USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal
[5][6][7] Hundreds of them sued USAG, MSU, and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC, later USOPC), which settled the suits in 2018 and 2021 for a total of nearly $900 million.
[11] Coaches and officials perpetrated, facilitated, or worked to conceal abuse in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Rhode Island, Indiana, and elsewhere.
Dozens of officials at USAG, MSU, and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC, later USOPC) ultimately resigned under pressure or were fired.
More than 265 women said Nassar had sexually abused them under the pretense of providing medical treatment,[13] including former USAG national team members Jessica Howard, Jamie Dantzscher, Morgan White, Jeanette Antolin, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Jordyn Wieber, Sabrina Vega, Ashton Locklear, Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Amanda Jetter, Tasha Schwikert, Mattie Larson, Bailie Key, Kennedy Baker, Alyssa Baumann, and Terin Humphrey.
The scandal led to the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, which directed the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
McCabe was charged with molesting gymnasts, secretly videotaping girls changing clothes, and posting their nude images on the Internet.
[23] The investigation drew on interviews and more than 5,600 pages of court records from the McCabe case, released after the Star's Marisa Kwiatkowski requested the documents.
[30] Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, using the #MeToo hashtag on Twitter, stated that Nassar repeatedly molested her, starting in 2008 when she was 13 years old and continuing until she retired from the sport in 2016.
[31] The lawsuit accused USAG of covering up the sexual abuse by paying Maroney a $1.25-million settlement that required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
[37] Former national team member Maggie Nichols accused Nassar of abusing her and documented the ways he groomed her by connecting with her on Facebook and complimenting her appearance on numerous occasions.
[46] In October, Tasha Schwikert, a member of the 2000 US Olympics team, came forward as a victim and claimed that Steve Penny pressed her to publicly support USAG at the height of the Nassar scandal.
[52] Nassar pleaded guilty to three federal child pornography charges on July 11, 2017,[53] and was given three consecutive 20-year prison sentences by U.S. District Judge Janet T. Neff on December 7, 2017.
[34] During his appearance before Judge Rosemarie Aquilina in Ingham County Circuit Court,[57] and under the terms of his plea agreement, Nassar pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct charges with a minimum sentence of 25 to 40 years in prison.
On October 17, 2018, former USAG CEO Steve Penny was arrested on charges of evidence tampering in the Nassar case—specifically, of removing related documents from the Karolyi Ranch gymnastics training facility in Texas.
[84] On December 21, 2021, the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned Klages' conviction after determining that her false statement was "inconsequential, rather than material" to the criminal investigation of whether a MSU employee was complicit or not in allowing Nassar to prey on young athletes.
[11] It also found that top executives at USAG had routinely dismissed sexual abuse allegations against coaches and failed to alert authorities.
[94] In March 2017, Juliet Macur of The New York Times criticized USAG executives for skipping the 2017 congressional hearing on protecting young athletes from sexual abuse, and noted that the organization had not apologized for its role in the scandal.
[98] By year's end, the scandal had cost USAG several of its largest corporate sponsors,[99] including Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's, Under Armour, The Hershey Company,[100][101] and AT&T.
[121][122] On May 1, former national team member Sabrina Vega sued USAG, the USOC, and Béla and Márta Károlyi, claiming they ignored signs about Nassar's behavior or should have known he posed a risk to the gymnasts he treated.
[127] Bono resigned four days later after many people, including Raisman and Biles, criticized her ties to her former law firm, Faegre Baker Daniels, which had helped cover up Nassar's crimes.
A Title IX investigation into the complaint found no violation of policy and Nassar was allowed to continue treating patients under certain agreed-upon restrictions, as stipulated by MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine dean William Strampel.
After mediation ended in the civil lawsuits, MSU's board of trustees voted to establish a $10-million fund to reimburse Nassar's victims for counseling services.
[140] On January 24, 2018, the Michigan House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for a non-binding resolution sponsored by Rep. Adam Zemke that called for the university's board of trustees to fire President Lou Anna Simon if she did not resign.
[145] As a result of the Michigan Attorney General's investigation, in March 2018, Strampel, who oversaw Nassar's clinic while dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, was arrested and charged with felony misconduct in office and criminal sexual conduct for allegedly groping a student and storing nude photos on his computer.
[148] On September 5, 2019, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that MSU would be fined $4.5 million for violating the Clery Act, which involves accurate disclosure and open access to crime statistics and crime prevention policies in colleges and universities that receive federal dollars, after two separate investigations from the Education Department's office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
[150][95] Rick Adams, chief of Paralympic sports for the USOC and head of organizational development for the NGBs, said at the hearing, "We do take responsibility, and we apologize to any young athlete who has ever faced abuse."
Dianne Feinstein, John Thune, and others, introduced a bill to require national governing body members overseeing Olympic sports to immediately report sexual assault allegations to law enforcement or to child-welfare agencies designated by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 2016, FBI agents in Los Angeles began a sexual tourism investigation against Nassar and interviewed several victims but also didn't alert Michigan authorities.
She said that the FBI falsified her statement and that the agents involved should be indicted; she also criticized Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco for not appearing at the hearing.
Raisman testified that the FBI made her feel her "abuse didn't count" and "[I]t was like serving innocent children up to a pedophile on a silver platter."
