Over a dozen survivors of sexual abuse from former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar announced they’ve registered a multimillion-dollar complaint with the FBI on Thursday, claiming it failed to pursue his crimes adequately.
Each of the 13 victims is seeking $10 million, a total of $130 million in damages for the agency’s “gross negligence” in its failure to investigate allegations against Nassar in 2015, which led to hundreds more unnecessary assaults, lawyers for the victims allege.
“No one should have been assaulted after the summer of 2015 because the FBI should have done its job,” Grace French, one of the victims, said during a press conference on Thursday, according to Forbes. “This incredible systemic breakdown shows that there is needed change in the way that the FBI responds to cases of abuse. This is about showing those institutions who continue to harbor, enable, and protect predators that there are consequences for turning a blind eye to abuse through inaction.”
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Not all of the names of the 13 victims have been made public.
Accusers can pursue complaints against the federal government by filing with agencies directly in accordance with the Federal Tort Claims Act. Under this law, the FBI has six months to act on the complaint, and if it fails, the plaintiffs can pursue a civil lawsuit.
Nassar was arrested in December 2016 and sentenced to 40 to 125 years behind bars in 2018 on charges of abusing hundreds of women. He had served as the doctor for the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team for 18 years and sexually assaulted his victims under the guise of medical treatment, jurors found. A number of the victims, including Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, publicly criticized the FBI for its handling of the Nassar case.
Members of the U.S. gymnastics team disclosed their allegations of sexual abuse against Nassar on July 28, 2015, but FBI officials in Indianapolis and Los Angeles failed to turn the information over quickly to the proper authorities, according to attorney Jamie White.
“This is the largest failure on the part of law enforcement in the history of the world as it pertains to the protection of children, and there must be institutional accountability to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said during the press conference, according to the Daily Mail.
Nassar carried on with “his reign of terror for almost 17 unnecessary months” and assaulted over 100 women between the 2015 meeting with the FBI and his arrest, White claimed.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the FBI, but the agency said it was not commenting on the case.
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Late last year, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee agreed to a $380 million settlement with Nassar’s victims.
Last September, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued an apology for the agency’s handling of the Nassar allegations and told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “There were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed, and that is inexcusable.” The bureau failed to respond to the allegations with “the urgency that the allegations required,” the inspector general for the Justice Department said in a 2021 report.
