Gymnasts he abused are telling their stories. They condemn more than just the doctor.
Megan Halicek went to Dr. Larry Nassar as a 15-year-old gymnast suffering from a fractured spine. But during what was supposed to be a routine appointment, Nassar assaulted her: “Again and again and again,” Halicek testified in court last week, “he abused me, all the while telling me stories about his Olympic journey.”
“I closed my eyes tight, I held my breath, and I wanted to puke,” she recalled . “To this day, those feelings are still there.”
Halicek is one of more than 150 women who came forward with harrowing testimony at the sentencing hearing for Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics and sports medicine physician at Michigan State University who has pleaded guilty to charges of criminal sexual conduct and child pornography.
On Wednesday, after seven days of survivors’ statements, a judge sentenced Nassar up to 175 years in prison for his crimes. “I just signed your death warrant,” Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said upon delivering the sentence. The former doctor has already been sentenced to 60 years on federal child pornography charges.
Nassar read his own apology letter to the court before his sentencing. Nassar, at one point turning to face the gallery, said the victims’ words had shaken him to his core. ”There are no words that can describe the depth and breadth of how sorry I am for what has occurred,” he said.
Judge Aquilina, however, wasn’t moved. She read aloud a letter Nassar had submitted to the court during his hearing, in which he complained about the length of the survivors’ testimony, deriding it as a media circus, and accusing the survivors of fabricating their testimony. The courtroom gave a collective gasp after the judge read Nassar’s words: “Hell hath no fury like a women scorned.”
“It is my honor and privilege to sentence you,” the judge told Nassar. “You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again. You have done nothing to control those urges and anywhere you walk, destruction will occur to those most vulnerable.”
Nassar will still face one more sentencing hearing at the end of this month, though, as the judge made clear on Wednesday, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. His punishment concludes nearly seven days of survivors’ statements, who recounted, sometimes through tears, their encounters with Nassar. Originally, about 100 women were expected to testify in four days — but, by the end, more than 150 spoke in court, or had prosecutors read their statements.
Among the victims are decorated US Olympians, including Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and Simone Biles. But the majority were not famous competitors. They were students and young female athletes — gymnasts, dancers, and volleyball players. Nassar’s reputation as a well-connected, talented doctor won their trust. It also helped secure their silence.
Nassar’s sentencing comes amid a larger reckoning about sexual assault and harassment in all arenas, from Hollywood to hotel rooms — and the people in power negligent or complicit in protecting those perpetrators.
Even given the headlines of the past few months, the Nassar case is shocking. First, there’s the number of known victims: More than 160 have come forward, which, as HuffPost’s Alanna Vagianos writes, represents “nearly as many victims as the Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein scandals combined.”
Many of the victims were minors, sometimes abused with their parents in the room while they were medically examined. There is evidence that Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, the two elite institutions associated with Nassar, were slow to act on reports that he was abusing girls and young women.
Here’s what we know about the case against Nassar, where it stands now, and why elite gymnasts may have ended up particularly vulnerable.
Nassar practiced at the very top tier with some of the most elite American gymnasts. In 1986, he began working with USA Gymnastics, the governing body that selects Olympic teams, as an athletic trainer. After he went to medical school at Michigan State University, he became the chief medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics in 1996. At photos taken at the 1996 Olympics, he’s pictured next to American gymnast Kerri Strug after her famous ankle injury, and he attended the games in Sydney in 2000, Beijing in 2008, and London in 2012.
He was also part of the faculty at Michigan State, where he had taught and practiced medicine since 1997 — meaning he wasn’t only a renowned sports physician but also part of an academic institution.
Then in September 2015, Nassar abruptly retired from USA Gymnastics with little fanfare. (He’d stepped down from his chief medical coordinator position but had originally planned to stay on as the team doctor for the 2016 Olympics.)
A year later, a flood of sexual assault allegations began to explain why.
In 2016, the Indianapolis Star ran a scathing exposé on USA Gymnastics’ systematic failure to protect young athletes from sexual abuse and to report allegations against coaches to authorities. It opened the floodgates and eventually led to dozens of allegations against the physician.
The initial article focused on coaches and did not name Nassar, but Rachael Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, reached out to the publication with her own story of abuse and filed a criminal complaint with the Michigan State University police. In it, she alleged that Nassar had sexually abused her in 2000, when she was 15.
Denhollander had sought treatment from Nassar for lower back pain at his sports treatment clinic at MSU, and she alleged that the doctor, without gloves, digitally penetrated her vagina and anus, and at another visit unhooked her bra and massaged her bare breasts with a “visible erection.”
