The people of the US Safeport Center. UU. They knew that a former police officer was subject to internal investigation in his previous work, but hired him anyway, according to the details published Wednesday by Senator Chuck Grassley, who is investigating the matter.
Grassley, R-Iowa, president of the Judicial Committee of the Senate, sent a letter this week To the CEO of the Center, Ju’riese Colon, asking more questions about why the organization hired Jason Krasley as a researcher even though he was aware of his possible legal problems.
“You admitted that this was” worrying about information, “but hired it, however, after not being able to determine additional information,” Grassley wrote to Columbus, who had revealed that information to the senator in response to His original application in February, which arose from Informing for Associated Press about Krasley’s arrests.
“I find this deeply worrying,” Grassley wrote.
Krasley has been accused of multiple sexual crimes, which include rape, trafficking and requesting prostitution, of episodes that occurred during his time in the Allentown police department, Pennsylvania, and before being hired by the center in 2021.
The center, which investigates cases of sexual abuse in Olympic sports, fired Krasley in November, two months after learning of his initial arrest for supposedly stealing money The Allentown police team had seized a drug raid. Later, Krasley’s arrest for sexual crimes arrived and, in June 2024, an arrest for the harassment that was resolved in December.
Grassley’s letter recounts what Colon wrote to him: that one of Krasley’s references during the contracting process “shared with you that he was the subject of an internal investigation by the Allentown police department.” The case, according to the letter, was based on statements by an alleged victim that the person then retracted.
The Center provided the AP for its response to Grassley, dated March 14, in which Colon writes that the case has triggered several changes in the center’s research process. According to the new rules, he wrote: “This dissemination would have raised a red flag and caused additional scrutiny about the alleged behavior that led to internal research.”
Outlined colon Improvements of the Code of Ethics of the Center and the addition of an ethics clause must adhere to employees. She said that she is now personally interviewing all the final candidates for jobs and that the center plans to hire an external consultant to review her recruitment and hiring process.
She also said that the center now reviews the National Desertification Index (NDI)that monitors the discipline related to the misconduct of the officers.
The center of the center said that Krasley handled 124 cases, 15 of which were open when he was fired.
The center said there were no complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior while Krasley worked there.
The former policeman is free on bail waiting for trial. His lawyer has affirmed the innocence of his client in cases of sexual crimes, dating from 2015, more recently he called them “accusations without merit and without corroborating prostitutes with drugs and deteriorated.”
The center has also hired a third -party company to reach people whose cases were managed by the former policeman.
That carried the potential to retraumatize the victims, one of which, Jacqui Stevenson, He told the AP the scope of the center on a case that had been resolved for a long time “a total panic attack.”
In his letter, Colon explained that the two -month delay in Krasley’s dismissal was due to a concerted effort to not take measures that would compromise criminal investigation, reasoning that did not influence Grassley.
“I imagine that I appreciate that the impressions regarding the Safeport trial in hiring and dismissal, the decisions impact Safeport’s ability to properly investigate and resolve accusations of misconduct in the sports community,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley sent a separate letter to the center of the center, April Holmes, saying that “there seems to be a lack of supervision by the Board to properly supervise the CEO … and other officers and directors in their duties with the organization.”
The senator questioned whether an increase in financing, something that Colon has requested, since its current budget of around $ 21 million a year would solve its problems, some of which suggested are rooted in the complex nature of resolving accusations of sexual abuse.
He said that “there is concern that Safeport does not prioritize serious cases of sexual and child abuse in other cases, which is causing the most serious cases to languish without adequate investigation.”
There were criticisms of the center’s expenditure, including its $ 2.4 million in billing for legal services in 2023.
In addition, Grassley indicated $ 50,000 in installments and subscriptions, $ 36,000 in banking rates and credit cards and more than $ 390,000 on trips, “all expenses that seem excessive for a non -profit organization and financial decisions that seem counterproductive to the organization.”
Grassley asked Holmes to answer a series of questions, including the way in which the Board determined salaries for executives, including colon, which won more than $ 400,000 in 2023, which included a $ 58,000 bonus.
Holmes said the Board received the letter and would respond on the deadline of May 1, Grassley.
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