Steve Infante (top) and Steve DiTullio have denied the allegations of sexual abuse.
(ellen harasimowicz/for the boston globe)
Ten years ago, disturbing allegations about a popular New England coach began circulating in the small world of girls' gymnastics. Three adult women told the sport's national governing body that their former coach, Steve Infante, had sex with them when they were teenagers, and that an investigation would reveal inappropriate behavior by other coaches as well.
Months later, Infante of New Milford, Conn., was banned by USA Gymnastics, the sport's national governing body. But the organization says it did not notify authorities. Nor did USA Gymnastics take action against other coaches.
Now Infante, 51, and Infante's friend - well-known Massachusetts coach Steve DiTullio, 53 - are at the heart of an investigation into allegations that the men sought to have sex with their teenage gymnasts. Angry that the two men were still coaching, some of Infante's and DiTullio's former athletes - now women in their 20s and 30s - began contacting authorities last year. Following statements by two of the women, Infante was charged with two counts of rape and DiTullio with perjury last month in Middlesex Superior Court. They have pleaded not guilty.
But a nine-page affidavit filed in Danbury, Conn., by investigators last summer to obtain a warrant to search Infante's properties there portrays a pattern of inappropriate behavior played out over two decades. The affidavit says there are six women who allege sexual contact occurred, including one woman whom Infante allegedly sent to DiTullio by bus, and some former gymnasts are now questioning why USA Gymnastics did not do more in 1997 when it first learned about claims of misconduct.
"I think they definitely dropped the ball," said Heather Menzie, a former junior state gymnastics champion in Massachusetts who was not targeted by either Infante or DiTullio, but had knowledge of the allegations and reported them to police last year. "They were protecting coaches rather than gymnasts."
The charges against Infante allege that he began raping one athlete when she was just 15 years old - below the legal age of consent. The perjury charge against DiTullio, according to prosecutors, focuses on his testimony to a Middlesex grand jury that he did not know about junior counselors drinking alcohol at gymnastics camp.
The two men maintain their innocence. Infante's attorney, Peter Russell, said his client declined to comment for this article. DiTullio, in a brief interview at the door of his Littleton home, denied the allegations against him and said his gym is being unfairly stigmatized.
"I have no idea where this stuff is coming from, I really don't," he said. "But someone made a complaint and, in doing so, I don't think they realize what they've done to destroy people's lives."
In an interview with the Globe Friday, USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny defended the way his organization's officials handled the 1997 complaints, filed by three women who claimed that Infante had sex with them when they were 18, 16, and 15 or 16 years old, respectively. Penny said the organization did not contact police because the organization could not press charges on its own and did not know if a crime had been committed. He noted that the alleged victims were now adults and that the complaints were years old.
In regard to DiTullio, Penny said, no one came forward with anything other than "hearsay." And with only this to go on, Penny said, "it's my understanding that there was no investigation of Steve DiTullio at that time." He would not say if investigators even spoke with him.
"At the time of that investigation, the primary issue was Steven Infante," said Penny, who did not become president of USA Gymnastics until 2005. "And I believe the organization acted responsibly in dealing with Steven Infante at that point in time."
The ban, however, did little to keep Infante away from young gymnasts. From early 2006 and until early this year, he worked for DGS, a Connecticut equipment company, setting up and breaking down gymnastics equipment at competitions, said John Deary, the company co-founder. Deary declined to comment further.
On two occasions in recent years, USA Gymnastics officials learned that Infante attended competitions and took measures to address the problem. According to court documents, Infante continued to be part of a summer camp in Massachusetts that he and DiTullio ran. And parents of athletes - who were not aware that Infante had been banned - recently said the Connecticut coach remained a common sight around DiTullio's gymnasts.
"Steve Infante used to show up at all the meets, even if he didn't have girls competing," said Katie Weigel, an Acton woman whose daughters trained with DiTullio from the mid-1990s until 2002. "And you would say, 'Why is he here?' And he would say, 'Because we're all one happy family. I'm here to support you.' "
The friendship between Infante and DiTullio dates back at least three decades to summers when the two men worked at a gymnastics camp in Connecticut. The men were young then - and great fun, according to athletes who trained with them.
The girls loved them, and so did the girls' parents. Soon, both men became successful, especially DiTullio. His school, the Gym Nest, opened in Acton in 1978, later moved to Stow and was renamed Five Star Gymnastics. And though he started small, DiTullio became a leader so well liked that twice this decade his peers elected him to be the state chairman of USA Gymnastics in Massachusetts.
But according to court documents - and interviews with former athletes - the two men were not just training young girls to be gymnasts; the affidavit filed in Connecticut alleges they were "grooming" them in the way a pedophile grooms potential victims. Infante allegedly had sex with five teenagers - between 15 and 18 years old - in the 1980s and '90s, got one of them pregnant, and paid for an abortion, according to the Connecticut affidavit. In 1988, Infante allegedly sent a teenage girl to work with DiTullio and, according to court documents, DiTullio began having sex with her the night she arrived at his Littleton house. And at summer camp, former athletes described a "loose" atmosphere, where the coaches plied the girls with beer and wine coolers, routinely made sexually suggestive comments, and staged games where they slathered the girls with cream pies.
Pedophiles often use such tactics to get potential victims accustomed to physical touching and sexual topics, according to court documents. Often, some former athletes say, it began innocently enough.
"It started with compliments about you as a gymnast," said one former gymnast. "Then it was compliments about me as a person. Then it was compliments about my body or how I looked."
The relationship culminated in 1992 just before she went to college, the former gymnast said, when DiTullio gave her a sexually suggestive card and a box of condoms.
"I remember that was the first time that I got scared," the woman told the Globe recently. The Globe does not identify without their consent persons who may be victims of sex crimes.
But she said she and other women did not tell authorities about the men until Menzie's call to the Acton police department last year. Former gymnasts interviewed by the Globe said they kept it to themselves while they were young partly out of fear and partly out of a desire to be accepted in their gymnastics club.
But, worried that Infante and DiTullio were still working with gymnasts, the former athletes began contacting each other last year, and talking with police.
Those conversations led to Infante being charged last month in Middlesex Superior Court with one count of rape, one count of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14. To date, DiTullio faces only a perjury charge. None of the allegations in court documents have come from women who trained in recent years with the coaches.
Still, it troubles former gymnasts that Infante, banned in 1998, was able to continue working in the sport until recently. Once, in January 2006, Kathy Ostberg, now the national chairwoman for USA Gymnastics, said she saw Infante at a competition at DiTullio's gym and asked DiTullio to tell his friend to leave.
DiTullio did so, said Ostberg. But the ban did not prevent Infante from coaching at the summer camps he and DiTullio organized. As recently as 2006, according to court documents, he was there, photographed with girls wearing bathing suits, holding pie plates, and covered with cream. Ostberg, who lives in Shrewsbury, had no idea he was there - and even if she did, there would have been little she could do to stop it.
"I guess I should have known," Ostberg said. "But what happened at camps, I didn't pay any attention. I didn't really get involved in summer camp programs."
Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
