Chicago: A former volunteer gymnastics coach in the US state of Missouri has been charged with three counts of child molestation, amid continuing fallout from an abuse scandal roiling the sport.
David Schneider was charged this week after police in Washington — a small community about 80 kilometres west of St Louis — investigated a female gymnast’s accusations of “inappropriate touching.”
“During the course of the investigation multiple victims were identified,” the police department said in a statement Tuesday.
The charges were for alleged crimes committed in 2013 and 2014.
Authorities fear more victims have yet to come forward, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The 41-year-old volunteer coach has not trained gymnasts since 2014, the newspaper said.
The case is the latest in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, although the Post-Dispatch said it was unclear whether that high-profile case had prompted victims to come forward against the Missouri coach.
Nassar was a US national gymnastics team doctor with a reputation as a preeminent specialist in sports medicine.
He has been sentenced to lengthy prison terms and will likely die behind bars over his admitted sexual abuse of hundreds of young female athletes under the guise of medical treatment.
There has been growing fallout in the gymnastics world as Nassar’s case nears conclusion, including a criminal probe of Olympic coach John Geddert of Michigan’s Twistars gym, as well as resignations at USA Gymnastics and at Nassar’s employer Michigan State University.
