U.S.A. Gymnastics Offers $215 Million to Larry Nassar Victims

“It has always been our goal to reach a consensual settlement agreement with all of our creditors through the bankruptcy process,” Li Li Leung, president and chief executive of U.S.A. Gymnastics, said in a statement on Thursday. “While we do not yet have an agreement with the committee representing the survivors, we still hope to reach an agreement.”

She said the offer represented the two options available “based on the amount of money U.S.A. Gymnastics’ insurers are willing to pay into a settlement fund.”

Mr. Manly said the plan did not fundamentally change the culture at U.S.A. Gymnastics or the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. He called the payment akin to the amount reached in a car crash settlement, not a case involving the hundreds of sexual assaults that he said Mr. Nassar had been accused of committing.

Under the U.S.A. Gymnastics plan, Mr. Manly said, each of the more than 500 accusers of Mr. Nassar would receive about $250,000 to $300,000. In the Michigan State settlement, he said, they received an average of $1.25 million.

Mr. Manly said that the offer suggested that the Olympic committee “doesn’t take the sexual abuse of athletes seriously and, frankly, that’s how Larry Nassar was able to do what he did so long.”

U.S.A. Gymnastics said the plan gave the victims access to the full value of its insurance policies, which are the only assets available to pay their claims. The money would be distributed to them by a trustee, following an approach that was used in the Michigan State case and other abuse cases, the organization said.

U.S.A. Gymnastics has been roundly criticized for its handling of the scandal. In July, a Senate investigation found that U.S.A. Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee “knowingly concealed” Mr. Nassar’s abuse.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/sports/USA-gymnastics-nassar.html?emc=rss&partner=rss