Safesport knew of accusations against the former COP before taking it as an investigator
The people of the United States Center for Safesport knew that a former police officer was the subject of an internal investigation for sexual crimes in his former work, but he hired him, however, according to the details published on Wednesday by Sen. Chuck Grassleythat is examining the question.
Grassley, r-Iowathe president of Senate judicial committeesent a letter this week to the center CEOJu’Rian ColonPut more questions about why the organization hired Jason Krasley as an investigator even if he had knowledge of his potential legal problem.
“You admitted that this was” about information “, but you still hired it after being able to ascertain more information,” wrote Grassley colon, which had revealed that the information to the senator in response to his original request in February, which derived from the reference by the Associated Press on the arrests of Krasley.
“I find it deeply worrying,” wrote Grassley.
Krasley has been accused of multiple sexual crimes, including rape, sex and prostitution trafficking, from episodes that occurred during his period in Allentown, in Pennsylvania, police department, and before being taken by the center in 2021.
The Center, who investigates cases of sexual abuse in Olympic sports, fired Krasley in November, two months after learning his initial arrest for presumably stolen money that the Allenerown police team had seized in a bust of drug. Later the arrest of Krasley for sexual crimes came and, in June 2024, an arrest for harassment that was resolved in December.
Grassley’s letter tells what Colon wrote to him: that one of Krasley’s references during the assumption process “shared with you who was the subject of an internal investigation by the Allentown Police Department”. The case, said the letter, was based on declarations of an alleged victim that the person later portrayed.
The center provided the AP with its response to Grassley, dated March 14, in which Colon writes that the case triggered several changes in the center of verification of the center. According to the new rules, he wrote: “This disclosure would have raised a red flag and caused further control in the alleged conduct that led to the internal investigation”.
The colon outlined the improvements of the Code of the Center and the addition of an ethical clause that employees must join. He said that he is now personally interviewing all the final candidates for work and that the Center plans to contract with an external consultant to review his recruitment and hiring process.
He also said that the center now controls the National Decertification Index (NDI), which keeps trace of the discipline relating to the bad conduct of the officers.
The letter of the center said that Krasley managed 124 cases, including 15 involving minors. He had 15 open cases when he was finished.
The center said there were no bad sexual conduct complaints while Krasley worked there.
The former policeman is free on a deposit pending trial. His lawyer affirmed his client’s innocence in cases of sexual crime, which date back to 2015, recently defining them “accusations without merits and not corroborated by drugged prostitutes and compromises”.
The Center also hired a third -party company to contact people whose cases were managed by the former policeman.
This transported the potential to retraumatize the victims, one of which, Japqui Stevenson, told the AP the range of action of the center on a case that had been resolved for a long time triggered “a total panic attack”.
In his letter, Colon explained that the two -month delay in firing Krasley was due to a concerted effort so as not to take measures that would compromise the criminal investigation, a reasoning that did not affect Grassley.
“I imagine that I appreciate the fact that the impressions regarding the Safesport judgment in the hiring and dismissal decisions affect the impressions of Safesport’s ability to investigate correctly and resolve the accusations of misconduct conducted in the sports community,” wrote Grassley.
Grassley sent a separate letter to the presidency of the center, April Holmes, saying that “it seems to be a lack of supervision by the Board of Directors to adequately supervise the CEO … and other officials and directors in their functions towards the organization”.
The senator asked whether an increase in the financing-quolcosa that the colon has asked for his current budget of about $ 21 million a year would have solved his problems, some of which suggested that he was rooted in the complex nature of the resolution of the accusations of sexual abuse.
He said that “he worries that Safesport is not giving priority to serious cases of sexual abuse and minors compared to other cases, which is causing the most serious language without adequate investigations”.
There have been criticism of the cost of the center, including its $ 2.4 million billing for legal services in 2023.
In addition, Grassley stressed $ 50,000 on shares and subscriptions, $ 36,000 on banking commissions and credit cards and over $ 390,000 on travel, all “expenses that seem excessive for a non -profit organization and financial decisions that seem counterproductive for the organization”.
Grassley asked Holmes to answer a series of questions, including the way in which the Council determined the salaries for the managers, including the colon, which in 2023 earned more than $ 400,000, which included a $ 58,000 bonus.
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AP Sports: https://apNews.com/hub/sports
