Larry Nassar

• 1. Introduction

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  Larry Nassar, whose full name is Lawrence Gerard Nassar, was born on the 16th of August 1963 and trained as an osteopathic physician. For decades, parents and athletes trusted him with the care of young bodies. In 2016, after an eight-month investigation, he was arrested and charged with assaulting at least 265 young women and girls over a 22-year period. All of it happened under the guise of medical treatment. Many of his victims were Olympic and national team gymnasts, and the fallout is described as the largest sexual abuse scandal in sports history. How did a doctor in the middle of American gymnastics operate for so long? Who tried to raise the alarm, and why did those warnings stall? And what happened when survivors were finally given a courtroom and the time to speak?

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• 2. Path To Prominence

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  In 1978, a 15-year-old named Larry Nassar began work as a student athletic trainer for the women's gymnastics team at North Farmington High School. His older brother Mike, an athletic trainer at the school, had recommended him. Nassar was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to a Catholic Lebanese-American family. He graduated from the school in 1981, then studied kinesiology at the University of Michigan. He earned his degree there in 1985 and worked with the football and track and field teams along the way.

  A year after that degree, in 1986, Nassar started working as an athletic trainer for the USA Gymnastics national team. In 1988, he began working with John Geddert at Twistars, a gymnastics training club. In 1993, he graduated as a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He then did his family practice residency at St. Lawrence Hospital and finished a sports medicine fellowship in 1997.

  The year 1996 brought him two new roles. He became team doctor at Holt High School, and he became national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics, a post he held until 2014. He also served as a team doctor for the United States women's national gymnastics team from 1996 to 2014. In 1997, he joined Michigan State University as a team physician under William Strampel. The same year he became an assistant professor in its College of Osteopathic Medicine, earning $100,000 a year. He is listed as a co-author on at least six research papers about treating gymnastics injuries.

  Since 2001, the Karolyi Ranch near Huntsville, Texas, had served as the designated training center for the national women's gymnasts. Nassar worked there without a Texas medical license. Practicing medicine without one is a third-degree felony in Texas, though it is rarely prosecuted. According to gymnast McKayla Maroney, that ranch was where he molested young women for more than 15 years.

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• 3. Trust And Silence

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  In victim impact statements that began in May 2017, several victims described the same pattern. Nassar first won a girl's trust and friendship. Then, during physical therapy, he carried out an invasive act without gloves and called it normal "pressure point" therapy for pain relief. On some of these occasions a parent was in the room, unaware of what was happening.

  Maggie Nichols described how the trust was built. Nassar connected with her on Facebook and complimented her appearance many times. She later said, "I was only 15 and I just thought he was trying to be nice to me. Now I believe this was part of the grooming process."

  In February 2017, three former gymnasts named Jeanette Antolin, Jessica Howard, and Jamie Dantzscher gave an interview to 60 Minutes. They said Nassar had abused them, and they pointed to the "emotionally abusive environment" at the national team camps run by Béla and Márta Károlyi. In their view, that atmosphere gave Nassar his opening and made gymnasts afraid to speak. Those fears raise a question the records answer in part: who was told, and when?

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• 4. Warnings Unheeded

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  Some female athletes say they complained to authorities, including employees at Michigan State University, about Nassar as early as 1997. A few say abuse had already begun in 1994. Yet USA Gymnastics did not act against him until 2015.

  On the 17th of June 2015, Maggie Nichols and her coach, Sarah Jantzi, reported Nassar to USA Gymnastics officials. The coach had overheard Nichols and another gymnast talking about his behavior.

  Michigan State reassigned Nassar from his clinical and teaching duties in August 2016. On the 20th of September 2016, The Indianapolis Star reported that Rachael Denhollander and another former gymnast had accused him of sexual abuse. The university terminated his contract that same day. USA Gymnastics dismissed him in September 2016, citing "athlete concerns".

  On the 15th of September 2021, four elite gymnasts testified before the U.S. Senate: McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman. They described how FBI agents mishandled the abuse reports and made false statements about them. Maroney said an agent responded with silence after she described the molestations in extreme detail. She also said the FBI falsified her statement and that the agents should be indicted. Raisman said the bureau made her feel that the "abuse didn't count" and that it "was like serving innocent children up to a pedophile on a silver platter." FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told the gymnasts he was "deeply and profoundly sorry that so many people let you down over and over again."

