DISGRACED DOC
What did Larry Nassar do?
DISGRACED sports doctor Larry Nassar is serving decades in prison for sexually assaulting female athletes in a scandal that counted hundreds of victims and turned USA Gymnastics upside down.
He is currently behind bars after being convicted of several counts of sexual assault during his time with the US gymnastics team.
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Who is Larry Nassar?
Larry Nassar graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in kinesiology in 1985 and joined the USA Gymnastics team's medical staff a year later.
The disgraced doctor also ran a clinic and gymnastics club at Michigan State University.
He abused his position over two decades to grope girls during medical treatment - sometimes in front of their parents.
USA Gymnastics cut ties with Nassar in 2015 and Michigan State fired him in September of the same year.
Nassar admitted to penetrating females with ungloved hands when they visited him for various injuries.
The number of victims who have come forward exceeds 250 and goes back decades.
Nassar, who lost his physician's license in April 2018, admitted his conduct had no legitimate medical purpose and that he did not have the girls' consent.
What did he do?
Olympic champion Simone Biles has shared her experience of abuse from the US gymnastics doctor.
In January 2018, she tweeted: "I too am one of the many survivors that was sexually abused by Larry Nassar.
"Please believe me when I say it was a lot harder to first speak those words out loud than it is now to put them on paper.
"There are many reasons that I have been reluctant to share my story, but I know now it is not my fault."
Nassar groped girls during medical treatment for over two decades of horrifying abuse that he reportedly described as "special treatment".
Simone added: "It is not normal to receive any type of treatment from a trusted team physician and refer to it horrifyingly as the "special" treatment.
Biles, who won four gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, said the more she tried to "shut off the voice in my head the louder it screams."
During an interview discussing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Biles said she was still experiencing trauma after all these years.
She said, "Now that I think about it, maybe in the back of my head, probably, yes, because there are certain triggers. You don't even know, and I think it could have."
"I knew that still being the face of gymnastics and the USA and everything we brought, it's not going to be buried under the rug, and it will still be a very big conversation," she said.
At one point, the world star athlete said she would sleep for ages because "sleeping was better than offing myself."
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Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Gabby Douglas are also among the women who publicly said they were among Nassar's victims.
"You used your position of trust ... in the most vile way to abuse children," Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told Nassar after his plea.
"I agree that now is a time of healing, but it may take them a lifetime of healing while you spend your lifetime behind bars thinking about what you did in taking away their childhood."
She called the victims "superheroes for all of America, because this is an epidemic."
They had testified that Nassar molested them with his hands, sometimes when a parent was present in the room, while they sought help for gymnastics injuries.
On September 15, 2021, Biles, Raisman, Maroney, and gymnast Maggie Nichols testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Nassar and the FBI's investigation into the case.
The hearing was held to probe the FBI's investigation into Nassar and its missteps. Biles said, "I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse."
Maroney said the FBI "minimized and disregarded" her after she reported Nassar.
Raisman said, "My main concern is, I hope I have the energy even to just walk out of here. I don't think you realize how much it affects us, how much the PTSD, how much the trauma impacts us. For every survivor it's different."
FBI Director Christopher Wray was also at the hearing and said he was "deeply and profoundly sorry" to the female athletes.
"I'm sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again," Wray said at the hearing.
The criminal cases against Nassar followed reports from 2017 in The Indianapolis Star about how USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, mishandled complaints about sexual misconduct involving the doctor and coaches.
Women and girls said the stories inspired them to step forward with detailed allegations of abuse.
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Many of the accusers have sued Michigan State, USA Gymnastics, and the US Olympic Committee.
Gymnast Jacob Moore laid bare the effect of his abuse at the hands of Nassar in a tell-all interview.
More than 250 have already come forward as victims but Jacob, who says he hopes Nassar "rots in hell", is the first male.
Court papers state that Jacob was taken down to the cellar and had his pants ripped down by Nassar, who stuck acupuncture needles in his genitals.
"I wasn't a dumb kid," "I knew kind of what medical practices were and that one was out of the ordinary."
On April 23, 2024, the US Justice Department reached a $138.7 million settlement with Nassar's victims.
Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said, "FBI failed to conduct an adequate investigation of Nassar’s conduct," when announcing the settlement.
What was Larry Nassar's sentence?
In January 2018, Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually assaulting scores of young women.
He pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting 125 girls and women between 1998 and 2015.
The number of alleged victims who have come forward exceeds 250.
A month earlier he was given a 60-year sentence for possessing child pornography after being found with 37,000 images of child pornography.
On February 5, Nassar was sentenced to an additional 40 to 125 years in jail for a further three sex offences - a total of up to 360 years in jail.
Speaking in Eaton County, Michigan, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told him she had "just signed his death warrant" because he "did not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again."
Former US gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar pleads guilty to multiple charges of sexual abuse
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