OLYMPIC DOC: I DID IT
Pleads guilty to abusing gym gals
The disgraced Team USA doctor accused of molesting dozens of young women — including three gymnasts who won gold at the 2012 Olympics — pleaded guilty on Wednesday to several charges of sexual assault.
Clad in an orange jumpsuit, Larry Nassar, 54, confessed to sexually abusing seven girls — six of them gymnasts — and now faces a minimum of 25 years behind bars.
“For all those involved . . . I’m so horribly sorry that this was like a match that turned into a forest fire out of control,” Nassar said during the hearing in a packed courtroom in Ingham County, Mich.
“I pray the rosary every day for forgiveness. I want them to heal. I want the community to heal.”
Scores of young athletes — including gold medalists Aly Rais- man, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney — have accused Nassar of sexual abuse.
The once highly respected physician, a former faculty member at Michigan State University, had previously claimed he was conducting legitimate medical exams.
“You used that position of trust that you had in the most vile way — to abuse children,” Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told Nassar at the hearing.
“I agree that now is a time of healing, but it might take them a lifetime of healing while you spend your lifetime behind bars thinking about what you did in taking away their childhood.”
Aquilina said Nassar’s accusers are “superheroes for all of America, because this is an epidemic.”
Nassar, who in July also pleaded guilty to federal child-pornography charges, is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 12.
More than 100 women have accused Nassar of sexual abuse in separate civil lawsuits, and he still faces criminal charges in Eaton County, Mich., as well.
Raisman — who revealed earlier this month that she was one of Nassar’s victims — said Wednesday she is sickened that the doctor was able to get away with preying on gymnasts for so many years.
“It is about time that Larry plead guilty and owned up to his actions. I am beyond disgusted that a decorated Olympic and USA Gymnastics doctor was able to prey upon so many over such a long period of time,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
“Until we fully understand the flaws in the system that allowed this to happen in the first place — and enabled it to continue for decades — we can’t be confident it won’t happen again.”
Maroney, Raisman’s teammate, came forward in October, saying Nassar once gave her a sleeping pill on a flight, and when she woke up, she was “in his hotel room getting a ‘treatment.’ ”
“I thought I was going to die that night,’ she said.
Three of Nassar’s accusers held a press conference after his hearing — and accused officials at Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic Committee of ignoring victims’ complaints.
“Today, we heard the truth from Larry,” said victim Rachael Denhollander. “But we have yet to hear the truth from . . . officials who kept Larry in power for decades. Officials who brushed the victims off as unable to tell the difference between a medical exam and sexual violation.”