Form of words:
New Delhi: Four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion Simon Biles accused gymnastics officials and officials of enabling team doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused him and several other athletes, in a recent hearing.
In an emotional hearing before the US Senate on Wednesday, Biles said the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee failed to work with federal law enforcement to protect athletes from abuse. She also accused the FBI of “turning a blind eye.”
“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetuated his abuse,” Biles said, emphasizing the need to hold the guilty accountable.
Recalling the enduring toll of Nassar’s crimes on herself and hundreds of other athletes, the gymnast told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “enough is enough”. The former doctor was sentenced in January to up to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women accused him of sexually abusing him over the years.
According to a report In AP“The hearing is part of Congress’s effort to hold the FBI accountable after several missteps in the case investigation, including the delay in abusing the now imprisoned Nassar to other young gymnasts.”
ThePrint explains the case involving Larry Nassar and the multiple sexual abuse allegations leveled against him.
Read also: ‘Don’t want to live like a victim’ – How a women’s court in UP is empowering abuse survivors
Who is Larry Nassar?
In a decade-long career in sports medicine, Nassar worked as a student athletic trainer at a Detroit school and served with the football team at the University of Michigan.
He joined the medical staff of the US Gymnastics national team in 1996 as an athletic trainer.
Then in 2015 he suddenly resigned from his post. A year later, several women came forward with allegations of sexual assault.
blame
Allegations of sexual abuse first surfaced in 2016 series of reports by newspaper Indianapolis Star.
According to the new York TimesTwo gymnasts interviewed by the newspaper specifically accused Nassar of abuse.
One of the gymnasts, Rachel Denhollander, accused Nassar of abusing her in 2000 when she was 15 years old.
USA Today, During this, informed of That record shows that charges were leveled against Nassar on several occasions but he remained in his post and no action was taken against him for years.
Ultimately, 125 women filed criminal complaints with the police, and more than 300 people, including victims, spouses and parents, filed civil suits against the doctor and the institutions that employed them for so long, Specifically USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University,” noted a report In Vocal.
Three of these were athletes who won Olympic gymnastics gold in 2012, who in 2017 came forward to publicly admit that they had gone through the same abuse.
MacKayla Maroney, the 2012 Olympic champion, revealed this in a Twitter post, followed by Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, then-captains of the US gymnastics team.
In January 2018, Biles said that she too was abused by Nassar.
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FBI investigation into Nassar
of the FBI the inspection Charges against Nassar began in July 2015, but he interviewed only one witness, Maroni, several months later in September 2015. The interview was not formally documented at the time.
Nassar was eventually arrested only a year later, in December 2016. He was indicted on federal child pornography charges and nearly 37,000 pictures and videos of child pornography were found on his hard drive at his home.
One internal investigation by the US Department of Justice, according to ap, The carelessness with which the FBI handled the case was exposed after some of the initial cases were reported in 2015.
FBI Director Christopher Wray brushed off the loopholes during Wednesday’s hearing and promised athletes that “this will never happen again”.
Ray apologized to the four gymnasts and their families for the failures of his predecessor and described his colleagues’ behavior towards the matter as “totally unacceptable”.
“I am deeply and deeply sorry for each of you… I am sorry that so many different people let you down again and again. And I am especially sorry that there were people in the FBI who had I had my chance to stop this monster and failed. And that’s unforgivable, and it should never have happened,” Ray said.
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