A former president of USA Gymnastics has been arrested over allegations that he tampered with evidence in the sexual assault investigation into the national team’s doctor Larry Nassar.

Steve Penny was detained in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and was awaiting extradition to Texas, the Walker County district attorney’s office in Texas said.

An indictment alleges that Penny ordered the removal of documents from the Karolyi ranch, near Huntsville, relating to Nassar’s activities there. It alleges that Penny acted after learning that Texas rangers and Walker County authorities were investigating the ranch, which was being managed by USA Gymnastics.

The indictment states that the documents were delivered to Penny at the USA Gymnastics headquarters in Indianapolis, that they have not been recovered and that their whereabouts are unknown to authorities.

The offence is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Penny resigned under pressure in March 2017.

Nassar was charged in June with sexually assaulting six minors in Walker County. A former sports medicine trainer, Debra Van Horn, was also indicted on one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child. Prosecutors said Van Horn was charged as “acting as a party” with Nassar.

In Michigan, Nassar was sentenced in January to decades in prison after hundreds of women and girls accused him of molesting them under the guise of medical treatment. They said the abuse went back to the 1990s while he worked at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.

Nassar was a team doctor for the women’s programme at USA Gymnastics as well as Michigan State University athletics.

In Texas, a number of gymnasts who trained at the Karolyi ranch have said Nassar sexually assaulted them there. Walker County prosecutors have said there is no corroborated evidence of wrongdoing by the gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi, and the couple have denied wrongdoing.