USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and their insurers agreed to a $380 million settlement for the victims of Larry Nassar, a former physician who sexually abused hundreds of elite athletes under his care.
News of the settlement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, and was later confirmed in a statement by USA Gymnastics (USAG).
“USA Gymnastics is deeply sorry for the trauma and pain that survivors have endured as a result of this organization’s actions and inactions,” USAG president and CEO Li Li Leung wrote in part. “The Plan of Reorganization that we jointly filed reflects our own accountability to the past and our commitment to the future.”
The final agreement brings to a close a nearly five-year legal battle that ultimately concluded with one of the largest-ever settlements awarded to victims of sexual abuse.
According to the WSJ, TIG Insurance Company agreed to pay a large chunk of the settlement during bankruptcy court in Indiana on Monday. The conditions of the agreement include a $34 million payment from USOPC; the USOPC will also loan $6 million to USA Gymnastics for contribution to the settlement.
USAG also agreed to a number of non-monetary provisions, including that a self-identified victim of abuse have an official role on the Board of Directors, Safe Sport Committee, and Athlete Health and Wellness Council.
Also included is a requirement that USAG strengthen its Safe Sport policy to better protect athletes and the creation of a new restorative justice process to “facilitate historical accountability, reconciliation and continued cultural transformation in the gymnastics community.”
Compensation will be made available to survivors in pre-determined allocations through a trust in the near future.
The settlement is the result of an initial suit brought by Jamie Dantzscher in 2016, a competitor at the 2000 Olympics who was treated — and abused — by Nassar as a teen.
USA Gymnastics was made aware of abuse allegations against Nassar at least a year before Dantzscher filed suit, when a then-anonymous athlete (later revealed as Maggie Nichols) said she had been abused by the physician since she was 15.
While USA Gymnastics did hire a private investigator to look into the allegations, the organization did not contact the FBI regarding complaints until nearly five weeks later, when fellow gymnasts Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney confirmed Nichols’ accusations, along with more of their own.
In the years since, dozens of additional women alleged abuse at the hands of Nassar, who ultimately was found to have sexually assaulted hundreds of victims and had thousands of images of child pornography in his possession.
Even after USA Gymnastics contacted the FBI in July 2015, it took months for the agency to open a formal investigation.
A report released this year by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that officials in the FBI field office in Indianapolis “failed to respond to allegations of sexual abuse of athletes by former USA Gymnastics physician Lawrence Gerard Nassar with the urgency that the allegations required.”
Elite gymnasts have maintained the years of abuse highlight a systemic problem not just with the FBI, but with all of the institutions responsible for protecting young athletes.
In a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles — herself a victim of Nassar’s abuse — told Congress that the FBI and gymnastics officials turned a “blind eye” to the abuse, and said that USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee “knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”
“To be clear: I blame Larry Nassar, but I blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles added.
In a statement released on social media Monday evening, former gymnast Rachael Denhollander noted it is not only Nassar survivors represented in the settlement, which she said “includes survivors abused by coaches and other officials in the sport.”
Denhollander, now a lawyer, was one of the first women to publicly reveal Nassar abused her as a young gymnast in 2016 – nearly 16 years after her own abuse occurred.
“Some survivors are Olympians and elite gymnasts, and wielded their platform powerfully. Most of the over 500 represented here, are not, but showed up over and over again,” Denhollander wrote on Twitter Monday. “We did this together. Don’t forget their voices, what they gave, and what it took.”
Attorney Jamie White, who represents dozens of the Nassar victims included in Monday’s settlement, issued a statement saying better accountability could hve “prevented immeasurable pain” for many women.
“To the institutions that only care about maximizing profits while disregarding the human toll, we hope this sends a message: this is how much a cover-up costs,” the statement read in part. “This is the price tag of being indifferent to kids. And we are going to come for you, and hold you all accountable.”
This article has been updated with a statement from USA Gymnastics.
