More than a dozen people including Olympic gold medalist Laurie Hernandez are expected to testify against Maggie Haney in a USA Gymnastics hearing Monday on verbal and emotional abuse allegations against the New Jersey-based coach of Olympic and world champion gymnasts, the Southern California News Group has learned. 

Update: Maggie Haney suspended by USA Gymnastics

The hearing comes more than 3 ½ years after USA Gymnastics officials first received abuse complaints against Haney and follows months of delays and postponements that have prompted complaints by gymnasts, their families and supporters that the national governing body continues to prioritize the reputations of high profile coaches over athlete safety in the wake of the Larry Nassar and Don Peters sex abuse scandals. 

Rhonda Faehn, the former USA Gymnastics senior vice president for the women’s program, said she is not participating in the hearing.  Faehn was the first person Hernandez and her family contacted with complaints about Haney in 2016. 

“I haven’t been contacted by anyone from USAG in regards to testifying or this hearing,” Faehn said in an email. 

Earlier a person familiar with the investigation said Faehn was expected to testify at the hearing on behalf of Haney.  Faehn said that is not correct.  Haney asked Faehn to testify on her behalf and Faehn agreed but said she would also share information Hernandez and her mother Wanda provided her about Haney, according to Faehn and two other people familiar with the investigation. 

“That is correct,” Faehn said. “ I said that I would share everything that I know and it would be at the help of all parties.” 

Aimee Boorman, 2016 U.S. Olympic team head coach and the longtime coach of triple Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, is also scheduled to testify, according to a person familiar with the hearing.  The hearing will continue Wednesday. 

At least a half-dozen families have filed complaints with USA Gymnastics against Haney, according to USA Gymnastics documents and six people familiar with the cases. 

Haney is alleged to have screamed, swore at, threatened, bullied, and harassed gymnasts on a regular basis, according to USA Gymnastics documents and interviews with six people familiar with the complaints.  Haney has also told injured gymnasts to remove boot casts and to continue training and competing, according to USA Gymnastics documents and interviews. 

The hearing panel will also hear testimony about a series of major injuries suffered by athletes trained by Haney. 

USA Gymnastics officials have also received complaints alleging Haney and her supporters have pressured gymnasts and their families to support Haney on social media since SCNG first reported on the allegations last August, according to seven people familiar with the case. 

Witnesses will take part in the hearing via video. 

The allegations against Haney “are patently false,” said Russell Prince, her attorney. 

Haney, a former North Carolina State gymnast, gained international attention for coaching Hernandez, a member of the 2016 Olympic gold medal-winning team, at MG Elite Gymnastics in suburban Monmouth Junction, N.J., 45 miles from New York City.  Hernandez also won a silver medal on the balance beam at the Rio de Janeiro. 

Haney is currently coaching Riley McCusker, who won a gold medal with the U.S. squad in the team competition at the 2018 World Championships and is considered a contender for multiple medals at next summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.  McCusker missed the World Championships last fall because of a muscle ailment frequently linked to overtraining.  She has since resumed training with Haney at MG Elite.  More on Haney Maggie Haney, coach of Olympic and world champion gymnasts, under investigation

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Haney was also on the Team USA staff at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru this past summer and has attended a series of U.S. national team camps in the past year. 

McCusker and her family are not expected to testify against Haney, according to five people familiar with the case.  The family McCusker did not respond to a request for comment.  McCusker’s parents have declined to comment on multiple occasions when asked if they are Riley McCusker would testify against Haney. 

An attorney for Hernandez declined to comment. 

Faehn did not respond to a request for comment. 

Hernandez took more than a year off from the sport after the Rio de Janeiro Games.  She returned to gymnastics in 2018 and is training at Gym-Max in Costa Mesa, the same club that produced Olympic and World champion Kyla Ross.  Hernandez has participated in at least two U.S. national team training camps in recent months where Haney has been present. 

The first complaints were filed with USA Gymnastics shortly after the 2016 Olympic Games and as Steve Penny, the organization’s CEO, and other top officials with USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee scrambled to do damage control in the wake of public revelations and the filing of a series of lawsuits related to the sexual abuse of hundreds of young athletes by Nassar, the longtime U.S. Olympic and women’s national team physician. 

Penny was fired by USA Gymnastics under pressure from the USOPC in March 2017.  Penny was arrested in October 2018 after being indicted by a Walker County, Texas, grand jury on a felony evidence tampering charge related to his alleged role in his and the USA Gymnastics’ cover-up of Nassar’s sexual abuse.