  A Department of Justice Inspector General report by Michael Horowitz, issued in July 2021, put a number on the delay. At least 70 more athletes were abused between the reports to the FBI and Nassar's arrest by state authorities. Victims said the figure was 120. In April 2022-13 victims sued the FBI for negligence and other alleged failures in the investigation. The suit was settled in 2024 for $138.7 million.

  Long before any of that, individual survivors had begun to speak publicly. Among the first to put her name to an accusation was Rachael Denhollander, who would soon repeat it under oath.

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• 5. Voices Break Through

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  In May 2017, Rachael Denhollander told a court that Nassar had sexually abused her during five doctor's visits in 2000. She was 15 years old at the time.

  In October 2017, Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney used the #MeToo hashtag on Twitter to say Nassar had molested her repeatedly. She said it began in 2008, when she was 13, and continued until she retired from the sport in 2016. She later sued Nassar, Michigan State University, the United States Olympic Committee, and USA Gymnastics. Her suit accused USA Gymnastics of a cover-up, because it had required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of a $1.25 million settlement. Her attorney, John Manly, called Nassar a "pedophile doctor".

  In November 2017, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman told 60 Minutes that Nassar had abused her when she was 15. Soon afterward, Gabby Douglas posted a tweet saying that "dressing in a provocative/sexual way incites the wrong crowd." Her teammate Simone Biles and others criticized it, reading it as a rebuke of Raisman and as "victim-shaming". Douglas apologized and said she, too, was a victim of Nassar's abuse.

  In January 2018, Simone Biles came forward with her own account of abuse by Nassar. That month Jordyn Wieber also spoke at his sentencing hearing, accusing him of abusing her during her time with USA Gymnastics. She described the effects on her life. Her words landed as Nassar's cases moved through three separate courts.

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• 6. Charges And Sentences

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  On the 22nd of November 2016, Nassar was indicted on state charges of sexually assaulting children between 1998 and 2005. The crimes allegedly began when one victim was six years old. He faced 22 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with minors: 15 in Ingham County and seven in neighboring Eaton County. The allegations involved seven girls whom he had molested under the guise of treatment, both at his home and at a clinic on the Michigan State campus. Bail was set at $1 million, and he walked out of jail the same day after posting bond. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on the 8th of December 2016.

  On the 16th of December 2016, he was arrested again after the FBI found more than 37,000 images of child pornography and a video of Nassar molesting underage girls. This time bail was denied. His medical license was revoked for three years on the 6th of April 2017.

  Nassar's home life came apart as well. He had been married to Stefanie since 1996, and they had three children. He lived in Holt, Michigan, when he was arrested in November 2016. The couple separated after his arrest, and in July 2017 she was granted a divorce and full custody of the children.

  On the 11th of July 2017, Nassar pleaded guilty in federal court to receiving child pornography in 2004. He also admitted possessing such images from 2004 to 2016 and tampering with evidence by destroying and concealing them. On the 7th of December 2017, Judge Janet T. Neff sentenced him to 60 years in federal prison, in three consecutive 20-year terms. Lifetime supervised release would follow.

  On the 22nd of November 2017, he pleaded guilty in Ingham County Circuit Court to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with minors under 16. He admitted molesting seven girls, three of them under 13. On the 29th of November he pleaded guilty to three more counts in Eaton County. By the 18th of January 2018, 135 women had accused Nassar of assault during his time with USA Gymnastics and Michigan State. The following week the number rose to 150. A lawsuit filed in April 2017 even claimed he had assaulted a woman in 1992, while he was in medical school.

  On the 24th of January 2018, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina of Ingham County sentenced him to a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 175 years. She allowed his accusers extended victim impact statements and dismissed his objections to that decision. She told him he had missed many chances to get treatment, since he had known about his urges from a young age. She said dozens of additional victims likely had not come forward, and she made clear he would never be free again. Lifetime registration as a Michigan sex offender was added, though that part was symbolic.

