US Center for SafeSport hired former police officer accused of theft
DENVER — The U.S. Center for SafeSport abruptly fired one of its investigators last month after learning he’d been arrested for stealing money confiscated after a drug bust he was part of during his previous job as a police officer.
Jason Krasley left his job with the Allentown Police Department in Pennsylvania in 2021 and was hired by the Denver-based SafeSport center to look into sensitive cases involving sex abuse and harassment.
Among Krasley’s cases was one with Sean McDowell, who had filed a report to the center accusing a member of his Seattle-based recreational rugby club of stalking and harassment. McDowell said it took the center, which has struggled with timely handling of complaints, about eight weeks to assign an investigator to the case.
That investigator turned out to be Krasley, who stopped responding to emails from McDowell a few weeks after they first spoke. Around then, McDowell got a terse email from the center’s assistant director of investigations, Daniel Kast, who said he was “writing to advise you that Jason Krasley is no longer employed” by the center, and that a new investigator would be assigned.
McDowell did some digging and saw news reports that Krasley had been arrested and charged with theft and receiving stolen property for allegedly stealing $5,500 that had been confiscated from a drug bust in Allentown in 2019. The criminal case in Pennsylvania still has not been resolved.
“I went back and double-checked it. It was just disbelief, because I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way this could be the same guy,’” McDowell said. “I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it because it just seems so off from what their stated mission is.”
Center has struggled to keep up
The SafeSport Center was established in 2017 to deal with sexual-misconduct, harassment and similar cases in sports with an Olympic connection, from the elite level down to the grassroots.
At last count, it had around 77 employees on its response and resolutions team — 36 of whom are on the center’s investigations team — and the center was receiving approximately 155 reports per week. While not every report ends up as a fully investigated case, the numbers speak to an ever-growing catalogue of cases that the agency, with an annual budget of around $21 million, is tasked with resolving.
Embedded within that issue are the challenges that come with finding qualified investigators to ask delicate questions of both accusers and those accused of misconduct. The center said it hires subject-matter experts from a variety of sources including law enforcement, child protective services, Title IX, and other relevant fields.
“Although we value our relationship with law enforcement, nobody is above the law,” the center’s CEO, Ju’Riese Colon, said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
The center said it conducts multiple interviews and a “comprehensive background check” of potential employees by an independent third party “known nationally for its work in screening and vetting candidates.” Every year, the center conducts a search for criminal and sex-offender history for active employees.
“As a CEO, I am profoundly disappointed that a former staff member has been accused of such misconduct,” Colon said. “We take this matter seriously and are assessing the situation to determine what, if any, additional vetting could have prevented this individual from being eligible for hire.”
Law enforcement for 20 years
Public records show Krasley worked as a detective/task force officer for the Allentown police from 2002-21. His 2024 arrest came more than five years after the alleged theft.
It came out of a May 2019 drug bust on a barbershop where police seized cocaine and $16,000 in cash.
The grand jury presentment that led to the arrest revealed Krasley was one of the officers who counted the money and was later inside the van where it was stored. Back at the station, when some of the money went missing, Krasley became argumentative and would not submit to a personal search, according to the presentment.
Krasley did not respond to emails and text messages from AP seeking comment.
What about Krasley’s cases?
Krasley’s arrest and dismissal from the center raises the question of what to do with the cases he handled during his time as an investigator there. The center did not provide a specific number of cases Krasley handled.
Among those whose cases were assigned to the former cop is Kirsten Hawkes, a fencer who ran into multiple frustrations with the center after reporting a claim that a former coach of hers forcibly kissed her after a meeting at a hotel bar.
Hawkes said Krasley came off as very sympathetic to her situation when they met, and “he’d sort of call me and talk about other things, like family, or other cases. We would talk for hours.”
Hawkes said she was grateful that someone was listening to her after her traumatic episode. But she also described Krasley as overly eager to resolve the case once it got to arbitration and unwilling to consider her abuse allegations against the same person from when Hawkes was a child.
When Hawkes heard that Krasley had been arrested and fired, she started wondering if her case and others were handled appropriately.
“They have the resources to call a police department and say ‘Hey we’re hiring him for a semi-government job handling sensitive information, anything we should know?’” Hawkes said. “It might not show up on a background check, but they should at least do the due diligence on digging a little bit further.
“It puts everything under a different lens, completely.”
The center said it was reviewing the cases Krasley was involved in, and currently has no indication any of them were mishandled. It is contracting with an external firm to conduct an audit of his cases.
Accuser questions SafeSport
Since Krasley’s dismissal, McDowell, the rugby player, has had his case reassigned to a new investigator who he said “has been good” so far.
Still, the clock is ticking. The 34-year-old player says he was retaliated against and suspended by his rugby team in Seattle after he asked leaders to take action against the person he said was stalking him. The retaliation included sending details of his case to another rugby club in San Francisco, which also tried to bar him from playing.
“Because of this whole smear campaign, people are hostile to me,” McDowell said. “What the SafeSport Center doesn’t understand is, this is actually my day-to-day life. It’s not just the people I’m playing rugby with, because word spreads. And they just don’t seem to really care, or take it seriously.”
McDowell brought the case in September. Heading into the Christmas holiday, he says the SafeSport Center had not treated his case with urgency and was no further along in getting his complaint resolved than when he initiated it.
“The public-facing comments seem to be that they’re this beacon of hope and optimism,” McDowell said. “Then, every time I read a new story about them, I keep thinking, ‘The actions from SafeSport don’t align with any of this.’”