Lawsuits against USA Gymnastics, Larry Nassar, etc. - news & updates

USOC, SafeSport, and several presidents of NGBs (incl. Kerry Perry of USAGym) are testifing to the House Energy and Commerce Committee right now. Here is the link.

GymCastic is doing a pretty epic live takedown on Twitter.

There’s too many comments for me to post about here right now, but this testimony is a dumpster fire.
 
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Infuriating but thoroughly unsurprising...

Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics’ cover story: 'Can we just say i am sick?'
USA Gymnastics officials agreed to provide what Larry Nassar's attorney called "false excuses" for his absence from major gymnastics events in 2015, rather than disclose to parents and gymnasts that Nassar was under investigation for child sexual abuse.

Emails obtained by IndyStar reveal that on two separate occasions, Nassar and a USA Gymnastics attorney negotiated cover stories — first that Nassar was sick and later that he was focusing on his private practice — to explain why the longtime team physician was not attending two major events in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics.
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It has long been known that USA Gymnastics withheld concerns about Nassar from its members.

But the emails, along with interviews with gymnasts, reveal for the first time that the sport’s national governing body was not only willing to remain silent after reporting Nassar, but also agreed to participate in one of his many deceptions beforehand.
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Vanity Fair has a new in-depth article.

*** “This Is Bigger Than Myself”: How the Women of the U.S. Gymnastics Team Found Their Voice :
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/how-the-women-of-the-us-gymnastics-team-found-their-voice
Few icons of American girlhood are as symbolically complex as elite gymnasts. They appear on the mat as tiny shining birds: gems sewn into their leotards sparkling under bright competition lights, and colorful bows plopped on their French-braided hairdos like feathered crowns. Scouts looking for young gymnasts with the potential to reach the Olympics sometimes spot girls as young as seven. Their careers usually peak before they can vote and end before they can legally order a glass of wine in a restaurant. Yet they are athletes of extraordinary accomplishment and fortitude. They’re strong women, or girls becoming women, who fly through the air seemingly by sheer force of will. As a child glued to the television during the Summer Olympics in the 1980s, I thought of them as real-life versions of Superwoman. Women of steel, lighter than air.
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*** Former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny refuses to answer questions about sex abuse scandal :
https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...refuses-answer-questions-sex-abuse/674806002/
Former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny declined to answer questions about his or the organization’s handling of the Larry Nassar scandal during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security, Penny declined to give a statement and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions so as not to incriminate himself.

After Penny declined to answer around five questions, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the chair of the committee, asked Penny if he would decline to answer all questions. Penny said yes, and Moran excused him from the hearing.
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MSU bigwigs continue to be awful: Michigan State Chief Said Abuse Victim Would Get ‘Kickback’ for Stirring Up Survivors, Emails Show

a couple of excerpts:
In April, John M. Engler, the newly minted interim president of Michigan State University, was under attack. Publicly, he felt as if he couldn’t say anything about the victims of Larry Nassar, a former university sports doctor who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting girls and young women. But privately it was a different story.
According to previously unpublished emails obtained by The Chronicle through a public-records request, Engler and his top advisers attacked critics and cast doubt on the motives of a victim and her lawyer.
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“It is deeply appreciated," the text of the email reads. "At least we know what really happened. The survivors now are being manipulated by trial lawyers who in the end will each get millions of dollars more than any of [sic] individual survivors with the exception of Denhollander who is likely to get [sic] kickback from Manley [sic] for her role in the trial lawyer manipulation.
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Denhollander, who has emerged as a vocal survivors’ advocate, was aghast but not surprised. Engler has consistently focused on money, she said. “It is out of his comprehension that someone would do something for anything other than money and power. I am not getting kickbacks, ever.” She continued: “It shows all the more deeply his own mind-set toward sexual-assault survivors. The idea that he is going to be able to solve the problems of the school when this is what he says about sexual-assault survivors is absolutely ridiculous. Engler needs to go.”
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And this is why the MSU alumni and professors were very upset when the trustees chose Engler. AFAIK he's known for doing this type of bs.
Why can't we just fire all the trustees and have the alumni, students, faculty, and staff vote on a new president? Maybe have the victims' input as well. The trustees obviously can't be trusted to make a good choice - they just dug themselves into a deeper hole.
 
Oh no, such a shame about Naddour. He always seemed like such a nice guy. I hope this doesnt affect his beautiful marriage to Holly.
 
@Tinami Amori According to articles online the accusations are from 2012 and 2016, and that there's more than one incident being investigated. True to form, USA Gymnastics knew about the allegations at the time and didn't do anything about them.
"Sexual misconduct" is often used as a general term from anything from sexual harassment to rape. Because we don't know what USAG is investigating, it's hard to say what exactly he's being accused of doing.
 
*** Aly Raisman Takes The Floor - In her fight to end sexual abuse, the Olympic champion is challenging the very institutions she led to glory :
http://www.espn.com/espnw/feature/24078028/olympian-aly-raisman-change-way-our-society-views-women
Raisman is quick to assert that while she never expected to be an activist, she's grateful that people are listening -- but admits the burden weighs on her. Often, when she speaks, she'll stop and edit herself; at one point in our conversation, she grabs paper and starts furiously taking notes. She's deeply fearful of getting something wrong, of committing the rhetorical equivalent of a slip off the balance beam. "There are so many people out there that are survivors, but there are few that have a voice," she says. "I know that I'm one of the few that are being heard, so I just want to do right by people."


