Nadia Recasts Her Former Patron as a Jailer and Thief

NEW YORK — Nadia Comaneci, the gymnastics darling of the 1976 Olympics, said the man who helped her flee Romania last year, far from being her lover, kept her prisoner in the United States, beat her regularly and cheated her of $150,000 in income.

Comaneci said the ordeal lasted three months and took her on a harrowing journey through Florida, California, New York and Canada. She said that shortly after arriving in the United States, she was locked in hotel rooms and a Los Angeles apartment and was not even allowed to answer the telephone.

Comaneci, 29, said Constantin Panait had taken her earnings from interviews and magazine layouts and returned with his wife and children to his native Romania.

“I am not a scandal person,” she said. “This is not my image.”