Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and nearly 90 more women are seeking $1 billion from the FBI for its failure to stop sports doctor and convicted child molester Larry Nassar from assaulting them.
The Department of Justice has acknowledged that FBI agents knew as early as 2015 that Larry Nassar was accused of assaulting gymnasts, but they took no action and his assault on girls and young women he treated for the USA Gymnastics Team continued for more than a year. The approximately 90 claimants include Biles and fellow Olympic gold medalists Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, according to Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, a California law firm.
“It is time for the FBI to be held accountable,” said Maggie Nichols, a national champion gymnast at Oklahoma in 2017-19.
BREAKING: Former Olympic gymnasts, including gold medalist Simone Biles, are among dozens of assault victims who are seeking more than $1 billion from the FBI for failing to stop sports doctor Larry Nassar, lawyers said. https://t.co/MSmz2ljdZb
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 8, 2022
Announcement of the tort claim comes just two weeks after the DOJ announced it would not charge two former FBI agents who were found by the department’s inspector general to have lied about their work on the case. Nassar, the now-58-year-old doctor from Michigan State University who is in prison for life for possession of child pornography and molesting at least 10 underage girls. Prosecutors suspect he sexually assaulted hundreds of girls under the guise of rendering medical treatment.
“If the FBI had simply done its job, Nassar would have been stopped before he ever had the chance to abuse hundreds of girls, including me,” said former University of Michigan gymnast Samantha Roy.
USA Gymnastics officials told local FBI agents in 2015 that three gymnasts claimed Nassar had assaulted them while serving as team doctor. But the FBI did not open a formal investigation or inform federal or state authorities in Michigan, where Nassar was employed at Michigan State University, according to the DOJ’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz. Agents in Los Angeles began a sexual tourism investigation against Nassar a year later, but also failed to alert Michigan authorities, Horowitz found.
Nassar was finally arrested in late 2016 during an investigation by Michigan State University police.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco ordered a review of the agents involved after several gymnasts gave tearful testimony to the House Judiciary Committee last September, but later decided that neither W. Jay Abbott, who has retired nor Michael Langeman, who was fired last year, would be charged.
“I blame Larry Nassar, and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles told lawmakers.
At least 330 girls and women have said Nassar molested them.
FBI Director Christopher Wray called the bureau’s failures “inexcusable.”
“It never should have happened, and we’re doing everything in our power to make sure it never happens again,” he said.