Hundreds of sexually abused gymnasts by Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor of the U.S. National Gymnastics Team, have reached a $ 380 million deal with the USA Gymnastics Committee and the Gymnastics Committee United States Olympic and Paralympic Games (USOPC) which concludes the last chapter of one of the most important and darkest cases of pedophilia in history.
The deal, announced Monday, is one of the biggest in history for a sexual abuse case. The compensation seeks to compensate more than 500 victims of abuse, including Olympic gold medalists such as Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman.
Several of these victims were abused by their coaches or other athletes. “No amount of money will ever repair the harm done to these women,” said Rachael Denhollander, a lawyer and victim of Nassar, as well as a member of a committee of survivors involved in the negotiations. “But the negotiations had to end at some point, because these women need help, and they need it right now.”
Many of Nassar’s victims have had mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder, and some have attempted suicide because of the abuse Nassar perpetrated under the guise of medical treatment. Denhollander admits that the agreement does not make it clear how much money each survivor will receive, because an independent mediator will have to consider many factors, such as the duration and severity of the abuse, when calculating it.
U.S. Gymnastics officials have applauded the deal, which, along with the federation’s reorganization plan, was approved Monday by Judge Robyn L. Moberly. This approval means that USA Gymnastics should go bankrupt at the end of the year. Olympic officials praised the survivors for their bravery and apologized. “USA Gymnastics deeply regrets the trauma and pain that survivors have endured as a result of this organization’s actions and inactions,” Li Li Leung, president and CEO of USA Gymnastics, said in a statement. that the reorganization plan reflects the “responsibility of the federation with the past and its commitment to the future.”
Sarah Hirshland, executive director of USOPC, said in a statement that the committee had made many changes to protect athletes in the future: “We recognize our role in the lack of protection for these athletes, and we regret the deep harm they have suffered. “
The Nassar case, which highlighted the vulnerability of young athletes in gymnastics and other sports, revealed that organizations such as USA Gymnastics and USOPC had failed to protect their athletes and gave more importance to medals than to their safety. Numerous hearings were held in Congress on the subject, and one of the results was that lawmakers strengthened the protection of athletes in Olympic sports.
At one of the hearings, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray apologized for the agency’s mismanagement of the case. In a shocking testimony this September, Biles, Maroney, Raisman and Maggie Nichols described how the FBI turned a blind eye to Nassar’s abuse as the search stalled and the victims continued to suffer.
One of the legacies of the case will be how he empowered the victims to be able to talk about their sexual abuse and confront their bullies. At the hearings in early 2018, more than 100 girls and women he abused — including some of his patients at Michigan State University — were able to testify before him to testify how he had abused them. . Their statements were often defiant, and they explained how they had persevered despite the abuse they had suffered.
Following the Nassar case, sports organizations have become aware of their responsibility when athletes are abused under their supervision. Steve Penny, former president and chief executive of USA Gymnastics, has been fired and faces a felony charge of tampering with evidence in the case. Scott Blackmun resigned under pressure as executive director of the USOPC. “The agreement shows that there was an injustice here,” said John C. Manly, a lawyer who represents many of the victims. ” people in prison “.
Manly adds that the only person in the case serving a prison sentence is Nassar, and says that Nassar’s facilitators – including sports, university and law enforcement officials – have heard complaints about him. but they never tracked it down – they should be in jail too. The lawyer says he has opposing views on the deal: it hurts him, he admits, that five years have passed since he filed his first lawsuit in the case. “I don’t know why five years have passed and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on corporate lawyers for us to get to this point,” he laments.
The first significant payment to Nassar victims was announced in 2018, when Michigan State University promised to give $ 500 million to victims of doctor abuse. It is considered the largest agreement ever reached for a sexual abuse case involving an American university.
In the deal announced Monday, US Gymnastics and USOPC insurers will pay most of the $ 380 million, but USOPC has also agreed to provide $ 34 million of its own money and give USA Gymnastics a loan. of about $ 6 million. This contribution represents a surprising turnaround for the Olympic committee, which had argued that it should not be held responsible for Nassar’s crimes or be named in Nassar-related abuse lawsuits, in part because the doctor was not his employee.
Following the avalanche of lawsuits against Nassar and USA Gymnastics, the gymnastics federation lost all its main sponsors and sought bankruptcy protection in late 2018, the same year the doctor was sentenced to is equivalent to life imprisonment for multiple sexual offenses. The $ 380 million deal will now help the federation emerge from bankruptcy after years of uncertainty. Another benefit of the agreement for the federation is that it will prevent it from losing the certificate as an Olympic organization, a possibility that has flown over it since 2018.
In August, USA Gymnastics and Nassar Victims of Abuse agreed on a $ 425 million settlement proposal, but it had not yet been fully funded because several insurance companies had not agreed to provide the money. they were asked. Another persistent problem was the amount of money owed by the USOPC. However, both this first and the current proposed agreement include a list of non-monetary provisions, which survivors such as Denhollander consider crucial in rebuilding the sport and maintaining the safety of athletes.
One of the provisions would be that at least one victim of Nassar be a member of the board of directors of the federation. Another would be that an independent investigation should be done into what went wrong in the Nassar case and how it could have happened, Denhollander says. “In order to move forward, we need to make sure that this does not happen again, in the Olympic team or in the lower level gyms,” he said, noting that only a small percentage, less than 10%, of the 500 victims included in the “They were elite gymnasts. I think we owe it to the victims, but also to the future gymnasts, to do our best to protect them.”
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