Camilo Campos-Hurtado was a youth soccer coach in Franklin, TN, until his arrest in July 2023 on charges of sexually assaulting minors and possessing child sexual abuse material. Some of his victims were from the teams he coached. In July 2026, a federal judge in Tennessee sentenced Camilo Campos-Hurtado to 30 years in prison for drugging children, sexually abusing them, and recording the assaults; and for possession of fraudulent immigration documents. Campos-Hurtado is an illegal alien. At 66 years old, he will likely spend the remainder of his life in an American prison. However, if he were to be released early, he would be deported to Mexico.
Despite his arrest in 2023 and subsequent three years of criminal investigation and proceedings, Campos-Hurtado was not banned from sport and publicly listed as such by the US Center for SafeSport, the national sport safe guarding organization. But there is evidence the Center and US Soccer were aware of the allegations against Campos-Hurtado, and opted not to take action.
A spreadsheet maintained by US Soccer and made available to some constituent associations shows that the Center placed Campos-Hurtado’s case on an “administrative hold” in July 2023. An “administrative hold” is an option the Center may exercise when there “insufficient information to proceed with an investigation.” The Center retains the right to “re-open them at any time when sufficient information is made available.”
This is curious for several reasons. First, a criminal charge is a de facto violation of the SafeSport Code. There were multiple public documents, starting with the arrest record, that would constitute “sufficient information” that Campos-Hurtado was facing a criminal charge. Campos-Hurtado could have been permanently banned and publicly listed within days of his July 2023 arrest.
Second, “administrative holds” were not an option in the version of the SafeSport Code that was in effect when Campos-Hurtado was arrested and listed in the spreadsheet. “Administrative closures” were an option, and the wording was similar to that of “administrative holds,” which first appeared in the revision that took effect a full year later.
The Center did not respond to my request for comment. I will update this article if they respond after publication.
The Campos-Hurtado case exemplifies why the Center takes fire from all sides. Other cases that have come before the Center make their handling of the Campos-Hurtado case even more startling.
Among the other “administrative holds” listed on the US Soccer spreadsheet are three girls who were 10-years old when the Center received a complaint against them; five other minors; a Women’s World Cup winner; a former Commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League; a high-level executive at US Soccer; and a former president of US Soccer.
The Center can issue a “temporary sanction” on the basis of a single accusation that is “sufficiently serious that the Respondent’s continued participation in the sport could be detrimental to the best interest of sport and those who participate in it.” That is an understatement given the charges against Campos-Hurtado. And again, there was more than just an accusation: there were criminal charges, followed by an indictment, a guilty plea in 2025, and sentencing in 2026.
By contrast, a notable name appeared on the Center’s Centralized Disciplinary Database on July 29: Batarti Gabbard, the brother of former Director of National Intelligence and Senator Tulsi Gabbard. Batarti Gabbard had been arrested 12 days earlier on the misdemeanor charge of second-degree custodial interference. Gabbard appears to be an avid tennis player, like the rest of his family. But unlike Campos-Hurtado, Gabbard does not appear to have been a coach nor have any custodial or protective interactions with youth athletes.
The Center is designed to move quickly to remove accused individuals from sporting contexts. The Center frequently suspends and publicly blacklists sportspeople based on a single unvetted accusation. Due process is minimal, and the damage to one’s career and reputation is permanent.
After the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal at USA Gymnastics in the mid-2010s, Congress empowered the US Center for SafeSport with jurisdiction over the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and each sport’s national governing body “with regard to safeguarding amateur athletes against abuse, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, in sports.” Congress expanded the Center’s power in 2020 by requiring it to “publish and maintain a publicly accessible internet website that contains a comprehensive list of adults who are barred by the Center”—a requirement that comes with immunity for defamation, libel, or slander if the Center wrongfully tars someone by listing them alongside Nassar and other convicted criminals.
Over 13 million Americans are under the Center’s authority, from Team USA Olympians to youth and “weekend warrior” recreational athletes.
As in the Gabbard case, the Center’s remit is not confined to abuse that occurs in athletic environments, like gyms, locker rooms, or team road trips. The SafeSport Code establishes the requirements, prohibitions, sanctions, and procedures that the Center has developed to carry out its mission. The Code is more than an internal policy document. The Center’s authorizing legislation states that the Code “shall apply as though [it] were incorporated in and made a part of” the law, a controversial clause at the center of several federal lawsuits regarding state action and non-delegation.
