‘Absolutely chilling’: Larry Nassar sex abuse reports met with massive FBI failures, DOJ watchdog says
Read the full Larry Nassar report for yourself
During the lag in the investigation, an attorney for survivors said Nassar molested at least 120 women and girls. That attorney, John Manly, and two U.S. Senators, said they want to know why no criminal charges have been filed.
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Abbott, who retired in 2018, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Manly said while the FBI sat on the investigation, 120 women were molested between July 2015 and when Nassar was exposed. He added that he is exploring whether it is possible to sue the FBI and the agents personally.
“It’s obvious that the FBI failed survivors in all of this,” said Nassar survivor Grace French, the founder and president of The Army of Survivors. “They put financial gain and the possibility of an opportunity for future employment in front of athletes, of children, of survivors. And that’s incredibly disappointing to me,”
2016 by an IndyStar investigation.
The inspector general’s investigation began in 2018, following an internal FBI review of the delay before agents opened a formal investigation into the complaints raised in June 2015 by elite-level gymnasts, including Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols.
Nassar was ultimately charged and convicted of child sexual abuse in Michigan state court. He also pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges that spun out of the investigation by police at Michigan State University.
The FBI’s delay in investigating the 2015 allegations has long been a point of contention for survivors. In June 2020, a group sent a letter to the justice department asking why it had not released its report on the FBI’s handling of the case.
“It is clear that the FBI failed to protect our nation’s finest athletes and many other vulnerable children and young women from a vicious sexual predator,” said the letter to Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General, that was signed by more than 120 Nassar survivors. “But we still do not know who exactly in the FBI participated in the cover up and whether misconduct reached into the higher ranks of the Justice Department.”
Among those signing the letter were Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, Raisman, Jordyn Wieber and Madison Kocian, plus NCAA champion Nichols. Nichols was the first gymnast to report Nassar to USA Gymnastics and was the central character in the 2020 Netflix documentary Athlete A.
The report’s release comes as the U.S. women’s gymnastics team travels to Japan for the delayed summer Olympic Games, which begin next week in Tokyo. On that team is Biles, who has identified herself as a victim of Nassar and has expressed frustration over the handling of the case.
A spokesperson with the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics Committee said they are reviewing the inspectors general’s report and will issue a statement soon.
During the course of this investigation, the OIG interviewed more than 60 witnesses, several on more than one occasion. It also collected over 1.5 million documents, including FBI interview reports, agent notes, as well as text messages and emails. The office also obtained records from private parties such as USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Among those documents was a thumb drive containing videos and presentations of Nassar’s purported medical techniques that the Indianapolis Field Office received from USA Gymnastics officials.
Nassar is serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges in 2017. He also faces 40 to 125 years on the state sex charges in Michigan. More than 500 women and girls have now alleged they were sexually assaulted by Nassar, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who also taught and worked at a sports medicine clinic at Michigan State University while serving as the USA Gymnastics team doctor.
Steve Penny, former president of Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, reported allegations of sexual abuse by Nassar to Abbott, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis office, on July 27, 2015.
During the FBI’s initial steps in the investigation, Penny and Abbott also discussed the possibility of Abbott becoming the U.S. Olympic Committee’s chief of security after his retirement from the FBI, according to emails. In 2018, Penny’s attorney Edith Matthai confirmed the conversation took place, but told IndyStar “any suggestion that Steve had the conversation with Abbott in order to impact the FBI investigation is false and defamatory.”
Penny was forced to resign in 2017 after it was revealed he waited about five weeks to inform the FBI of the initial allegations USA Gymnastics had received about Nassar on June 17, 2015.
USA TODAY reporter Kevin Johnson and IndyStar reporter David Woods contributed to this story. Contact Tim Evans at tim.evans@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @starwatchtim.