DENVER – The US Center for Safesport dismissed the CEO of Ju’riese Colón Tuesday in the most recent and visceral sign of a crisis that started after the revelations that the center had hired an investigator who would later be accused of rape.
The center told the Associated Press to delete Colón in an email. It ended a brutal end to a mandate that started in 2019. It was hired to help the 2 -year center, which was created to combat sexual abuse in Olympic sports, brought its operation at full speed.
The Center said that its chairman of the board of directors, April Holmes, would lead an interim management committee made up of members of the board of directors while they were looking for the replacement of Colón.
“We are grateful for leadership and Ju’riese service,” said Holmes in the statement sent to the AP. “While we look to the future, we will continue to focus on the central mission of the center to change the culture of sport to keep the athletes away from abuse.”
Colón did not immediately respond to a text message left by the AP.
During his five years and more at the center based in Denver, Colón has not completely unraveling his difficulties with long delays in the treatment of a constantly increasing workload, or the flow of complaints from the accusers who had been trained through a process of resolution that could take years.
No problem, however, illustrated the difficulties of the center more than his manipulation of the former officer of the Pennsylvania team Jason Krasley.
Krasley was hired as an investigator for the center in 2021, but was suddenly dismissed last November when the center learned that he had been arrested for allegedly stolen money from a drug bust of which he was with the force.
The center made no public mention until AP realized the connection on December 26. Then, two weeks later, Krasley was arrested again, this time for rape, sex trafficking and other crimes – an episode – an episode that Colón conceded was “devastating” for the center, which implemented changes in its hiring process.
The AP report led Senator Chuck Grassley, R-IOW, to open an investigation into the treatment by the center of Krasley’s hiring and employment.
In a letter to Colón, he wrote: “The accusations of rape and other sexual crimes against any investigating of Safesport are particularly concerning the mandate of Safesport to protect athletes from similar abuses.”
It was an obvious conclusion made more discordant by the fact that he had to write it.
Colón’s response to Grassley last month revealed more on the case, in particular that the center hired Krasley despite the fact that he was the subject of an internal investigation. Grassley sent another list of questions to Colón, whose answers were requested on May 1. The center said it was planning to deliver the responses to the deadline.
After Krasley’s arrests were made public, the center contacted people whose cases it has manipulated, offering them advice and a chance to share questions and concerns about interaction with the investigator. Although the center said that there was no reason to think that Krasley’s cases had been compromised, awareness raising another set of problems.
A person who was contacted, Jacqui Stevenson, told AP that the notification had restored him and made him wonder if his case, which led his abuser to receive a last year’s probation, could end with his canceled penalty.
The whole episode questions the viability of this 8 -year experience born of the inability of the American Olympic Movement to deal with large -scale abuse crises in USA Swimming, USA Taekwondo and, more particularly, American gymnastics involving the doctor at the moment Larry Nassar.
Fueled by Congress hearings which included heartbreaking testimonies from abuse survivors, a consensus increased according to which an independent entity was necessary to do the work that the American Olympic Committee and its sports subsidiaries could not.
The Congress has adopted laws requiring most of the money from Safesport (the center said that nearly $ 24.8 million in revenue in 2023) come from organizations it supervised. Despite its source of funding, the center insisted on independence. He imposed large requests on sports organizations – requiring annual audit consumer resources and claiming the first right of refusal on cases involving their sports.
This led to a lack of confidence but also to the fear of expressing themselves both in the Olympic Committee and inside individual sports agencies, for fear that anyone who will not be accused of having undermined the center, even if it did not work well.
Others, however, spoke.
Among the most common complaints, the AP brought from dozens of accused, accused, witnesses and lawyers who have contacted in the past 24 months is that all that the center has taken too long and left too many people in limbo.
It was a symptom that gnawed at an organization which, at the last count, received more than 150 new reports per week but had less than three dozen full -time investigators to sort them.
Colón insisted for the center mission to deal not only with Olympic level sports, but all these sports to the base – a trip which covers around 11 million athletes – was the right one. She regularly prompted more funding to strengthen the operation.
Although the disagreements on the mission of the center and its ability to deliver since budget constraints stressed a large part of the daily argument of its future, no episode has undermined it as the hiring and the dismissal of Krasley.
While the center defended its verification process, criticisms considered the hiring of an alleged rapist to investigate sexual abuse as a devastating error for an agency has given such impressive and delicate responsibility.
The initial letter from Grassley to Colón underlined the low bar that the center had failed to erase when it hired the old cop.
“The plaintiffs and respondents deserve impartial and equitable investigators who have not been accused of sexual misconduct on their part,” wrote the senator.
