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≡ U.S. CENTER FOR SAFESPORT ≡
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed up on his 2024 inquiries about SafeSport procedures and oversight in two letters, noting that the performance of the agency is not breeding confidence.
A letter to SafeSport chief executive Ju’Riese Colon asked about the process which led to the hiring of a former Allentown, Pennsylvania police officer who was under investigation on abuse charges at the time of hire.
The investigator, Jason Krasley, has been charged with theft, rape, sexual assault, involuntary servitude with the threat of serious physical harm, and patronizing prostitutes, and was maintained as a staff member for two months after the allegations were made, before being fired.
In a separate, four-page letter to the SafeSport Executive Committee Chair, April Holmes, Grassley stated:
“There appears to be a lack of oversight by the Board to adequately supervise the CEO, Ju’Riese Colón, and other officers and directors in their duties to the organization. It was troubling to read that SafeSport ‘perpetrated a fraud’ against a Florida State Court in Seminole County and intentionally withheld evidence in a criminal case brought at the prompting of one of the Center’s investigators.
“The court found that SafeSport possessed exculpatory information related to a sexual abuse claim and failed to disclose that information to law enforcement. It further stated that SafeSport ‘filtered’ and withheld exculpatory information attempting to influence law enforcement’s investigation. This judicial finding is alarming given the mission of SafeSport: to prevent sexual, emotion and physical abuse of athletes across the country.”
Grassley had more complaints:
● “[T]here is concern that SafeSport is not prioritizing serious sexual and child abuse cases over other cases, which is causing more serious cases to languish without proper investigation. It is unclear how SafeSport prioritizes cases in which they have exclusive jurisdiction. It is also unclear what minimum investigation is conducted for cases in which it has discretionary jurisdiction before declining or accepting jurisdiction.”
● “The second category of concern relates to how existing funds are being used. Non-profit organizations funded by donations and government grants must spend funds carefully and cannot be compared to a private, for-profit organizations. …
“[F]or 2023, the board compensated eleven officers (including the CEO) between approximately $111,000 and $350,000 each and awarded additional bonuses between $1,200 and $64,000. …
“Second, the amount of money spent on outside legal services seems high. In 2023, four of the five top paid contractors were for legal services totaling over $2.4 million. Over $1.2 million was paid to a Denver-based tort law firm. It is unclear what type of work they handled on behalf of SafeSport.”
“Next, there are expenses that seem excessive for a non-profit organization and financial decisions that seem counter-productive to the organization.”
● Grassley noted prior requests for added funding to help with the SafeSport caseload and to reduce case processing times, but wrote:
“it is unclear to me whether an increase of $30 million in funding will solve the problem either as it appears that existing resources can be redirected toward more expedited investigations.”
He posed eight additional questions to be answered by 1 May, including how Executive Committee oversight is exercised.
The focus on SafeSport has continued after it was singled out for reforms in the report of the Commission on the Status of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics from March 2024, and in hearings that followed – with Colon testifying as a witness – with a Senate Commerce sub-committee on 20 March, and a House Energy & Commerce sub-committee on 21 March, where Colon asked for $30 million in annual funding, up from $23.76 million in 2022, to handle the expanding caseload.
Witnesses at the hearings were deeply concerned about the lengthy investigation and resolution times, the lack of information on how and why cases were closed without specific resolutions, and that SafeSport was spending time on cases and disputes not directly related to abuses, which could be handled by the relevant U.S. National Governing Body.
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