A former gymnast who accused former Olympic coach John Geddert of abuse says she does not feel closed after Geddert’s death.
In an interview with NBC News, Sarah Klein said she was relieved when Geddert was charged with dozens of counts of human trafficking and sexual assault. However, she felt devastated after he died by suicide.
“I don’t feel any closure,” she told reporters.
Klein accused Geddert of abusing her “physically, verbally, emotionally and psychologically” from the beginning when she was 8 years old.
She told NBC that Geddert’s suicide was “devastating and traumatic, [but] there is no greater guilt than John Geddert who took his own life. ”
“It was his last act of narcissistic control with which he lived his life and trained his gymnasts for decades,” Klein told reporters.
Klein also said that Geddert “was always above the law and that the rules were never applied to him”, adding that she believed that his final act was “intended to be an insult to the victims”.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) announced on Thursday that her office was informed that Geddert’s body had been found “after he took his own life.”
Geddert was due to surrender Thursday at 2:15 p.m.
“This is a tragic end to a story for everyone involved,” Nessel said in a statement at the time.
The suicide took place several hours after the prosecutor general filed 24 criminal charges against him, most of them related to human trafficking.
Nessel’s office claimed that Geddert subjected athletes to work in environments that caused them to suffer injuries and neglected the injuries that athletes suffered.
He was also accused of lying to investigators about the criminal sexual conduct of doctor Larry Nassar, who was the doctor of Geddert’s team. Nassar is currently serving decades in prison for criminal sexual misconduct.
Klein told NBC that the United States Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) must answer.
Hill contacted US Gymnastics and USOPC for comments.