Two federal lawsuits currently in progress highlight how tenacious the Center can be over a criminal charge.
The Center had what appears to be a slam dunk case for banning someone—the kind of case that could pad their stats, let them pat themselves on the back for taking quick and decisive action, and try to shush critics.
Metry McGaughey was a gymnastics coach in Mississippi. He was acquitted of all charges by a jury in 2023, and the judge subsequently ordered all records of the charges and the case expunged. Nevertheless, the Center persisted in investigating and blacklisting McGaughey from 2024–2026.
According to McGaughey’s lawsuit, the Center’s investigator recognized the weakness of her case absent the court records, but still concluded that McGaughey had committed sexual assault and therefore recommended his permanent ban and blacklisting. An independent arbitrator described the Center’s investigation as “lackluster” and “minimal effort.” The arbitrator reversed the Center’s finding, clearing the way for McGaughey to sue the Center and the investigator for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and other counts related to the loss of business opportunities McGaughey suffered.
Likewise, the Center banned and blacklisted Christian Heineking, a horse trainer and rider near Fort Worth, TX, in 2023 due to “pending criminal charges” related to incidents that allegedly occurred between 2010–14. Remember that the Center only received federal recognition in 2017. That notwithstanding, the Center grants itself full retrospective authority, explicitly renouncing any statutes of limitations or time-bars.
In 2024, the charges were reduced to a single misdemeanor—unlawful restraint—to which Heineking pleaded guilty. The formal finding of guilt was deferred and all charges were ultimately dismissed. Heineking has no criminal record.
But as with McGaughey, the Center would not allow Heineking to reclaim his career or reputation. Heineking’s federal lawsuit details dozens of inconsistencies and errors in the Center’s investigation of him, which is now in its third year.
Finally, the Campos-Hurtado case is a companion case to one that brought a lot of criticism to the Center from its strongest defenders last year.
The Center “temporarily suspended” gymnastics coach Sean Gardner in July 2022. He remained “temporarily suspended” until he was arrested in August 2025 on child pornography charges.
Gardner’s story surfaced because of lawsuits filed by former gymnasts alleging that USA Gymnastics, the US Center for SafeSport, and their gym knew of accusations against Gardner as early as 2018, but failed to act until 2022 and did not fulfill their duty as mandatory reporters to take the complaints to law enforcement. The plaintiffs fault these sports organizations for not informing law enforcement about Gardner, which implicitly damns everyone—including the plaintiffs themselves and their families—for not doing so themselves.
In both the Campos-Hurtado and Gardner cases, the criminal justice system worked as designed. Both men were taken off the streets once law enforcement had sufficient evidence to make arrests. Campos-Hurtado was in police custody from the day of his arrest in July 2023 until his sentencing.
These two cases highlight different shortcomings of the sport safe guarding system.
The Gardner case shows the false sense of security that a ban from sport will protect society at large (Gardner could have been preying on other people in other contexts while banned from sport); and the moral hazard of outsourcing the responsibility to report an offender to law enforcement to “mandatory reporters.”
The Campos-Hurtado case exemplifies the inconsistency and opacity of the Center’s operations.
Here, the Center had what appears to be a slam dunk case for banning someone—the kind of case that could pad their stats, let them pat themselves on the back for taking quick and decisive action, and try to shush critics.
Instead, he ended up with the same administrative probation as a handful of kids who will be looking over their shoulder for the Center whenever they sign up for a sport, apply for college or a job, or have a routine conflict or dispute with a neighbor, classmate, or coworker. Meanwhile, exonerees from our not-exactly-defendant-friendly criminal justice system are spending years and small fortunes in civil court trying to get some restitution from the Center’s destruction of their careers, reputations, and lives. And then there are all the others—this site will never be more than the tip of the iceberg—who lost all of that on the basis of a single complaint that they did far less than Campos-Hurtado did.
Related:
Gymnasts’ Lawsuits Show That Safeguarding Protocols Are No Substitute for Justice (The American Spectator)
Photo credit: waferboard / Flickr, under CC BY 2.0.
Wow, George, you continue to educate me on just how poorly the Center is performing. Thank you. What would help? A Congressional investigation? Obviously the federal lawsuits will shed light....but that does not mean the processes at SafeSport be corrected.