Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and dozens of others who came forward about Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse are seeking $1 billion from the FBI over its botched investigation.
As the Associated Press reports, attorneys representing roughly 90 women and girls sexually abused by Nassar have submitted claims for a total of more than $1 billion. They contend that the FBI failed to stop Nassar from abusing young athletes in 2015, when the USA Gymnastics national team first took action against the disgraced physician. A watchdog report on the FBI’s investigation last year, per the AP, revealed that the bureau made myriad missteps in its investigation and did not promptly respond to the allegations.
Biles is among the claimants—as well as Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Maggie Nichols—who are seeking $50 million each. Many of the women have submitted claims for $10 million, while others such as Kaylee Lorincz and Hannah Morrow are asking for $42.5 million. The victims are using the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows citizens to file lawsuits against individuals or branches of the federal government.
"The FBI knew that Larry Nassar was a danger to children when his abuse of me was first reported in September of 2015," said Nichols, who is a Team USA member and NCAA champion. "For 421 days they worked with USA Gymnastics and USOPC to hide this information from the public and allowed Nassar to continue molesting young women and girls. It is time for the FBI to be held accountable."
As the claims read, the FBI “possessed credible complaints from numerous sources and corroborating evidence of Dr Larry Nassar's sexual assaults of young women and children over the course of a number of years and across the globe." The FBI has been accused of failing to act against Nassar’s rampant sexual abuse of women and children between July 2015 and September 2016.
“The FBI was grossly derelict in their duties by declining to interview gymnasts who were willing to talk about the abuse, failing to transfer the complaint to Lansing Michigan where Nassar was continuing to abuse girls, ignoring its obligation to report child abuse to relevant state and federal agencies and lying to Congress, the media and FBI headquarters about their lack of diligence in investigating the Nassar complaint," said the attorneys for the victims in a statement.
Even though the allegations were publicly known on a wider scale in 2015, Nassar was only indicted on Nov. 22, 2016. He was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison in December 2017, and an additional 40 to 175 years in a Michigan state prison in January 2018.
