Jury acquits ex-Plymouth gymnastics coach of touching girls inappropriately

A gymnastics instructor has been found not guilty of criminal sexual conduct charges filed last fall that accused him of touching girls inappropriately at a Plymouth gymnastics academy.

A jury acquitted Gergely Deli, 38, of Rockford, on Sept. 1 of all three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct after an eight-day trial in Hennepin County District Court.

Deli's life will likely never be the same, said his attorney, Deborah Ellis.

"It's like being a leper. Did people really presume him innocent? No, it's a presumption of guilt based on the nature of the charges," Ellis said. "He's still recovering from this. It's very traumatic, and it's going to take him a while to get his legs back."

Hennepin County attorney's office spokesman Chuck Laszewski said, "We believe the facts justified the charges, and we respect the job the jury did, although we disagree with their decision."

Deli is no longer working as a gymnastics coach. After the charges were filed, his family, who emigrated from Hungary, lost their business, Plymouth-based Olympic Gymnastics Academy, Ellis said.

Deli was charged in October 2010, when prosecutors alleged that he touched the girls under their leotards during practice. A fellow instructor claimed to have seen Deli touch a girl's vagina over her clothes as she stretched and confronted him about it. He allegedly attributed the incident to a struggle with carpal tunnel syndrome.

"I don't think so," he said, adding that as a father, he could understand a parent's concerns about the allegations. "Better not mess with my daughters."

Key evidence in the case was testimony and videotaped interviews with the five girls at CornerHouse, a nonprofit that works with allegedly abused children. Ellis said what the girls said in the videotaped interviews did not implicate Deli with molesting them. One, for instance, said she was touched in her navel area, but not sexually.

Ellis said when the jury came back after few hours of deliberation and announced its verdicts, Deli dropped his head to the counsel table and sobbed uncontrollably.

"It was an enormous sense of relief for him," she said.