Thirteen victims of sexual abuse of Larry Nassar are claiming $130 million from the FBI over allegations that the office failed to properly investigate the former USA Gymnastics doctor, his lawyers said Thursday.
Victims say they suffered further abuse as a result of the FBI's failure to properly investigate Nassar after learning some of the allegations against him. Each one is filing a claim for damages.
“This is the biggest failure of law enforcement in the history of the world when it comes to protecting children, and there must be an institutional responsibility to ensure that this does not happen again,” Attorney Jamie White said in a statement.
The US Department of Justice's internal watchdog said in July that the FBI took too long to analyze the allegations of sexual abuse against Nassar, who was sentenced in 2018 to 175 years in prison for abusing young gymnasts in his care.
He also accused two FBI representatives of lying to cover up “numerous mistakes” that allowed Nassar's abuses to continue.
McKayla Maroney, a member of the Olympic gold medal winning team in London 2012, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September that he spent three hours on the phone with the FBI in 2015 detailing his story, but that the office did not document the conversation for a year and a half and misrepresented his sayings.
The lawyers for the 13 people said the claims could be a precursor to a civil lawsuit and that the FBI has six months to respond.
“No one should have been assaulted after the summer of 2015, because the FBI should have done its job,” Grace French, a victim of Nassar and founder of the advocacy group The Army of Survivors, said in a statement. “Knowing that the FBI could have helped avoid this trauma disgusts me.”
“This was not a case involving counterfeit $20 bills or tax fraud,” said attorney Jamie White. “These were allegations of a serial rapist who was known to the FBI as the US Olympic doctor with unlimited access to young women.”
Nassar was a sports doctor at Michigan State University and a doctor at USA Gymnastics. He is serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts.
Nassar, he added, continued with a “reign of terror for 17 unnecessary months.”
White said more than 100 women were assaulted after July 2015 and expects other lawyers to file lawsuits against the FBI. Nassar was not arrested until November 2016 during an investigation by Michigan State University police.
The Michigan attorney general's office eventually handled the assault charges against Nassar, while federal prosecutors in Grand Rapids, Michigan, filed a case of child pornography.
Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing opportunities for many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee reached an agreement of $380 million.
(With information from Reuters and AP)
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