When we're done talking, I ask if I can see her notes, and she gives them to me before she leaves. Feel pressure to help everyone, she had written, but it's so hard since I'm still processing myself.
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Sexual abuse survivors epitomize meaning of courage - this 9-minute taped segment, narrated by Jennifer Garner, was played before the Arthur Ashe Courage Award was presented at the ESPYs show tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yinTf07VWe4

'Sister survivors' moment of solidarity accepting Arthur Ashe Courage Award (Sarah Klein, Tiffany Thomas Lopez & Aly Raisman each spoke powerfully on behalf of the 141 women onstage): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9hu5HLoSzM
 
The Arthur Ashe Courage Award for the coaches who died defending their students at Stoneman Douglas High School, for the retired Buffalo Bills quarterback now retired and with cancer, and for the masses and masses of girl gymnasts who could attend and also for those who could not, was outstanding, perhaps the best sports reporting I have ever seen. The girl gymnasts were stunningly stoic. Aly Raisman and the other two lead women gave fantastic speeches. Aly said, for instance, if only one adult had believed any one of us...it gave me chills. Shame on US Gymnastics. Good, no great, for ESPN for not just recognizing the big college teams and professional athletes as individuals and teams celebrating the happy times of $$$ sports. Shows that there are other dynamic stories inside all sports.
 
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The first article has more about the resentencing information & the second article has ore information about the prison problems.

*** Larry Nassar seeks resentencing in Ingham County, wants Judge Aquilina disqualified :
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com.../07/25/larry-nassar-judge-aquilina/832150002/
Larry Nassar wants to be resentenced on his Ingham County sexual assault charges and wants the judge who said she signed his "death warrant" to be disqualified from the case.

Nassar, who is serving a 60-year federal prison sentence on three child pornography charges and was sentenced to decades more in state prison on 10 sexual assault charges, filed two motions Tuesday in Ingham County Circuit Court.

Nassar told his attorneys that he was attacked in federal prison within a few hours of being placed in the general population, according to the motion. His attorneys attributed that attack, and the attempted attack on Nassar by the father of three of his victims during his Eaton County sentencing, to "Judge (Rosemarie) Aquilina's efforts to demonize Dr. Nassar in front of the entire world."
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*** Nassar assaulted in prison; court filing blames judge :
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/n...7/25/larry-nassar-assaulted-prison/833106002/
 
*** Former Fort Worth gymnastics coach accused of child sex abuse :
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article215982990.html
A former gymnastics coach at Sokol Gymnastics in Fort Worth has been arrested near Indianapolis and faces extradition on charges of child sexual abuse, according to Fort Worth police and an attorney hired by the club.
Skipper Glenn Crawley, known as Skip, coached at the club for about a year and is accused of sexually abusing several young gymnasts who were members of the same team, said Russ Prince of the Palma & Prince law firm of Tampa, Fla., and lawyer for Sokol.

Crawley was wanted by Fort Worth police on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child and two charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, said police spokesman Tracy Carter.
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Artistic Skaters said:
*** Nassar assaulted in prison; court filing blames judge :
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/n...7/25/larry-nassar-assaulted-prison/833106002/
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Is he really this stupid? The criminal code is well-known: if you hurt kids, your life in prison will be hell. Everyone knows that. The judge had nothing to do with it - the fact that he sexually assaulted a couple of hundred innocent children probably has a bit more to do with it...can he be any more tone deaf?
 
misskarne said:
Is he really this stupid? The criminal code is well-known: if you hurt kids, your life in prison will be hell. Everyone knows that. The judge had nothing to do with it - the fact that he sexually assaulted a couple of hundred innocent children probably has a bit more to do with it...can he be any more tone deaf?
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FWIW some prisons and jails put sexual predators into a sort of protective custody to prevent assaults from occurring. At the same time I don't think people have any sympathy for him (nor should they) so it's possible that the prison guards/officials don't care to separate him like that.

Either way it's not the judge's fault - it's his fault for doing such heinous things in the first place.
 
*** Simone Biles has had enough of the silence from USA Gymnastics CEO Kerry Perry :
https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...icizes-silence-usa-gymnastics-ceo/1003884002/
Olympic champion Simone Biles said Wednesday she isn’t sure if the national governing body is making progress in fixing the systemic problems that allowed Larry Nassar to prey on athletes. Biles is among hundreds of athletes who have said they were sexually abused by Nassar, the longtime team physician for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State.

“Hopefully it’s going in the right direction, but nobody can know until Kerry Perry speaks up. So it’s kind of hard,” Biles said before training for the U.S. gymnastics championships, which begin Thursday.
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*** Male gymnasts say 'it's an honor' to stand with women who endured sex abuse :
https://www.indystar.com/story/spor...-stand-women-who-endured-sex-abuse/986421002/
 
Like everyone else I feared that was the case. It is a very personal thing to decide to come forward, and I hope they feel they are getting the support they need. Seems like many of victims who are in college like Maggie, Kyla, Maddie, do have a good support system around them even if USAG is lacking in that regard.
 
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