A former youth gymnastics coach who secretly filmed girls undressing and showering in a bathroom at a small Mississippi gym was sentenced Wednesday to 90 years in federal prison — the maximum penalty available, and one a judge said would likely keep him locked up for life.

U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson handed Sean Gardner, 39, the full 30-year term on each of three counts of production of child sexual abuse material, to run consecutively, during a hearing in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, according to CBS News and an Associated Press report carried by WDAM. Gardner pleaded guilty earlier this year to hiding a camera in the bathroom of a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018.

Investigators say the hidden camera captured close-up footage of at least 10 minors naked or undressing. Agents who later searched Gardner's home seized roughly 50 videos and 400 photographs; in one clip, prosecutors say, Gardner can be seen reaching over to switch the camera off. The footage only came to light after the FBI began examining his devices while investigating separate abuse complaints in Iowa, where Gardner went on to coach after leaving Mississippi.

A trail of warnings that went nowhere

Gardner spent several years coaching at Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, a gym whose founder, Liang "Chow" Qiao, has trained Olympic-level athletes. He has not been charged over any conduct alleged in Iowa; police there have said they will decide on next steps once the federal case is fully resolved.

Court records and reporting cited by both outlets describe repeated, unheeded warnings. Gardner's former boss in Mississippi has said she reported his "grooming behavior" to USA Gymnastics in January 2018, and a mother of one young gymnast separately emailed the organization with concerns. The U.S. Center for SafeSport did not suspend Gardner until 2022, after a gymnast at Chow's came forward with a sexual abuse allegation — at which point the gym fired him. Civil lawsuits now allege USA Gymnastics and SafeSport were warned about Gardner as early as 2017 but failed to act for years; SafeSport has said Chow and other coaches were aware of misconduct allegations but did not report them as required.

"IT WAS SO NORMALIZED... I DON'T THINK ANY OF US THOUGHT ANYTHING OF IT," former Purvis gymnast Liberty Raines, who joined the gym at 11, told CBS News.

Gardner was arrested last summer after an FBI investigation that spanned Mississippi, Iowa and Louisiana, where he had also coached. The bureau has said it is still working to identify additional possible victims.

The case lands amid a broader reckoning over how youth sports organizations handle abuse complaints, years after USA Gymnastics' handling of the Larry Nassar scandal prompted the creation of SafeSport as an independent reporting body. Advocates say Gardner's case shows the system built after Nassar still allowed a coach flagged internally in 2017 to keep working with children for years afterward.

Gardner's attorneys have not publicly commented on the sentence. With no parole in the federal system, the 90-year term effectively removes any realistic possibility of release. Iowa authorities have given no timeline for whether state charges will follow, and attorneys for alleged victims at Chow's have signaled they intend to continue pursuing civil claims against USA Gymnastics and SafeSport.