US doctor locked up for life after sex abuse trial
LANSING: Disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison on Wednesday after a week of raw emotional testimony by scores of women he sexually abused for years under the guise of medical treatment.
“I’ve just signed your death warrant,” Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said as she handed down what amounts to a life sentence to the 54-year-old Nassar in a tense Lansing, Michigan, courtroom.
“You do not deserve to walk outside of a prison ever again,” the judge said as Nassar, dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit, stood expressionless before her flanked by two defence attorneys.
“You’re a danger, you remain a danger,” Aquilina said. “Anywhere you walk destruction will occur to those most vulnerable.”
Minutes ahead of the sentencing, Nassar apologised in court to his victims, who included Olympic gold-medal winning gymnasts Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney but also scores of female athletes at Michigan State University, where he worked.
“What I am feeling pales in comparison to the pain, trauma, and emotional destruction that all of you are feeling,” Nassar said, turning at several points to face his victims in court.
“There are no words to describe the depth and breadth of how sorry I am for what has occurred,” he said.
Judge Aquilina scoffed at his apology, however, and read from a letter in which Nassar, despite his guilty plea, once again claimed to have been providing legitimate medical treatment.
“It was not treatment. It was not medical,” the judge said. “I wouldn’t send my dogs to you, sir.”
In extraordinary scenes over the past week, around 160 women appeared in court or testified anonymously to the emotional pain they continue to experience because of the sexual abuse by Nassar.
The slight, bespectacled Nassar looked down or occasionally wiped his eyes with a tissue as woman after woman delivered gut-wrenching statements about the impact of his abuse.
Already sentenced to 60 years in prison on federal child pornography charges, Nassar pleaded guilty to 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct. He was sentenced on Wednesday on seven of those counts, with a final additional sentence to be handed down later this month.
As victim after victim detailed Nassar’s actions, t hey also slammed a lack of accountability among sporting institutions.
Shortly after the sentence was handed down, the USOC announced an independent probe into USA Gymnastics and the Olympic Committee itself, to establish “who knew what and when” and how “abuse of this proportion could have gone undetected for so long.”
Three top officials of USA Gymnastics’ board of directors resigned this week but USOC is demanding an entire overhaul of the board.
USAG also severed ties with the famed Karolyi Ranch — the Texas training facility once considered a breeding ground of champions, where Nassar reportedly had unfettered access to young girls.