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HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Former US gymnast Steve Penny was arrested by a Texas grand jury on Wednesday accused of tampering with evidence in the sexual assault investigation against gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar , currently imprisoned.
In a statement released Wednesday night, the Walker County Attorney's Office in Huntsville, Texas, said that Penny had been arrested by a working group on fugitives in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and that he was waiting his extradition to Texas.
Former congressman, Mary Bono, announced Tuesday that she had resigned as acting president and CEO of USA Gymnastics after a four-day term.
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USA Gymnastics owes survivors, athletes and the public to be open and honest in its next search for a new CEO, writes Arcy Maine, of EspnW.
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Third-degree crime is punishable by two to ten years in prison. We did not know if Penny had a lawyer. Messages left with USA Gymnastics were not immediately returned.
Penny resigned under pressure in March 2017.
According to the indictment, Penny reportedly ordered the removal of documents from the Karolyi Ranch – a long-standing training ground located near Huntsville for the country's elite gymnasts – concerning Nassar's activities in this country. Penny reportedly acted after learning that the Texas Rangers and Walker County authorities were investigating the ranch, run by USA Gymnastics.
The indictment indicates that the documents were handed over to Penny at USA Gymnastics headquarters in Indianapolis; they have not been found and the authorities do not know where they are.
Nassar was charged in June with sexually assaulting six miners in Walker County. A former sports medicine coach, Debra Van Horn, has also been indicted for a second degree sexual assault charge of a child. Prosecutors said that Van Horn had been accused of "acting as a party" with Nassar.
In Michigan, Nassar was sentenced at the beginning of the year to decades in prison, after hundreds of women and girls accused him of assaulting them on the pretext of medical treatment. They claimed that the abuses dated back to the 1990s while he was working for Michigan State University and for USA Gymnastics, the Olympian coach.
Nassar was a former team doctor for the USA Gymnastics Women's Program and for the Michigan State Athletics.
In Texas, several gymnasts who trained at Karolyi Ranch said that Nassar had sexually assaulted them. Walker County prosecutors said there was no corroborated evidence of wrongdoing on the part of world-renowned gymnastics coaches, Bela and Martha Karolyi, and the couple denied wrongdoing.
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