Judge signs Nassar’s ‘death warrant’

LANSING, Mich. – After sentencing disgraced former doctor Larry Nassar to at least 40 years in prison on Wednesday, Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told him she had just signed his “death warrant.”

Moments before that, Nassar, standing at the same podium from where 156 victim-impact statements were delivered, turned to the gallery and apologized for his abuse.

“I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days,” he said in a brief statement, referring to the 156 victimimpact statements he listened to over the course of his seven-day sentencing hearing.

However, in a letter Nassar wrote before his sentencing hearing began on Jan. 16, Nassar said what he did was medical, not sexual, and that the women and girls coming forward were doing so to seek money. Aquilina read from the letter in the courtroom, saying Nassar still had not owned his actions. The judge said she would not release the full letter.

Aquilina sentenced the 54-year-old Nassar to 40 to 175 years on seven sexual assault charges, bringing to a close his sentencing hearing.

“I just signed your death warrant,” Aquilina told him.

Kyle Stephens, whom Nassar admitted to sexually assaulting when she was a young girl, said after the sentencing that she was relieved, more relieved than she expected to be.

“My monster is gone,” she said. Michigan State University Police Chief Jim Dunlap said after the sentence he was proud of the efforts by

Det. Lt. Andrea Munford, the lead detective on the case, and Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis, who led the prosecution, along with the rest of the team.

The investigation and prosecution took “tens of thousands of hours,” he said, “but today it’s like that’s all meaningless compared to the outcome.”

Dunlap added that Wednesday was for the victims, the more than 150 women and girls who spoke in court, the majority opting to publicly state their names in a show of strength against their abuser.

“Cool is an old person’s word,” Dunlap said. “But I’m an old person and this is pretty cool today, that they could get here. I’m so proud of them.”

Nassar was once a famed gymnastics doctor, who worked for two decades with U.S. Olympians and Michigan State gymnasts, in addition to thousands of youth gymnasts and women and girls who saw him for other sports injuries.

He was often seen as their only hope of getting their bodies healthy and back into competition, something dozens of women and girls have said he used to manipulate and take advantage of them.

The career, power and reputation he had built for more than 20 years began to fall apart in September 2016, following an Indianapolis Star article and a new police investigation involving sexual abuse of a minor.

Rachael Denhollander, the woman who spoke to the IndyStar and filed that police report, was the last of 156 women and girls to give victim-impact statements during Nassar’s sentencing hearing.

She said she felt like the sentence Wednesday was appropriate and appreciated the movement that’s developed among those giving victim-impact statements during the sentencing.

“It just makes me grateful for where we are, because there was no guarantee we’d get here,” she said. “And even this exceeded my expectations.”

The hearing was expected to take four days, but as it began to draw national attention, more women and girls came forward to police and prosecutors wishing to speak, a provision of his plea agreement giving each of them the opportunity if they wished.

Nassar’s sentencing hearing here in Ingham County spanned seven days, equal to the number of sexual assaults to which charges he pleaded guilty in this county. He faces three additional counts in Eaton County, where sentencing is scheduled on Jan. 31.

Nassar, formerly of Holt, was sentenced in December to 60 years in prison on three federal child pornography charges. He must serve the entirety of his federal prison time before he can serve any of his state sentence.