US Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles’s mother will enter prison on the same day that her daughter competes for gold at the Tokyo Games.
Gina Chiles will start a one year and one day prison sentence as the women’s team is expected to compete in the Olympics final.
The 20-year-old Oregon-born gymnast is competing in her first Games and is part of the four-person artistic gymnastics team.
Her mother, Gina Chiles, pleaded guilty to stealing from clients and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal expenses through her property management company, Inspire Vision Property Management LLC.
She pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and when she has completed her prison sentence has been ordered to begin paying $1.2m in restitution.
“Every moment that I watch Jordan is the most amazing moment as a mom,” Gina Chiles said as she appeared on the NBC’s Today show.
“And so I just am looking at it as not bittersweet, but just sweet, period, that she’s here.”
She must surrender to the US Bureau of Prisons before 2 pm on 27 July.
Federal court papers state that one client, Karla Pearlstein, lost $945,000 after renting the Victorian Belle Mansion in North Portland, Missouri, to Gina Chiles to run as a wedding venue.
Ms Pearlstein, who helped Gina Chiles start Inspire Vision, describes her to CBS42 as “somebody that has absolutely no shame. She is an operator. I mean, she was a total operator”.
Court documents state that over nearly four years Chiles “had stolen so much she could no longer cover the resulting shortfalls by moving clients’ money around”.
Jordan Chiles will have support at Tokyo from one of her closest teammates, Simone Biles.
“Simone really pushes because she pushes herself,” Simone’s mother Nellie Biles said of their friendship.
“And I see her doing the same thing, too, with Jordan,” Nellie added.
“And that bond has just – I mean, they fight, believe me. They do fight. We don’t get into it. I don’t get in the way because the next minute, they’re hugging. That’s a special relationship that they have.”
