The Free Press Journal

Victims push for accountabi­lity after latest Nassar sentence

- AGENCIES

The worst sex-abuse case in sports history ended with a third long prison sentence for Larry Nassar, and his victims vowed to keep fighting for accountabi­lity in the scandal that upended the gymnastics world and raised alarms about the sport's askno-questions culture.

Long after the disgraced doctor is locked up in a federal prison, investigat­ions into his misconduct will go on, perhaps for years.

"We have taken care of one perpetrato­r. We have not taken care of the systems that allowed him to flourish," said Rachael Denholland­er, who filed a police report in 2016 about how Nassar had molested her 16 years earlier, when she was 15, with her mother in the room.

The latest sentence of 40 to 125 years handed down on Monday was for molesting young athletes at Twistars, an elite Michigan gymnastics club. The sentence is largely symbolic because Nassar, who pleaded guilty, is already assured of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Before serving his two state terms, the 54-year-old must first serve 60 years in federal prison for child pornograph­y crimes.

An astonishin­g 250-plus women and girls gave statements in two Michigan courtrooms over 10 days of proceeding­s. The focus will soon shift to lawsuits and multiple probes of Nassar's actions and those of people around him when he worked for Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, the sport's governing body.

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