FBI SHAME! Simone Biles and Aly Raisman among 90 athletes suing feds for $1bn over Larry Nassar abuse
A group of Olympic gymnasts, including Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols and McKayla Maroney, are among those 90 survivors of sexual abuse by sport doctor Larry Nassar who are suing the FBI for more than $1 billion. They claimed that the government agency failed to investigate Nassar when allegations first surfaced in 2015 that he was sexually assaulting gymnasts.
The move came after two weeks after the Justice Department chose not to prosecute two FBI investigators, Jay Abbott and Michael Langeman, for their mishandling of the case despite an internal watchdog report that found the agents failed to properly respond to reports of abuse in 2015, leaving Nassar to assault at least 70 more young athletes, as per reports by Al Jazeera.
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Larry Nassar sex abuse scandal
This is the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sports history. The 58-year-old's victims, who include some of the most famous female athletes around today outnumber the alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein, a film producer, and Bill Cosby, comedian, combined.
According to the DOJ report, Nassar's survivors filed complaints as early as 1997, when he worked as a team doctor for the Michigan State gymnastics team. Then, the gymnastics turned over three new complaints to the FBI's Indianapolis office in 2015. However, Nassar wasn't arrested until the fall of 2016 as the FBI failed to follow through with mandatory investigative duties, leaving him free to continue to target young and minor girls for more than a year.
The DOJ found that the FBI “failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies" and only interviewed one of the complainants over the phone without talking with the others. The report included several other instances of incompetence, which more or less insinuated the FBI didn't take the allegations or its investigation into Nassar seriously.
As per reports by Yahoo, Biles and Maroney both spoke about the failures of the institutions put in place to protect them and other women when they testified in front of Congress this past September. Maroney had revealed traumatizing details about her abuse by the disgraced gymnastics doctor. More shockingly, she had shared that she once feared "Nassar would kill her after he molested her in a hotel room at the age of 15. "
Biles blamed Nassar first and foremost, but also placed blame on USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee as well as the FBI. "I believe without a doubt that the circumstances that led to my abuse and allowed it to continue, are directly the result of the fact that the organizations created by Congress to oversee and protect me as an athlete — USA Gymnastics (USAG) and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) — failed to do their jobs," Biles said.