The Larry Nassar Case

Larry Nassar was a well-known trainer for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University who treated and cared for young athletes for decades. Years passed and allegations arose from a list of women stating he violated them sexually under medical treatment. Nassar attended the Summer Olympics with USA Gymnastics from 1996-2008 and has been found guilty of criminal sexual assault and child pornography. In the months that followed, multiple women filed lawsuits against Nassar and the companies he was working for at the time.

The allegations against him, abuse, and court cases are still an ongoing thing till this day. 1978-2004 (Personal Life)Lawrence Gerard Nassar born August 16, 1963, age 55 he lived in Farmington Hills, Michigan started his career as a student athletic trainer with the women’s gymnastics team while attending North Farming High School in suburban Detroit due to his older brother being a trainer at school. In 1981 Nassar had graduated from North Farmington High School. After high school he attended the University of Michigan to study kinesiology and later received his degree in 1985. During his time in college he worked with the football and track teams. Twelve years later he married and conceived two children and a son. A divorce was filed and Stephanie Lynn Anderson got full custody of the three children during Nassar’s arrest.

2005-2017 (Medical/Gymnastics Career)

Nassar started working for the United States Gymnastics national team in 1986. Nassar then teams up with John and Kathryn Geddert in 1988, who open Twistars USA Gymnastics Club in Dimondale, Michigan. While he is enrolled in a master’s degree program at Wayne State University, Larry is a graduate assistant athletic trainer for the time being. He then drops out after he is accepted to the medical school at Michigan State University. As a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine he graduated in 1993 from Michigan State University to complete his training at St. Lawrence Hospital for family practice. Nassar then started working for Michigan State’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. A gymnast later became an Olympic medalist alleges Nassar of abusing her in 1994 according to a 2016 lawsuit that had been going on for six years. From there he was the team doctor for Holt High School in 1996, along with being the national medical coordinator for USA. In 1997 he becomes a team physician at MSU and a parent has concerns but Geddert does not notify the police according to a 2017 lawsuit.

Sexual Assault and Convictions

In the year of 2015, Larry Nassar and the USA Gymnastics parted ways after the concerns and allegations with student athletes. The year of 2016, former gymnast Rachael Denhollander accused Nassar of sex abuse. During September, Michigan State fired him and later reassigned from teaching and clinical duties. The following year of 2017, there were three former gymnasts that had gotten interviewed where they stated they had been put in an abusive environment. The camp that they were at was not safe and was a place for Nassar to take advantage of the gymnasts. They were afraid to speak up until May of 2017 when Rachael stated Nassar was sexually abused when she was only 15 years old on five doctor visits back in 2000. Nassar passing as a doctor was known in headlines “When you’re a star doctor, you can do anything” (Los Angeles Times, 2018) and he did just that by hushing and deceiving his victims.

There was a lawsuit that was filed which accused the USA Gymnastics of hiding the abuse by paying Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney $1. 25 million dollars.

In the month of November of 2016, Larry Nassar was charged for sexual assault of a child from 1998-2005 from the state court. The crimes started when he was six years old, being charged with 22 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with minors. During his arrest in December of 2016, a total of 37,000 child pornography images were found along with a video of Nassar molesting underage girls from the FBI. On July, 2017, he pleaded guilty and admitted of these criminal offenses while he worked for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. The Ingham County Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said “I just signed your death warrant, “sentenced Nassar to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexual assault. As a result, he will be serving a minimum of 100 years in prison to assure that he will die in prison.

Today

Since the conviction of Larry Nassar, there has been over 150 state and federal lawsuits that have been filed against him, Michigan State University, US Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, and the Twistars Gymnastics Club. The USA Gymnastics board which included 18 members, Michigan State’s President and Director of Athletics have been told to resign. These crimes that Nassar has committed are being compared to Jerry Sandusky who used to be Penn State University’s Head Coach as a pedophile. Both cases are similar in the fact that authorities as you would say “turned the other way” or even tried to hide what was going on as a child molester instead of contacting the law enforcement.

There was an investigation on Nassar on how he was able to hide and get away with these young student athletes for years while he was at the university by General Bill Schuette who was an attorney at Michigan. After the court rulings Michigan State University did agree to pay 332 victims a total of $500 million which is the largest amount settled by a university in history for sexual abuse. Just recently, there now has been more than 140 victims that ended up being on stage in Los Angeles, California. During that time in Microsoft Theater, all these women ended up receiving the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage during the 2018 ESPY Awards. In late July, Larry Nassar’s request was denied by Judge Janice Cunningham. He is now seeking a new sentence hearing due to more concerns that have came about.