Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Maggie Nichols To Senate: FBI Delays Hurt, Too

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) — Team USA Gymnastics officials turned a "blind eye" to repeated reports about former team doctor Larry Nassar's sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women, Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles on Wednesday told a Senate panel investigating what the FBI's handling of what turned out to be one of the greatest sports scandals in U.S. history.

The Senate Judiciary Committee also heard testimony from three other elite gymnasts, Kayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols.

"If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe," Biles said. "Enough is enough.”

Biles, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion who is widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time, testified forcefully and emotionally about the toll of Nassar's crimes, but declared herself a survivor of sexual assault. She said she “can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you."

Nassar pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal child pornography offenses and sexual abuse charges in Michigan and is now serving decades in prison. Hundreds of girls and women have said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State and Indiana-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.

“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles said through tears. In addition to failures of the FBI, she said USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee “knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “deeply and profoundly sorry” for delays in Nassar’s prosecution and the pain it caused.

The hearing is part of a congressional effort to hold the FBI accountable after multiple missteps in investigating the case, including the delays that allowed Nassar to abuse other young gymnasts. A July report from the Department of Justice inspector general's office found that "despite the extraordinarily serious nature" of the allegations against Nassar, FBI officials in Indianapolis did not respond with the "utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required."

The four women who testified were the among the first to report to the FBI field office in Indianapolis, where USA Gymnastics is based. At least 40 girls and women said they were molested after investigators in Indianapolis had been made aware of allegations against Nassar in 2015. USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation; and then the organization's then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. But it took months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

Wray blasted his own agents who failed to appropriately respond to the complaints and made a promise to the victims that he was committed to “make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here" and that it never happens again.

A supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and later lied about it, has been fired by the agency, Wray said.

Maroney, a member of the 2012 gold medal-winning team, recounted to senators a night when, at age 15, she found the doctor on top of her while she was naked — one of many times she was abused. She recalled thinking she might die, but when she recalled the memories in a tearful call to FBI agents, she was met with "dead silence." She and other gymnasts who reported Nassar's conduct left her and other gymnasts feeling "minimized and disregarded," Maroney said

“I think for so long all of us questioned, just because someone else wasn’t fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us," Maroney said. "And I think that makes the healing process take longer.”

Aly Raisman, a gold medalist in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, told senators it "disgusts" her that they're still looking for answers six years after the original alleegations against Nassar were made.

“Being here today is taking everything I have," she said. "My main concern is I hope I have the energy to just walk out of here. I don’t think people realize how much it affects us.”

Democratic and Republican senators expressed disgust over the case and said they would continue to investigate. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said it was among the most compelling and heartbreaking testimony he had ever heard.

“We have a job to do and we know it,” Durbin said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must “demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance" from federal law enforcement. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, called Nassar a “monster” and wondered how many other abusers have escaped justice, considering that even world-class athletes were ignored in this case.

In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show, Biles said Nassar’s abuse caused a deep depression, one of the factors that led to her withdrawal from most of the events she’d qualified for at the Tokyo Olympics.

In her testimony at Nassar’s sentencing in 2018, Raisman said the Nassar’s “abuse goes way beyond the moment, often haunting survivors for the rest of their lives.”
“It is all the more devastating when such abuse comes at the hand of such a highly regarded doctor since it leaves survivors questioning the organizations and even the medical profession itself upon which so many rely,” she said.

Litigation over the abuse may soon be coming to an end after USA Gymnastics and hundreds of Nassar's victims filed a joint $425 million settlement proposal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis last month.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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