The U.S. Center for SafeSport will add a morals clause to its code of conduct, and the CEO will start interviewing job candidates herself in the wake of the arrest of a former investigator who was charged with rape and other sex crimes.
The center held a virtual forum Tuesday called “The State of SafeSport,” where CEO Ju'Riese Colon offered updates and took questions from athletes and stakeholders.
She said the center was re-evaluating its screening and hiring processes after Jason Krasley, a former cop in Pennsylvania who went to work as an investigator for the center, was arrested first for stealing drug money seized in a bust, then later on charges of rape and sex trafficking.
“I'm still very angry about this. I'm disappointed and sad,” Colon said. “This was certainly unprecedented and certainly something we'll strive to never have happen again, because it was a dark week for the center. It certainly impacts the trust we're striving to build.”
The CEO said the center fired Krasley as soon as it learned about his November arrest for allegedly stealing $5,500 that was seized from a drug bust he helped execute in 2019.
His subsequent arrest earlier this month for crimes he allegedly committed while on the vice squad in Allentown, Pennsylvania, placed the center's hiring and vetting practices under more scrutiny.
Colon said the center had a “robust” background-check that included social-media screenings, references and multiple interviews, but is evaluating its screening and hiring practices.
“We’ve reached out to a number of other background-check companies, screeners and reference checkers to see if there’s something else we can do with our staff,” she said, while noting the complications of having staff across 32 states, all with different employment laws.
The center has hired a third-party firm to audit cases Krasley was involved with to see if they might need to be reopened. Colon said the center had no indication Krasley had been involved in wrongdoing during his approximately two-year stint with the center.
Krasley's attorney says his client denies all the allegations.
The center opened in 2017 to investigate sex-abuse cases involving Olympic sports after scandals involving Larry Nassar and others framed the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its sports organizations as not up to the task of properly handling those cases.
Late last year, the center had 36 people on its investigations team.
After outlining some of the changes the center made beginning this year in an attempt to improve a process that has been slowed by staffing shortages and an operation that receives around 155 new reports a week, Colon conceded “the biggest challenge right now, and certainly the elephant in the room, is the arrest” of Krasley.
“This was devastating news for us, for the movement, for athletes, for survivors," she said. “It's just terrible.”
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