  On the 2nd of February 2018, during victim impact statements in Eaton County, Randall Margraves, the father of three victims, asked Judge Janice Cunningham for five minutes alone with Nassar in a locked room. She said no. Margraves charged at Nassar anyway, and three deputies and a plainclothes officer pinned him down. He was not charged with contempt of court.

  On the 5th of February 2018, Cunningham sentenced Nassar to a minimum of 40 and a maximum of 125 years for the three Eaton County counts. Nassar apologized and said the strong effect of his victims' statements "pales in comparison" to the suffering he caused. Cunningham still found him "in denial" about the "devastating impact" of his crimes. Aquilina doubted his remorse too. She cited a letter he had written days earlier, asking not to hear the statements, in which he wrote, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

  The Eaton sentence runs concurrently with the Ingham one. Both state sentences begin only after the federal term ends, because Judge Neff ordered them to run consecutively. Where Nassar would serve those years soon became a problem of its own.

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• 7. Prison Years

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  After his sentencing, Nassar spent time in the Eaton County jail and at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. In February 2018, he was moved to the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona. His lawyers said he was assaulted almost as soon as he entered the general population there. An investigation concluded that he could not be held safely at Tucson. In August 2018, he went to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, and then to the United States Penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.

  On the 9th of July 2023, Nassar was stabbed 10 times at Coleman II. The attack was allegedly provoked by lewd remarks he made while watching the 2023 Wimbledon Championships. He was stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the back, and six times in the chest, which left him with a collapsed lung. Four other inmates pulled the assailant, 49-year-old Shane McMillan, off him. Officers from the Bureau of Prisons performed life-saving measures. After hospital treatment, Nassar was moved to the Federal Correctional Institution in Lewisburg, a medium-security prison in Pennsylvania, where he is serving his sentence.

  Federal inmates must serve at least 85 percent of a sentence before earning time off for good behavior. As a result, Nassar is not eligible for release until the 30th of January 2068, when he would be 104 years old. In the unlikely event that he is still alive, he would go straight to a Michigan state prison to begin his two state sentences.

  In late July 2018, he asked for a new sentencing hearing, claiming Judge Aquilina was biased against him. Eaton County Judge Janice Cunningham denied the request. In 2020, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected his request for a sentencing hearing on the Ingham County charges, along with the bias claim. Outside the prison walls, meanwhile, the institutions that employed him were facing consequences of their own.

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• 8. Institutions Held Accountable

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  By 2018, more than 150 federal and state lawsuits had been filed against Nassar, Michigan State University, the US Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, and the Twistars Gymnastics Club. The entire 18-member board of USA Gymnastics, including Steve Penny, resigned. Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon and Athletic Director Mark Hollis also resigned, and other university officials came under scrutiny.

  Comparisons to Jerry Sandusky's crimes at Penn State came quickly. In both cases, institutional authorities "turned the other way" or tried to hide the activities of a child molester instead of immediately calling law enforcement.

  On the 18th of July 2018, more than 140 victims stood together on stage at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles to receive the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the ESPY Awards. Gymnasts Sarah Klein and Aly Raisman and softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez accepted on everyone's behalf. Klein said she had been Nassar's first victim, 30 years earlier. They thanked lead detective Andrea Munford of the Michigan State University police, former assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis, and Judge Rosemarie Aquilina. Aquilina attended, and the singer MILCK performed "Quiet", a song she wrote from her own experience of sexual abuse.

  Filmmakers took up the story as well. In 2019, HBO released At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal, about the abuse and the cover-ups by the institutions he worked with. In 2020, Netflix released the documentary Athlete A, in which Nassar is a central figure.

  In January 2018, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette promised a full investigation into how Nassar abused young women for decades at the state's university. Michigan State agreed to pay $500 million to 332 alleged victims, the largest sum a university has ever paid to settle a sexual abuse case. On Christmas Eve 2019, Schuette's successor, Dana Nessel, announced she was suspending the investigation. The question of how it all went on for decades at a state university therefore never got the full state inquiry that Schuette had promised.

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