The organization behind America’s gymnastics teams let its longtime medical director routinely molest underage female athletes rather than risk a costly scandal, according to blockbuster suit filed on Thursday.
USA Gymnastics “ignored and/or actively concealed” decades of sex abuse by Dr. Larry Nassar to avoid any drop-off in the “millions of dollars in private donations and corporate support” it rakes in annually, court papers say.
The civil sexual-assault suit, filed anonymously by a former US national team member, also claims that legendary gymnastics coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi (inset top) “turned a blind eye” as Nassar ran amok at their Huntsville, Texas, training camp known as “The Ranch.”
The husband-and-wife coaches allegedly gave Nassar (inset bottom) “unfettered and secluded access” to the girls’ “living and sleeping quarters,” despite a USA Gymnastics policy that bars adults from “being alone with a minor.”
The Karolyis’ harsh training methods — which has included hitting and scratching gymnasts “until they bled,” encouraging their parents to hit them, fat-shaming and withholding food and water — “created a toxic environment” that Nassar exploited to his perverted ends, the suit says.
Nassar would allegedly “sneak these minor gymnasts food, candy and other ‘contraband’ . . . in order to build trust and rapport.”
“Though the perpetrator [Nassar] acted as though he was an advocate for these children, he built this relationship in order to sexually abuse these minors, including the plaintiff,” the suit says.
Nassar allegedly molested the plaintiff, identified only as “Jane LM Doe,” while administering bogus “osteopathic adjustments to correct issues [she] was having with her back from training and performing.”
Her 60-page suit, filed in LA Superior Court, is the latest development in a widening scandal involving Nassar, who was fired last year by USA Gymnastics based on unspecified “athlete concerns” that it said were turned over the FBI.
The suit seeks unspecified damages from Nassar, USA Gymnastics, its current president and his predecessor, the Karolyis and three businesses they founded, and a related California gymnastics training center and its owners.
It also calls for “court supervision” of USA Gymnastics, which selects and trains members of the country’s Olympic and World Championship teams.
Similar allegations were leveled in a suit filed last month in Sacramento, Calif., by a member of the US women’s gymnastics team that won a a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. That suit, however, didn’t identify any of the defendants.
Bela Karolyi famously coached 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, who scored the first perfect score of 10 at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
He and his wife defected from their then-Communist homeland to the US in 1981, and he famously encouraged US gymnast Kerri Strug to compete on an injured ankle at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. When Strug collapsed after a vault that helped her team win gold, Karolyi scooped her up off the mat and carried her away.
Nassar’s lawyer has previously denied any wrongdoing and insisted the procedures he performed were “medically accepted and appropriate treatments.”
USA Gymnastics issued a statement denying the latest allegations: “When USA Gymnastics first learned of athlete concerns regarding Dr. Nassar, we dismissed him from further involvement and reported those concerns to the FBI.” The Karolyis didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Gabrielle Fonrouge