USA Gymnastics officials have been aware of allegations of misconduct against an Ohio club owned by the wife of the national governing body’s recently fired director of sports medicine and science since at least the summer of 2017, the Southern California News Group has learned.

USA Gymnastics’ in-house counsel even encouraged a parent to file a formal complaint against New Heights Gymnastics and its owner Amy Nyman three months before the national governing body hired Edward Nyman Jr., Amy’s husband, as its first ever full-time sports medicine and science director, according to four people familiar with the complaint.

The U.S. Center for SafeSport is also reviewing allegations of misconduct against Edward Nyman Jr., according to SafeSport documents reviewed by SCNG.

USA Gymnastics told SCNG on Tuesday it fired Nyman after just one day on the job last week for failing to disclose athlete safety complaints against his wife and other New Heights coaches.

Edward Nyman, however in an interview with SCNG said he discussed complaints made against New Heights and his wife extensively with Mark Busby, a USA Gymnastics in-house counsel, before he was hired. Nyman, who insisted he is uncertain why he was terminated, acknowledged in the interview there had been “training” complaints against New Heights.

Busby was aware of complaints against Amy Nyman and New Heights since at least the summer of 2017, according to a person familiar with the complaint. Busby, in late January or early February, encouraged a parent to file a complaint against Amy Nyman and New Heights with USA Gymnastics and U.S. Center for SafeSport, according to four people familiar with the complaints.

The complaints against New Heights were serious enough for USA Gymnastics to refer them to the U.S. Center for SafeSport in February, two months before Nyman was hired. The complaints allege emotional and verbal abuse, and that Edward Nyman, who has a PhD. in biomechanics, conducted physical exams on New Heights athletes, according to USA Gymnastics and SafeSport documents.

The complaints also allege New Heights coaches were intoxicated in front of young gymnasts on competition trips.

SafeSport official Jocelyn Shafer said USA Gymnastics and SafeSport are in the process of determining who has jurisdiction over “allegations against Amy Nyman and a number of other staff members” in a May 3 email shared with SCNG.

The Nymans denied any misconduct. “Absolutely,” Edward Nyman said.

“I took this job because it killed me to see what happened with (gymnastics) with Nassar,” Nyman said referring to Larry Nassar, the former U.S. Olympic and U.S. women’s national team doctor Larry Nassar, convicted of sexually abusing dozens of young athletes.

“I didn’t need this job and now USAG has drug me and my family through the mud.”

Nyman said he has not been contacted by SafeSport.

“Dr. Nyman was terminated for his failure to disclose athlete safety complaints involving the club with which he is affiliated to USA Gymnastics,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement to SCNG. “This demonstrated poor judgment and created a conflict of interest that disqualified him from serving in this important role. We are confident this was the best decision for the welfare of ‘our athletes and our community

“We have learned through this process and received important feedback from our community about this position. Athlete safety is our north star and it will guide us to make the right decisions, no matter how difficult or how they may be perceived.”

U.S. national team trainer Stephanie Peters, based at the U.S. Olympic Committee Training Center in Colorado Springs, confirmed with SCNG that she has filed a complaint against a U.S. national men’s team member with USA Gymnastics’ human resources division. The complaint does not allege sexual misconduct by the Team USA member, Peters said. While Edward Nyman said, “I was told that USAG previously wanted to terminate Stephanie Peters,” Peters denied that her complaint was prompted by job security concerns.

The Nyman controversy raises serious questions about USA Gymnastics’ vetting process, according to former U.S. national team members. Nyman said he applied for the position on Feb. 1 and was hired April 1. The Nyman ouster is a major setback for Li Li Leung, the former NBA vice president hired in February as USA Gymnastics’ fourth president and chief executive officer in 23 months.

