Former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar was too late trying to discard the thousands of incriminating images and videos that mark him as the “worst” kind of danger to society, according to a magistrate judge overseeing his hearings Wednesday.
Nassar, 53, will remain jailed on child pornography charges after an FBI agent said at least 37,000 images and videos were discovered in a garbage can outside his home during a search of his property in Holt, Michigan, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Special agent Rod Charles testified Wednesday that trash collection was delayed the day of the search warrant, allowing an officer to check the garbage bin by the curb of Nassar’s property and find a collection of external hard drives bearing his name and address.
Included in the stash are videos of the doctor sexually assaulting girls under the age of 12 in a pool and others of young girls being raped. Assistant US Attorney Sean Lewis, in his request for Nassar to be detained, stressed Nassar’s decades’ worth of sexual assault allegations and the age of his victims, including one who was 6-years-old.
Nassar’s lawyer had requested electronic monitoring at home.
Nassar was arrested last month on charges of sexually assaulting a girl at his home between 1998 and 2005. After pleading not guilty and being released on a $1 million bond, he was indicted on federal charges last week and faces up to life in prison.
Additionally, Nassar is the subject of at least four lawsuits alleging he assaulted female student-athletes while they were undergoing treatments. The latest was filed Wednesday in Los Angeles by former Michigan State softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez.
In a lawsuit obtained by ESPN, Lopez says she went to Nassar, a nationally recognized osteopathic physician at the time, for treatment of chronic lower back pain starting in 1998. The lawsuit alleges Nassar sexually abused her during her visits more than 10 times over the course of three years, using an exam he called “inter-vaginal adjustments.”
Lopez claims she told three separate Michigan State athletic trainers about Nassar’s actions, which included “[touching] her vagina” and, when he “became more bold,” having her “remove her pants, and then inserting his bare, ungloved and unlubricated hand into her vagina.”
When Lopez refused to continue her visits with Nassar in 2001, according to the lawsuit, the university coerced her into declaring herself medically inactive and ending her playing career. Soon after, the standout softball player left Michigan State and went back home to California.
“They told me he was a world-renowned physician. What they did not tell me is that he was a serial molester and pedophile,” Lopez said at a news conference Wednesday. “I feel guilty. Not because I did anything wrong, but because I was not able to come forward sooner to help other girls.”
With AP