Raisman files suit against two organizations
Groups ‘should have known’ about Nassar
Aly Raisman is suing the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics, claiming they “knew or should have known” about the abusive patterns of Larry Nassar, a disgraced former national team doctor now in prison for sexually abusing young athletes.
Nassar, who is named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit filed in California, is serving life in prison for molesting some of the sport’s top athletes and others as well as child pornography crimes.
The 23-year-old Raisman, captain for both the gold medal-winning 2012 and 2016 U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics teams, says she was abused by Nassar in multiple locations beginning in 2010, including at the U.S. national team training facility at the Karolyi Ranch training center in Texas and the 2012 Games in London.
“It has become painfully clear that these organizations have no intention of properly addressing this problem,” the Needham native says in the suit. “After all this time, they remain unwilling to conduct a full investigation, and without a solid understanding of how this happened, it is delusional to think sufficient changes can be implemented.”
Raisman’s lawsuit claims both organizations focused on medals instead of the well-being of the athletes, a model that allowed Nassar’s behavior to go unchecked for years.
The lawsuit says the USOC “had a culture and atmosphere that conceals known and suspected sexual abusers, which transcends all policies and procedures that are set-in place” and ignored its own mandates “to protect its reputation and blind itself to known abusers within the ranks of the NGBs (National Governing Bodies) for which it is responsible.”
Nassar spent nearly three decades at USA Gymnastics before being fired in 2015 after complaints about his behavior.
USA Gymnastics said in a statement yesterday it is “doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again by making bold decisions and holding ourselves to the highest standards of care.” The USOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
USA Gymnastics has undergone a massive overhaul in the last year. Former President Steve Penny, named as a co-defendant in Raisman’s lawsuit, resigned last March. Longtime chairman of the board Paul Parilla, another co-defendant in the suit, and the rest of the board stepped down in January under heavy pressure from the USOC. USA Gymnastics also ended its relationship with the Karolyi Ranch in January and is currently searching for a new training center.
Raisman doesn’t believe either organization is going far enough fast enough for future generations of athletes.