OH, BOO-HOO, DR. DEVIANT!
Gymnastics perv hates hearing vics
The former sports doctor accused of sexually abusing more than 130 girls griped to a judge in a letter read Thursday he couldn’t mentally handle listening to his victims’ stories in the courtroom.
Larry Nassar, 54, a former Team USA gymnastics doctor, pleaded guilty to molesting seven girls — and as part of his plea agreement, all of his accusers were allowed to confront him in court during a four-day sentencing in Michigan.
Around 88 women are expected to testify against him and share their harrowing stories of abuse.
The testimony, which began Tuesday, has sent Nassar, 54, into an emotional tailspin, he said.
He sent a six-page, single-spaced letter that called out Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina and said he wasn’t sure if he could “mentally” handle four days of listening to victim-impact statements, which often include loud sobbing and direct eye contact with Nassar, NBC News reported.
He complained that the judge had turned the proceedings into a “media circus” in an attempt to put herself in the spotlight.
“Now this is entertaining to me,” Aquilina said, reading the letter in court Thursday morning. “I don’t have a dog in this fight, sir.”
She called his complaints “delusional.”
“You need to talk about these issues with a therapist, and that’s not me,” Aquilina said.
The judge turned to a portion of the letter in which Nassar appeared to be upset that more women than the seven he pleaded guilty to molesting had been given the chance to stare him down in court.
“Aquilina is allowing them all to talk,” Nassar wrote.
“She wants me to sit in the witness box next to her for all four days so the media cameras will be directed at her.”
Aquilina snapped back that the emotional abuse Nassar inflicted on the girls while molesting them under the guise of medical treatment trumps the pain he’ll feel while listening to their stories.
“Spending four or five days listening to them is significantly minor considering the hours of pleasure you had at their expense and ruining their lives,” Aquilina said.
She cut Wednesday’s court session short so Nassar could meet with mental-health professionals. He will be sentenced at the conclusion of the hearing, which could go into next week. Prosecutors are seeking up to 125 years behind bars for the disgraced doctor.
Among Nassar’s victims are several gold-medal-winning gymnasts, including McKayla Maroney who penned a statement that was read in court on Thursday.
“I did it. I got there,” said the statement, which was read on her behalf by Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis, according to Mlive.com. “But not without a price . . . I had a dream to go Olympics, and things I had to do to get there are disgusting.”
Maroney blasted Michigan State University — where Nassar was on the faculty — and USA Gymnastics for not paying attention to the “red flags.” “He was not a doctor. He was a child molester,” she said. “He left scars on my psyche that will never go away.”
Olympian Jamie Dantzscher, who won a bronze model in 2000, appeared in court and recounted how many refused to believe her when she first said she’d been sexually abused by Nassar.
“They called me a liar. A whore. Accused me of making this up to get attention,” she said.