John Geddert, the former USA gymnastics coach who employed monster Larry Nassar at his gym, has reportedly died by suicide. The report comes on the same day that he was charged with 24 counts of human trafficking, sexual assault, racketeering, and lying to police.
Geddert was the owner and coach at Twistars, where Nassar committed hundreds of his crimes. Geddert had claimed that he didn’t know of Nassar’s abuse and assaults, but the charges against him, especially the lying to police, were in direct opposition to that claim. Geddert also was charged with assaulting one girl between the age of 13 and 16 himself.
Along with the sexual assault, the charges cover the physical and emotional abuse that Geddert put his gymnasts through, such as forcing them to practice injured or training methods that caused eating disorders and suicide attempts amongst the gymnasts.
Geddert was going to turn himself in on Thursday, according to the district attorney. It has been argued by several of the survivors that Geddert’s tyrant style made it impossible to report Nassar’s abuse, not that Geddert would have done much about it anyway.