Ron Galimore, USA Gymnastics official linked to Nassar scandal, resigns
A top USA Gymnastics official linked to the organization’s alleged cover-up of the Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal resigned Friday.
The resignation of USA Gymnastics chief operating officer Ron Galimore comes after months of mounting criticism for his alleged role in the Nassar cover-up and just days after the U.S. Olympic Committee began proceedings to strip USA Gymnastics of its national governing body status.
“The USA Gymnastics board of directors has accepted the resignation of Chief Operating Officer Ron Galimore,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
Galimore is the fourth high ranking USA Gymnastics official to resign under pressure since September.
Chief executive Kerry Perry resigned under from the USOC in September after nine scandal-plagued months on the job. Perry’s removal came just four days after USA Gymnastics asked veteran coach Mary Lee Tracy to resign as the organization’s elite development coordinator after just three days on the job.
Tracy’s forced resignation came after USA Gymnastics officials said she improperly contacted Olympic champion Aly Raisman, who is suing the organization. Raisman, who was sexually abused by Nassar, had criticized Tracy’s appointment because of Tracy’s support of Nassar when allegations of his sexual misconduct first began to surface.
Perry was replaced by former Congresswoman Mary Bono who resigned after just four days on the job. Bono has generated more than $1.5 million in lobbying fees over the past three years for a firm that played an initial role in USA Gymnastics’ alleged cover up of the Nassar scandal. She was also widely criticized for a tweet criticizing Nike’s advertising campaign featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Galimore, a 1980 Olympian, was included on 2015 emails from then CEO Steve Penny and other officials that discussed creating false excuses for Nassar not to attend competitions that summer while Penny and others with the help of the FBI tried to conceal Nassar’s abuse from the public.
“We’ll let Ron know know to advice people that you weren’t feeling well and decided to stay home,” Scott Himsel, an attorney for USA Gymnastics, wrote in a July 22, 2015 email to Nassar dealing with providing a cover story for Nassar missing the U.S. Championships as Penny and other top USA Gymnastics officials tried to keep Nassar’s abuse from becoming public knowledge.
Galimore was also included along with then-USA Gymnastics board chairman Peter Vidmar, senior vice president for the women’s program Rhonda Faehn and board member Paul Parilla on a July 21, 2015 email about Nassar in which they were “instructed” by Penny to “not have any conversations again with anyone concerning this issue until further notice.”
Penny was also questioned during a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this year about a July 9, 2014 email from Galimore to Nassar that referred to a “code of silence.” Penny declined to answer citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Galimore has not respond to repeated requests for comment over a period of series of several months.