Shannon Guay takes the stand in his criminal sexual conduct case on April 24, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
As Grand Rapids area gymnastics coach Shannon Guay, 51, is set to spend at least 50 years in prison for the sexual abuse of several young girls, the victims, now women, had their day in court Wednesday to tell the judge during sentencing how the abuse impacted their lives, speaking on behalf of their younger selves.
Finding out there were other girls who were abused, other people who survived Guay, gave one woman the drive she needed to move forward with life, one survivor said in a victim impact statement read off by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth Bartlett.
“You were supposed to be my coach, you were supposed to be teaching me how to do a full on the floor, not raping me in a locker room and assaulting me on the gym floor,” the statement from the now 28-year-old said.
Former Grand Rapids gymnastics coach appears in court over sexual assault charges
This woman and the 13 other women, some of whom were athletes under Guay’s care, who testified during Guay’s trial earlier this year remain anonymous in media coverage per the judge’s order as all of them were minors at the time of their contact with Guay.
The woman’s victim impact statement continued, saying Guay had stolen not only her sense of safety and peace, but had damaged her physical body long-term.
“How dare you, [you] have stolen from me something so pure and innocent that it rerouted my identity. You traumatized me, altered my brain pathways and damaged the little girl with a bright smile and enduring spirit. … I have struggled with an eating disorder for over a decade hating my body because of you,” the statement said. “Lost identity, tarnished dreams of who I could have become washed away because of your own selfish desire to overtake and dominate the body of a child over and over again.”
This victim’s story was the one that brought all the other women’s stories to light, recounting in her statement how she made the call in 2023 to a gymnastics gym Guay used to work at to report what he had done to her at 10 years old.
“The 10-year-old version of myself called her old gym. … She made a phone call,” the woman said in her victim impact statement. “And everything changed.”
Calls to report criminal behavior by Guay, dating back 20 some years, came in from all over Michigan, as well as other states like Florida, Texas and California, Bartlett told the Michigan Advance in summer 2023.
In April, Guay was found guilty of 21 counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of kidnapping.
Mark Hunting, Guay’s defense attorney, pointed at the lack of evidence during the trial, advising the jury in April to exercise reasonable doubt as the case is a “she said-he said” case.
But as the prosecution reasoned, there were more than a few “she saids’ in the case and as 17th Circuit Court Judge Paul Denenfeld handed down the sentence of effectively life in prison, WOOD TV reports he reflected on the scale of violence presented throughout the case and how it measures up to his 16 years of being a judge.
“This is right up at the top of the list. The number of victims that are here in this case, the age of many of these victims when they were being sexually assaulted, Mr. Guay’s position of having access to many of these young people of various ages … makes this case, I think, different, maybe even than any other case that I’ve had,” Denenfeld said, according to WOOD TV. “I think this case probably presents as much harm and damage as any case that I have presided over.”
A different woman recalled in her victim impact statement to the court that when she picked up the phone to a detective on the case asking about Guay, her knees buckled.
Shannon Guay, 49, sits in a court room in the 63rd District Court in Kent County Michigan on August 17, 2023 for a preliminary hearing in his criminal sexual conduct case, Aug. 17, 2023 | Anna Liz Nichols
“It was like someone asking me to tear off a 20-year old scab. Long scared over and hidden from most people around me. Opening it up to see just how large that festering wound still was after all this time. Then having to carve some of it out and place it on the table here for all to see,” the woman said.
Guay did not speak at sentencing when given the opportunity. MLive reports Guay rolled his eyes as the women gave their victim impact statements.
Guay had worked at gymnastics, dance and martial arts facilities across West Michigan from the 1990s to 2010s, and everywhere he went he stripped away the innocence of young girls to “make himself feel powerful,” the woman told the court. Guay maintained his innocence throughout the case.
“You are a pedophile, a manipulator, a rapist and monster, and a coward for praying on young innocent girls for your own disgusting gratification,” the woman said.
The woman who made the initial call to the gymnastics gym, the call that opened the investigation into Guay, said in her victim impact statement that in the last year she has learned tools of strength, gaining the confidence she needed to be a full-time student studying social work so that one day she could help traumatized children who have endured her same torment.
“I hope to be a light for those people, to know that they are not alone, and to help them find their lost enduring spirits, as well,” she said.
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