People at the U.S. Center for SafeSport knew a former police officer was the subject of an internal investigation at his former job but hired him anyway, according to details released Wednesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is looking into the matter.
Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter this week to the center's CEO, Ju'Riese Colon, asking more questions about why the organization hired Jason Krasley as an investigator even though it had knowledge of his potential legal trouble.
“You conceded that this was ‘concerning information' but hired him nonetheless after being unable to ascertain additional information,” Grassley wrote to Colon, who had revealed that information to the senator in response to his original request in February, which stemmed from reporting by The Associated Press about Krasley's arrests.
“I find this deeply troubling,” Grassley wrote.
Krasley has been charged with multiple sex crimes, including rape, sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution, from episodes that occurred during his time at the Allentown, Pennsylvania, police department, and before he was hired by the center in 2021.
The center, which investigates sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports, fired Krasley in November, two months after learning of allegations that he stole money the Allentown police vice team had seized in a drug bust. Later came Krasley's arrest for alleged sex crimes and, in June 2024, an arrest for harassment that was resolved in December.
Grassley's letter recounts what Colon wrote to him: that one of Krasley's references during the hiring process “shared with you that he was the subject of an internal investigation by the Allentown police department." The case, the letter said, was based on statements from an alleged victim that the person later recanted.
The center provided the AP with its response to Grassley, dated March 14, in which Colon writes that the case has triggered several changes in the center's vetting process. Under the new rules, she wrote, “this disclosure would have raised a red flag and prompted additional scrutiny into the alleged conduct that led to the internal investigation.”
Colon outlined enhancements of the center's code of ethics and the addition of an ethics clause that employees must adhere to. She said she is now personally interviewing all final candidates for jobs and that the center plans to contract with an outside consultant to review its recruiting and hiring process.
She also said the center now checks the National Decertification Index (NDI), which keeps track of discipline related to officer misconduct.
The center's letter said Krasley handled 124 cases, 15 of which were open when he was terminated.
The center said there were no complaints of sexual misconduct while Krasley worked there.
The former police officer is free on bail awaiting trial. His attorney has asserted his client's innocence in the sex-crime cases, which date to 2015, most recently calling them “meritless and uncorroborated allegations from drug-addled and impaired prostitutes.”
The center has also hired a third-party firm to reach out to people whose cases were handled by Krasley.
That carried potential to retraumatize victims, one of whom, Jacqui Stevenson, told the AP the center's outreach about a case that had long been resolved triggered “a total panic attack.”
In her letter, Colon explained that the two-month delay in firing Krasley was because of a concerted effort not to take steps that would compromise the criminal investigation — reasoning that did not sway Grassley.
“I imagine you appreciate that impressions regarding SafeSport’s judgment in hiring and firing decisions impact impressions of SafeSport’s ability to properly investigate and resolve allegations of misconduct in the sports community,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley sent a separate letter to the center's chair, April Holmes, saying there “appears to be a lack of oversight by the Board to adequately supervise the CEO ... and other officers and directors in their duties to the organization.”
The senator questioned whether an increase in funding — something Colon has asked for — from its current budget of around $21 million a year would solve its problems, some of which he suggested are rooted in the complex nature of resolving sex-abuse allegations.
He said “there is concern that SafeSport is not prioritizing serious sexual and child abuse cases over other cases, which is causing more serious cases to languish without proper investigation.”
There was criticism of the center's spending, including its $2.4 million in billing for legal services in 2023.
Also, Grassley pointed out $50,000 on dues and subscriptions, $36,000 on bank fees and credit cards and more than $390,000 on travel, all “expenses that seem excessive for a non-profit organization and financial decisions that seem counter-productive to the organization.”
Grassley asked Holmes to answer a series of questions, including how the board determined salaries for executives, including Colon, who made more than $400,000 in 2023, which included a $58,000 bonus.
Holmes said the board received the letter and would respond by Grassley's May 1 deadline.
AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
FILE - U.S. Center for SafeSport CEO Ju'Riese Colón testifies during The Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, 3Sept. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine (AP) — Anger and outrage gripped the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday as it held funerals for some of the 20 people, including nine children, killed by a Russian missile that tore through apartment buildings and blasted a playground.
More than 70 were wounded in the attack last Friday evening on Kryvyi Rih. The children were playing on swings and in a sandbox in a tree-lined park at the time. Bodies were strewn across the grass.
“We are not asking for pity,” Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city administration, wrote on Telegram as Kryvyi Rih mourned. “We demand the world’s outrage.”
The U.N. Human Rights Office in Ukraine said it was the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was also one of the deadliest attacks so far this year.
Ukraine has consented to a ceasefire proposed weeks ago by Washington. But Russia is still negotiating with the United States its terms for accepting a truce in the more than three-year war.
U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced frustration at the continued fighting, and Ukrainian officials want him to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop. Trump vowed during his election campaign last year to bring a swift end to the war.
“We’re talking to Russia. We’d like them to stop,” Trump told reporters Sunday. “I don’t like the bombing.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Monday that Putin supports a ceasefire proposed by Trump but wants Russian conditions to be met.
“President Putin indeed backs the ceasefire idea, but it’s necessary to first answer quite a few questions,” Peskov said.
In Kryvyi Rih, teacher Iryna Kholod, 59, remembered Arina and Radyslav, both 7 years old and killed in Friday's strike, as being “like little suns in the classroom.”
Radyslav, she said, was proud to be part of a school campaign collecting pet food for stray animals. “He held the bag like it was treasure. He wanted to help,” she told The Associated Press.
After Friday evening, "two desks in my classroom were empty forever,” Kholod said, adding that she still has unopened birthday gifts for them.
“How do I tell parents to return their textbooks? How do I teach without them?” she asked.
Russian missile and drone tactics continue to evolve, making it harder to shoot them down, Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force command, said on national television.
Russia's Shahed drones have undergone significant upgrades, while Moscow is also modernizing its ballistic missiles, he said.
Only the U.S. Patriot missile defense system can help prevent attacks like the one in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy said late Sunday.
He said he had instructed his defense and foreign affairs ministers to "work bilaterally on air defense, especially with the United States, which has sufficient potential to help stop any terror.”
Ukraine will send a team to Washington this week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told The Associated Press.
Failure to conclude a mineral deal has hamstrung Ukrainian efforts to secure pledges of continuing U.S. military support.
Britain's Ministry of Defense and the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, say Russia's battlefield progress on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has slowed since November. But on Saturday night, Russia launched its biggest aerial attack on Ukraine in nearly a month.
Both sides are thought to be preparing for a renewed spring-summer military campaign.
In Kryvyi Rih on Monday, Nataliia Slobodeniuk recalled her student Danylo Nikitskyi, 15, as “a spark” who energized the classroom and helped organize school trips and other occasions.
“If Danylo was going, half the class went too,” the 55-year-old teacher said. “That’s how loved he was.”
She choked up as she spoke of her feeling of powerlessness after the attack.
“You live through their joy, their sadness,” she told AP. “And now, this pain, it tears you apart. And you realize there’s nothing you can do. Nothing to fix it. You just carry the pain forever.”
An air raid alert interrupted a planned memorial ceremony in the city — a reminder of the continuing threat for civilians.
The frustration hit home for Nataliia Freylikh, the schoolteacher of 9-year-old Herman Tripolets, who was killed in last Friday's attack.
“Even mourning him properly is impossible,” Freylikh said.
Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, dead bodies lie on the ground after a Russian missile hit apartment houses and a playground, killing 14 civilians including six children, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Friday, April 4, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
Flowers and toys left in the play area to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday, near apartment buildings, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo)
Flowers and toys left on a swing seat to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday, at a children play area near the damaged apartment buildings, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo)
