Larry Nassar Abuse Survivors Reach $380 Million Settlement With USA Gymnastics, USOPC
USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) on Monday reached a reported $380 million settlement to lawsuits filed by survivors of former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar.
According to the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, The New York Times and other news outlets, USA Gymnastics and the USOPC also agreed to designate a select number of board seats for survivors and implement other new policies aimed at protecting athletes from future abuse.
“This settlement is about the brave survivors who came forward, forced these organizations to listen, and demanded change,” said Michelle Simpson Tuegel, who represents more than two dozen Nassar survivors, and Tasha Schwikert Moser, cochair of the Survivors Creditors Committee, in a joint statement. “Through this agreement, these survivors are finally being acknowledged and USAG and USOPC are being forced to change so that this sport can begin a new chapter."
The Times reported that the settlement amount would compensate more than 500 gymnasts who were abused by Nassar, including Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman.
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“No amount of money will ever repair the damage that has been done and what these women have been through,” attorney Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly describe abuse by Nassar, in 2016, told the Times. “But at some point, the negotiations have to end because these women need help, and they need it right now.”
Michigan State, where Nassar worked for decades, agreed in May 2018 to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who said they were abused by Nassar. Survivors have been in mediation with USA Gymnastics since the organization filed for bankruptcy in December 2018.
Nassar is serving decades in prison for sexual assault and possession of child pornography in Michigan. Hundreds of athletes have come forward over the last five years saying Nassar abused them under the guise of treatment, including seven-time Olympic medalist Biles and six-time Olympic medalist Raisman.
ESPN reported Monday a committee of survivors of Nassar’s abuse, which included Raisman and fellow former Olympians Kyla Ross and Tasha Schwikert, as well as attorneys Denhollander and Sarah Klein, had rejected earlier settlement offers.
“This settlement occurred because of a five-year, bare-knuckled legal fight the USOPC and USA Gymnastics decided to initiate against me and 500-plus sister survivors,” Klein, who served as cochair of the survivors committee, told ESPN. “After thousands of hours of this survivors committee’s time, blood, sweat and tears, today we prevailed.”
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