Organizations that should have protected female athletes from sexual abuse by Olympics gymnastic doctor Larry Nassar dropped the ball, leading a congressional examination to describe the failure as a “cover-up,” a report on Tuesday said.
“Whether it was a criminal cover-up remains to be proven, but it was a cover-up in spirit,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee overseeing the Olympics,
“Terrible things happened,” said Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, the chair of the subcommittee. “In many instances, they were reported and, almost without exception, the people that they were reported to didn’t respond.”
The report, obtained by NBC News, found that Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked, USA Gymnastics, the US Olympic Committee, and the FBI, “had opportunities to stop Nassar but failed to do so.”
The findings by the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade, and Consumer Protection following an 18-month investigation also suggests legislation for more oversight to stop future abuse. The Olympic organizations “knowingly concealed abuse by Nassar, leading to the abuse of dozens of additional athletes” between the summer of 2015 and September 2016, the report said, according to NBC.
“The Olympic-related organization’s ability to identify and prevent abuse was inadequate,” the report said. “As a result, hundreds of women and girls were sexually abused by Larry Nassar.”
The president and CEO of USA gymnastics, Li Li Leung, told NBC in a statement that the organization hadn’t yet seen the report, but that it had already “made numerous changes designed to prevent the opportunity for abuse to occur.”
The US Olympic Committee did not respond t☂o a request from NBC for comment.
A spokesman for MSU said the school wasn’t aware of Nassar’s abuse until news reports revealed it and it reacted by firing Nassar within days.
The FBI declined comment and referred questions to the Justice Department, which told NBC it didn’t comment on ongoing matters.
Nassar pleaded guilty to sexually abusing minors in January 2018 and is serving a 175-year sentence in prison.