Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and 89 others have filed a suit against the FBI seeking more than $1 Billion dollars for the agency’s failure to protect them from disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar.
According to the Associated Press, in 2015 USA Gymnastics told the FBI that three gymnasts were sexually assaulted by Nassar. However, the agency neglected to launch an investigation or alert federal or state authorities about the accusations.
In 2016, Michigan State University launched an investigation into sexual allegations pending against Nasar while he served as a sports doctor at the university which led to his arrest in the fall.
While speaking with the Associated Press, former University of Michigan gymnast Samantha Roy declared, “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.”
In 2018, the disgraced doctor was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 women and girls over a 20-year period.
During sentencing Judge Rosemarie Aquilina read a letter that Nassar wrote to the court where he defended his actions.
“I was a good doctor because my treatments worked, and those patients that are now speaking out are the same ones that praised and came back over and over,” he wrote. “The media convinced them that everything I did was wrong and bad. They feel I broke their trust. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
The judge then addressed Nassar and said, “tells me you still don’t get it.”
Former U.S. attorney Matthew Schneider told the Associated Press that he believes the FBI will settle with the gymnasts.
“A settlement makes legal sense, but it also makes a good moral sense,” he said. “When FBI Director Wray Admitted the FBI completely failed in their duties to protect these survivors, he essentially closed the door to a court fight.”
In 2018 Michigan State University agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 of Nassar’s victims and the USA Gymnastics and in 2021 the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee agreed to a $380 million settlement for victims, the Associated Press reported.
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