In Maryland, a gymnastics coach is currently being tried with dozens of counts of child pornography. The coach, Patrick Bogan, taught at Baltimore County Gymnastics club for 11 years before being caught with 49 videotapes of children engaged in sex acts with adults, dozens of CD’s full of child pornography and several pairs of little girls’ underwear in his home.

“Shocked doesn’t even begin to explain it,” said Baltimore County Gymnastics Club Owner Tom Bonomo. “This has been devastating to us and we want our parents to see our face and it from us,” he added.

Bogan has spent his whole life obsessed with young girls. He has an advanced degree in early childhood education and coached girls at the Edgewood Recreation Center in Harford County, MD for 15 years before working for Baltimore County Gymnastics Club. He told FBI investigators that he likens his fascination with child pornography to some people’s fascination with collecting stamps.

Although Baltimore County Gymnastics Club runs extensive reference checks for their coaches, they presently do not have an official policy with performing background checks. Given these current events, the gym should adopt a new background screening policy to ensure that this situation does not occur in the future.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.