The revelation of the circumstances around Nyman’s hiring and firing comes two weeks after the chairman of the U.S. Senate finance committee gave the U.S. Olympic Committee a May 10 deadline to explain why it has halted efforts to strip USA Gymnastics of its national governing body status. In a letter to USOC chief executive officer Sarah Hirshland, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote that it was “unclear” and “perplexing” why the USOC has stopped the decertification in the wake of the Nassar scandal.

“USAG continues to prove themselves incapable of the simplest tasks required to manage an organization – like vetting future hires,” said Jennifer Sey, a former U.S. champion and author of “Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams.”

“In the midst of an athlete safety crisis, they failed to properly vet a candidate through their own systems. It’s untenable. The decertification process must resume. At this point, we’ve had 3 leaders in less than a year, each one as misguided and incompetent, albeit in entirely different ways, as the last. Lets move on.”

Leung and USA Gymnastics had hoped to put the criticism behind them with the hiring of Nyman, previously chairman of the Department of Health and Human Performance in the College of Health Professions at Ohio’s Findlay University.

“The director of sports medicine and science position is integral in addressing our top priorities of athlete health, well-being and safety,” Leung said at the time of Nyman’s hiring. “Making this hire early on in my tenure was important because it is critical for our becoming more athlete-centric. Ed’s collective professional experiences make him uniquely suited for this role.”

A day later he was fired just hours into his first day.

“It’s now clear that senior USAG personnel were well aware of allegations of serious misconduct against Nyman before they hired Dr. Nyman to replace Larry Nassar,” said John Manly, an attorney who represents dozens of survivors of Nassar’s abuse in civil suits that alleges USA Gymnastics officials created a culture of abuse within the sport that enabled Nassar’s predatory behavior and then covered it up.

“There is no question that USA Gymnastics needs to be decertified and the fact that the USOC hasn’t acted raises larger questions about their supervison of not only gymnastics but all sports. This merits a full congressional hearing and investigation of the entire USOC apparatus.”

The USOC put the decertification process on hold after USA Gymnastics filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in December.

“Following our Section 8 complaint, USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy, instituting a delay in the hearing,” USOC vice president Mark Jones said in an email. “In the interest of expediting and resolving litigation for victims and survivors, we have made the decision to not oppose, at this time, that delay. We of course reserve the right to seek leave of the court to proceed with the hearing at any time.

“In the meantime, we are laser-focused on delivering the services and support for athletes to train in safe and healthy environments and be ready to compete in Tokyo and beyond.”

USA Gymnastics first received complaints of verbal and emotional abuse against Amy Nyman in 2016, according to four people familiar with the case. Most of allegations center around New Heights’ gym in Wauseon, Ohio, a small farming town 30 miles west of Toledo. Nyman also owns a second New Heights gym in Maumee, Ohio, 10 miles southwest of Toledo.

By the summer of 2017, an investigator hired by USA Gymnastics to look into the case was contacting unsolicited families who had left New Heights, according to interviews and USA Gymnastics documents.

Busby had at least one conversation with a New Heights parent about the complaints shortly after he was hired by USA Gymnastics in July 2017, according to two people familiar with the conversation. Busby had previously handled sex abuse cases for the Marion County prosecutors office in Indianapolis.

Gymnasts and their parents allege that Amy Nyman bullied, swore at and emotionally and verbally abused athletes on a regular basis, according to persons familiar with the case and documents related to the complaints. Nyman and other New Heights coaches pressured athletes to compete or train while injured, and into attempting skills they were not physically or mentally ready to try. Nyman even kept a “crybaby” chair in the gym for athletes who complained, according to documents related to the case.

Beginning in 2016, under what club officials described as “Injury Prevention Screening and Protocols,’ gymnasts were required to undergo “physical and injury prevention screening” conducted by Edward Nyman in the New Heights gym, according to four people familiar with the case and documents provided by USA Gymnastics and SafeSport. Parents were charged $75 for the initial screening, between $75 to $200 if additional consulting was required, according to the documents.

