Mother of OU gymnast Maggie Nichols speaks at Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing
Earlier this month, University of Oklahoma gymnast Maggie Nichols revealed that she is “Athlete A” — the first to report sexual abuse by team doctor Larry Nassar to USA Gymnastics in 2015.
On Wednesday, Nichols’ mother, Gina, delivered a powerful victim’s impact statement on behalf of her daughter at Nassar’s sentencing hearing.
Nassar has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting 10 girls but nearly 100 women are expected to deliver statements at the hearing, which is expected to last through Friday.
Gina Nichols mostly stared at Nassar as she delivered her view as a parent after reading a letter her daughter wrote recently, which was released last week.
“A real doctor, as I said before, helps heal,” Gina Nichols said. “He doesn’t hurt. You actually are not a real doctor. You’re not a doctor at all. You’re a serial child molester — a pedophile.”
She also turned to address Kerry Perry, the CEO of USA Gymnastics, who was in the Michigan courtroom.
“They’re accountable. They are accountable,” Nichols said of USAG. “I don’t want to hear any more statements from anybody else — we’re doing this and we’re doing that. We have a safe place now. It’s too late now. That’s fine. We need to make a safer place but all the people at USAG and MSU (Michigan State) and the United States Olympic Committee who covered it up and allowed this negligence and abuse to happen to children are responsible and they have to take responsibility for it.”
After Nichols reported Nassar, according to a USA Gymnastics statement released recently, USAG hired a private investigator who interviewed Nichols and another gymnast and determined that they was not “a reasonable suspicion that sexual abuse had occurred.”
An interview with other victims — a pair of Olympians — five weeks later led the organization to contact the FBI.
Maggie Nichols was 15 when she says the abuse began, after she was sent to Nassar to help with a back injury.