New Delhi: Disgraced American physician Larry Nassar went behind bars in 2017 after he was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of female gymnasts during his 18-year long career as team doctor of the US women’s national gymnastics team. Some of his victims included Olympic gold medallists like Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman, while others were as young as eight years old.
In what appeared to be an admission of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) negligence regarding the case, the US government said Tuesday that it would pay $139 million to victims of the doctor.
This settlement is over and above the $500 million that Michigan State University agreed to pay in 2018 — $425 million for more than 300 women and girls who were sexually abused by Nassar, and $75 million to be set aside for future claimants. This was one of the largest settlements ever recorded for victims of sexual abuse.
In 2021, USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee had also agreed to Nassar’s victims $380 million.
The latest settlement comes in a separate lawsuit filed by Nassar’s victims in 2022 alleging that the FBI failed to promptly investigate allegations against the doctor despite them having complained to the agency’s Indianapolis field office in 2015. Senior officers of FBI Indianapolis later admitted that they did not act in time.
Sixty-year-old Nassar is currently serving time at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
He has been sentenced to a maximum of 360 years in prison not just for the sexual assault of minors, but also for the possession of child pornography, to which he has admitted. In 2016, when the case was ongoing, an FBI agent testified in court that investigators had found at least 37,000 images and videos of child pornography during a search of Nassar’s home.
Who is Larry Nassar?
Nassar was born in 1963 in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to parents of Lebanese descent. Little is known of his upbringing except that his family was Christian and they frequented the St Fabian Catholic Church in Farmington Hills.
Nassar was also seen bringing a bible into the courtroom while the case was ongoing.
Nassar obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and then a medical degree in osteopathic medicine from Michigan State University in 1993. He began working with gymnasts as early as 1978, as a student athletic trainer at North Farmington High School.
In 1986, he joined the USA Gymnastics national team’s medical staff as an athletic trainer. Ten years later, Nassar completed his medical residency at St. Lawrence Hospital in Lancing, Michigan and was appointed as the national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics. In 1997, he officially became a team physician and professor at Michigan State. It was during this time that female athletes said they began to complain to authorities about Nassar’s behaviour. Later it would be revealed that he was sexually abusing young athletes under the guise of medical treatment.
Nassar married Stephanie Lynn Anderson in 1996. They went on to have three children, one of whom is autistic. Stephanie divorced Nassar in 2017, in the wake of the sexual assault case, and received full custody of her three children.
Nassar is alleged to have sexually assaulted Kyle Stephens, the daughter of a family that was friends with the Nassars. While speaking to NPR in 2018, Stephens said Nassar abused her in his basement when she was as young as six and the abuse continued for many years.
“Larry would come downstairs and ask us [Stephens and her brother] if we wanted to play hide-and-go-seek to basically get us separated. My brother probably spent a lot of time hiding,” she told NPR.
When they watched TV, he would put a blanket over the young girl and abuse her beneath it “with my brother sitting next to us”, she added.
Who receives the $139 million settlement?
This week, the US Department of Justice agreed to pay $138.7 million to Nassar’s victims. The New York Times called it a “far-reaching settlement”.
The lawsuit covers 139 claims made by female athletes and the settlement is to be distributed among claimants.
“For decades, Lawrence Nassar abused his position, betraying the trust of those under his care and medical supervision while skirting accountability,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer. “These allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset. While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing.”
Also read: The Larry Nassar case — how US gymnastics team doctor abused over 150 gymnasts for years