New Delhi: After a years-long battle by US women gymnasts, the country’s Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it would pay $138.7 million to the sexual abuse victims of disgraced national gymnastics team doctor Larry G. Nassar.
Nassar had been accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls, some as young as eight, while working with athletes at USA Gymnastics, Michigan State University, local teams and high schools.
In a 2022 lawsuit, Nassar’s victims alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to promptly investigate allegations against the doctor, who, it was later revealed, had “sexually assaulted hundreds of women and girls under the guise of examinations and treatment”. US national team athletes had first complained to the FBI’s Indianapolis field office in 2015, but senior officers admitted years later that they did not act on time.
The details of the agreement, which covers 139 claims, were ironed out late last year, according to a report in The New York Times. “Lawyers on both sides have spent months determining the specific payouts, which vary based on the abuse claims, but amount to around $1 million per woman or girl, according to two people familiar with the discussions,” the report said.
The report stated that the settlement “also reflects public recognition that the institutions entrusted to protect young female athletes failed to protect them”.
Many of Nassar’s victims have gone through mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and several have attempted suicide, according to the NYT. One has taken her life since.
Some of the feted gymnasts who fought in court included Olympic gold medalists such as Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman.
Once a world-renowned sports physician treating America’s top women gymnasts, Nassar is currently serving up to 175 years in prison for sexual assault. In July last year, he was stabbed by an inmate multiple times. He suffered a collapsed lung but survived his injuries.
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‘Too little, too late’
While lawyers for the young women lauded the settlement, they termed the government’s monetary compensation for its early reluctance to fully investigate Nassar “as a case of too little, too late”.
One of the lawyers, Mick Grewal, was quoted as saying that these women were assaulted because of the FBI’s “failure” and that there was “no amount of money that would make them whole again”. Grewal represented 44 claimants, including one who died by suicide. He told NYT that the claimants’ goal to fight it out in court was to make sure that such a thing never happened again.
Another lawyer, John Manly, who represented 34 victims, said that “every survivor that I know would have traded all of their money for this not to have happened to them”. He said that even though the FBI had shown a commitment of settling the matter from the beginning, he was troubled by FBI’s then director James B. Comey’s silence on it.
One of the victims, Alexis Hazen, was abused by Nassar from age 12 to 18, according to NYT. She reported the abuse in 2016 and is now 26 years old.
The NYT report said that a 2021 report by the justice department’s inspector general found that senior FBI officials in the Indianapolis field office had failed to respond to the allegations “with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required”. It added the investigation did not proceed till the media detailed Nassar’s abuse.
The justice department’s settlement brings the total civil payouts associated with Nassar to about 1 billion USD.
(Edited by:Tikli Basu)
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