“He’s the type of person who knows how to make you want to trust him,” Denhollander told the Indy Star in the September 2016 story . “There’s a reason he’s risen to this place of prominence. And honestly, part of what grieves me so much is that he has everything he needs to be an incredible leader. He has the personality, he has the skill, he has the knowledge, and he’s using that to prey on people. What a waste.”
Around the same time, “Jane Doe” (who later identified herself as Jamie Dantzscher, who competed with Team USA in 2000 at the Sydney Games), filed a civil suit in California against Nassar, alleging that he abused her repeatedly between 1994 and 2000.
Dozens of allegations followed, all similar, about a trusted doctor who offered relief only to molest them under the guise of treatment.
“For years, Mr. Nassar convinced me that he was the only person who could help me recover from multiple serious injuries. To me, he was like a knight [in] shining armor,” Alexis Moore, who said Nassar molested her starting when she was 9, said in court last week. “But alas, that shine blinded me from the abuse. He betrayed my trust, took advantage of my youth and sexually abused me hundreds of times.”
Eventually, 125 women filed criminal complaints with police, and more than 140 people have filed civil suits against the doctor and the institutions that employed him for so long, most notably USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. Some of the victims say coaches and administrators were aware of complaints against Nassar, but no actions were taken against him.
The victims, all women, include notable US Olympians. Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber, four members of the “Fierce Five” 2012 gold medal-winning team stated publicly that Nassar sexually abused them. Wieber came forward for the first time this Friday. Simone Biles, one of the most decorated gymnasts of all time, just said this week that Nassar abused her too.
Nassar’s victims said the doctor cannily won over their trust, making them feel special or privileged because of his position with USA Gymnastics. He operated in a sport where injuries can end careers, and young athletes deferred to his authority. Even Olympic athletes were told to feel grateful for Nassar’s care; Raisman said an official with USA Gymnastics told her she should feel lucky for his treatment because he was such a good doctor.
Victims testified that he gave them gifts, offering trinkets from his Olympic travels. He was also outwardly supportive, and kind to many of those he abused. “He was always, always on my side,” Raisman told Time magazine . “He was always that person who would stick up for me and make me feel like he had my back. The more I think about it, the more I realize how twisted he was, how he manipulated me to make me think that he had my back when he didn’t.”
Nassar, after initially denying the allegations of abuse and defending vaginal penetration as part of his medical treatment, pleaded guilty in two Michigan counties to a total of 10 counts of criminal sexual assault. The cases all involve women or girls who were assaulted by Nassar during the course of a medical examination, except one girl — a family friend of Nassar’s whom he abused for six years, between the ages of 6 and 12.
In addition to the charges in Michigan, federal prosecutors charged Nassar in December 2016 with possession of child pornography, saying that the doctor had about 37,000 explicit images in his possession. Investigators discovered this cache while executing a search warrant related to an investigation into sex abuse allegations against Nassar, which stemmed from his work with USA Gymnastics.
Nassar ultimately agreed to plead guilty in July to the possession of child porn, but as part of the deal, he avoided the more serious federal sex abuse charges, which ESPN reported included allegations that he molested children in his home, in his pool, and during “interstate/international travel.” A judge sentenced him to 60 years in prison — the maximum prosecutors had asked for — last month. The sentencing this week is for the criminal sexual abuse charges.
As in other recent sexual abuse scandals (involving retired football coach Jerry Sandusky at Penn State and within the Catholic Church, among others), a big question is what the institutions involved knew and when they knew it.
Current and former members of USA Gymnastics have delivered scathing criticisms of the organization for its handling of Nassar. Dozens of members are suing the organization for negligence; a handful of lawsuits have also named famed US gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi, who ran the training center in Texas where elite gymnasts trained. (USA Gymnastics ended its relationship with the Karolyis last week.)
On Friday, prompted by a scathing letter from the US Olympic Committee, the entire board of USA Gymnastics agreed to resign. Three members of the USA Gymnastics board of directors had already stepped down amid pressure this week, including chair Paul Parilla and vice chair Jay Binder.
Until now, just Steve Penny, the CEO of USA Gymnastics for more than 10 years, was the only person to lose his job. He resigned in March 2017 as the scandal unfolded. (He was also named in several lawsuits.)
USA Gymnastics heard about allegations against Nasser in June 2015, according to the Indianapolis Star:
But the organization waited five weeks to contact law enforcement officials about the incident, justifying the delay by saying it had conducted its own independent review.
