Ex-gymnastics coach gets 50 years in prison for sex assaults

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A former gymnastics coach was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison for sexually assaulting young female gymnasts in North Texas and Oklahoma.

Skipper Crawley, 53, of Kemp, Texas, pleaded guilty in a Tarrant County state district court in Fort Worth to four counts of aggravated assault of a child.

Crawley was an instructor at Sokol Gymnastics in Fort Worth when three girls reported that he had sexually assaulted them during practice. He fled after he was charged in August 2018, but was arrested in Indiana.

More women subsequently came forward to say he had sexually assaulted them in Norman, Oklahoma, and Tulsa. Crawley had been an assistant gymnastics coach at the University of Oklahoma in the early ’90s and a coach before starting work at Tulsa World of Gymnastics in 1993.

In all, 11 female gymnasts in North Texas and Oklahoma said Crawley had sexually assaulted them when they were as young as 8-years-old.

A spokeswoman for prosecutors said Crawley must serve 25 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole from his Texas convictions. Still pending against Crawley are 10 counts of lewd child molestation filed in Tulsa County, Oklahoma. No trial date has been set.