Federal police have failed in their sexual assault investigation of team doctor Larry Nassar. The latest demands from the gymnasts are out of the ordinary, even by American standards.
Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman and Maggie Nichols (from left) before the Senate Committee.
When Simone Biles told a Senate hearing in Washington last September how officials had dealt with repeated allegations by young gymnasts, she had to hold back her tears.
Certainly, Biles said, the perpetrator was a lone man, team doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually assaulted her and hundreds of other gymnasts. But she also blames “a whole system that made its abuse possible”. The US Gymnastics Federation and the National Olympic Committee, which failed to act, were assisted by the FBI, which was called in and “turned a blind eye” and also remained inactive.
Internal investigation clearly documents misconduct
The statements from Biles and her former teammates McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman and Maggie Nichols painted a damning picture of the FBI. The federal police not only sloppy in their own investigations against Nassar, but also contributed to the fact that he was able to abuse other victims for more than a year before he was finally arrested.
The accusations were not unfounded. An internal investigation had clearly documented the misconduct of the investigators. This was confirmed by FBI Director Chris Wray, who revealed on the occasion that they even fired an employee who falsified details of Maroney’s 2015 abuse testimony.
Larry Nassar in court in February 2018.
Since then, the four-time Olympic champion and 19-time world champion Simone Biles and numerous other gymnasts, together with their lawyers, have compiled the relevant information on the failure of the federal police. In April, 13 athletes, most of them anonymous, filed a lawsuit in Lansing, Michigan, seeking $130 million in damages.
Another group followed Wednesday: 90 gymnasts, led by Biles, Raisman and Maroney, are seeking a total of $1 billion in reparations from the FBI.
Under current law, a US federal agency has six months to respond to lawsuits like this one before the matter goes to court. The response is also likely to provide clues as to why the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, announced in May that it would not prosecute former FBI agents who failed to conduct a prompt investigation.
After reporting nothing happened
The US gymnastics association based in Indianapolis had already informed the local FBI branch in 2015 that three young gymnasts had complained internally about Nassar’s abusive behavior. However, nothing happened. No investigation was initiated, nor were other authorities in Michigan informed, which would have had primary responsibility for prosecuting such crimes in the US’s dual legal system at the state level.
Even FBI agents from Los Angeles, who opened a file in 2016 because Nassar was suspected of illegal sex tourism, did not alert anyone in Michigan to further investigate the allegations in Nassar’s private environment.
The doctor, who at the time worked full-time at the University of Michigan State and only looked after the women’s national team on the side, was only arrested in the fall of 2016 when new allegations surfaced. Both the Michigan Attorney General’s Office and federal prosecutors in Grand Rapids intervened, initially prosecuting Nassar for child pornography. The police found more than 30,000 photos and videos on his computer. This was followed by the trial for abusing hundreds of underage gymnasts, in which he was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison in January 2018.
A commitment that signaled shared responsibility
FBI Director Wray, who has only been in office since 2017, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last September: “I’m particularly sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster in 2015 and failed to have. That is inexcusable.” A commitment that signaled the joint responsibility of his authority.
However, the most recent claims for damages by the gymnasts are out of the ordinary, even by American standards. The University of Michigan State was forced to pay a total of $500 million to more than 300 Nassar victims for breach of its duty of care. The Gymnastics Federation and the National Olympic Committee had reached a $380 million settlement with those affected.