disputes between the two sides over whether USA Gymnastics and the USOPC should be forced to provide victims’ attorneys with more disclosure regarding their finances and insurance coverage, and whether the USOPC should contribute to any settlement payout.
Internal Revenue Service filings and other financial records show that USA Gymnastics retained Baker & Daniels, later known as Faegre Baker Daniels, between 2005 and 2008. Records are not available for years prior to 2005.
Former congresswoman Mary Bono, who resigned as USA Gymnastics CEO in October 2018 after just four days on the job, generated more than $1.5 million in lobbying fees over a three-year period for the firm, according to federal lobbying records.
Bono was hired as a senior vice president by Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, a division of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, in March 2013, four months after she lost her re-election bid for the U.S. House of Representatives California 45th congressional district.
Scott D. Himsel, an Indianapolis-based attorney for Faegre Baker Daniels, helped USA Gymnastics officials and Nassar come up with cover stories for the team physician missing U.S. national team events in the summer of 2015, shortly after USA Gymnastics officials were told of Nassar’s sexual abuse of Team USA members, according to documents obtained by SCNG. He also helped coordinate USA Gymnastics interactions with the FBI both in Indianapolis and Los Angeles.
For a decade, Bewley was the primary person Penny consulted with on issues related to sexual abuse, according to multiple documents.
USA Gymnastics came under fire in 2008 when it was revealed that the organization had banned gymnastics coach Steve Infante for alleged sexual misconduct in 1998, but did not notify law enforcement or take any other action at that time.
“Infante continued to have access to gymnasts for the next decade,” according to December 2018 report by Ropes & Gray, a law firm hired by the USOPC to investigate the events and circumstances that led to Nassar’s sexual abuse.
The report stated that, “Following media coverage of this episode, Mr. Penny retained the services of attorney Suzette Bewley, who had since left Baker & Daniels, to review USAG’s child-abuse prevention and response policies.”
The report stated that, “Following media coverage of this episode, Mr. Penny retained the services of attorney Suzette Bewley to review USAG’s child-abuse prevention and response policies.”
USA Gymnastics was “increasingly facing issues concerning member and nonmember misconduct, particularly sexual misconduct, in the sport of gymnastics,” Bewley told Ropes & Gray investigators.
Specifically USA Gymnastics requested Bewley review policies and procedures of “other organizations that regularly face member sexual misconduct issues …and explain USAG’s legal requirements after becoming aware of alleged sexual misconduct,” according to the Ropes & Gray report.
A report by Bewley resulted in USA Gymnastics Participant Welfare Policy that included definitions of sexual and physical abuse, procedures for reporting suspected abuse, misconduct as well as grievance procedures, member obligations and recommendations, standards of behavior, and education and communication about the policy.
“USAG also implemented various other policies in response to Ms. Bewley’s recommendations,” according to the Ropes & Gray report.
Bewley was also part of the 10-member USOPC Working Group for Safe Training Environments. A September 2010 report by the group detailed recommendations for the USOPC to take and called on the organization to take a “leadership role” in creating safe training environments.
The report also called for “the development of centralized and standardized resources for use by National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and encourages NGBs to adopt policies, practices, programs and tools to address sexual and physical misconduct.”
Bewley also appeared on a panel at a November 2012 seminar sponsored by the USOPC at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Joining Bewley on the panel, “SafeSport: Implementing SafeSport,” was Susan Woessner, then USA Swimming’s director of Safe Sport.
Woessner was fired in February 2018 after USA Swimming officials learned that she had a physical relationship with U.S. Olympic and World Championship team coach Sean Hutchison but did not disclose it prior to coordinating the organization’s 2011 investigation of the coach for sexual misconduct.
The panel, according to USOPC documents, covered “developing key programmatic elements (at the NGB and local level), implementing your safe sport plan within your NGB and clubs, and communicating with your constituents about safe sport.”
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