“These are not exams,” Nyman said. “They’re functional movement type screenings. They do this all over the world. I’m looking for symmetry or strength changes, like it one leg weaker compared to the other.

“This is my expertise. This is what I’m world renown for. I’m not physically doing any medical (procedures). I’m not touching athletes in any way, shape or form.”

Said Russell Prince, Nyman’s attorney, “he’s not doing Larry Nassar-type exams on these athletes.”

Nyman confirmed that he does charge for the screenings.

Busby, around late January/early February 2019, told a parent she should share her complaints with USA Gymnastics safe sport office and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, according to interviews. Nyman said he applied for the USA Gymnastics position at roughly the same time, Feb. 1.

USA Gymnastics in a rare extensive public comment pushed back against a number of Nyman’s statements to SCNG.

“Unfortunately, Dr. Nyman has made false statements and breached confidentiality regarding sensitive information obtained during his hiring with USA Gymnastics,” the statement said. “We were not specific in our earlier statements out of respect for Dr. Nyman and the confidentiality of athlete safety matters, as well as legal and policy considerations, and the record must be set straight.”

In particular USA Gymnastics took issue with statements by Edward Nyman and Prince that Nyman discussed the complaints with Busby prior to Nyman’s hiring. Prince and Nyman said Busby told Nyman before he was hired that New Heights had been cleared of the allegations.

“Dr. Nyman has made a number of false statements and allegations throughout his statement that was included in the (SCNG) story,” the statement said. “Mark Busby was not part of the hiring and interviewing process. Mr. Busby’s conversations with Dr. Nyman occurred after Dr. Nyman was told about the decision to terminate his employment, and Mr. Busby confirmed the athlete safety complaints that Dr. Nyman should have shared to the hiring committee, along with other information.”

Prince said Nyman did not sign a non-disclosure agreement with USA Gymnastics, referring to Nyman disclosing details about the Peters case with SCNG.

“While Dr. Nyman did not sign a non-disclosure agreement, he breached the level of confidentiality expected of the position for which he was hired,” the statement said. “It goes without saying he was to be trusted with very confidential information about our athletes and other matters. After being terminated, he breached his obligation of confidentiality by sharing information about a confidential employment matter.”

Nyman said he was warned by a USA Gymnastics officials to only contact Peters through an attorney for the national governing body. But he said he contacted Peters and other sports medicine staff members by email his first morning on the job to set up video conferences later in the week. Shortly thereafter Nyman said he was called into a meeting with Leung and Busby and asked to resign. He refused. Busby then threatened him, Nyman said.

“I believe that was the straw that broke the camel’s back so to say – and they realized immediately that I was going to overturn their controlled story on such events,” Nyman said in a statement to SCNG, referring to the Peters’ contact. “At that time, they gathered rapidly together and began digging for every possible angle that they could use to gather any plausible story to generate support for firing me therein keeping their secrets quiet! When Li Li called me in to tell me I must resign and I refused, she called Marc (sic) Busby into the office. He then explained he could dig deep enough to find “reasons” for conflicts at my wife’s club that could be made to sound plausible if he tried – and that just the perception of that was bad enough. At that time I realized that they were effectively “WEAPONIZING” the “safe sport” system – something that turned my stomach. Despite the threat – I stood my ground because I didn’t come to USA Gymnastics to be part of the “old guard” but rather to be part of a future where athlete safety is the number one priority.”

Nyman in his statement and interview describes an organization in shell shock following a string of controversies and missteps following the Nassar scandal.

“Looking back, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise as to me as it was clear in the days leading up to, and including, my first day on the job that there were serious fundamental flaws in the organization. On my first day, Li Li, herself, admitted that the organization was, and I quote, ‘a house of cards,’” Nyman said. “She also stated that because of the looming risk of decertification by the USOC – their ‘PR’ IMAGE WAS SO PRECAROUS (I BELIEVE NUCLEAR WAS HER EXACT TERM) – IT HAD TO BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS AND ABOVE EVERYTHING.”