Imagine you’re a rapist pedophile. How can you get access to the nubile, young, female bodies you crave without drawing attention to yourself and ruining things? Fortunately, you’re a medical doctor. Even more fortunately, you manage to get a job with US gymnastics. You get to handle the primary medical needs of female gymnasts, girls and to a lesser degree, young women in absolutely peak physical condition. They’re perfect physical specimens. You get to fondle them under the unquestionable cover of athletic physicals. 

And you get to do it for decades. You operate under the auspices of US Gymnastics, the summer Olympics, Michigan State University and US Gymnastics. You get to sexually assault hundreds, and when academic and athletic officials and the FBI are repeatedly told about what you’re doing, they do nothing or actively shame your victims and defend you. Larry Nassar was living the dream, but it all, finally, fell apart. There were just too many victims in too many places to continue to ignore:

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*Michigan State softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez tells three university athletic trainers and one staff member that Nassar was sexually inappropriate during medical treatments, according to her statements to MLive. According to her 2016 lawsuit, Lopez says she was told that “she was fortunate to receive the best medical care possible from a world-renowned doctor.”

*USA Gymnastics member Rachael Denhollander alleges being sexually assaulted by Nassar while receiving treatment for lower back pain. She was 15 years old at the time.

Amazingly, it took until 2016 for Nassar to begin to face any consequences.  Even in 2018, when Nassar had been convicted of multiple crimes, and was facing far more, many of those responsible for taking care of his female victims remained unresponsive—except for billing. They were efficient about that:

*A 15-year-old survivor of Nassar testifies in court that she was assaulted by him one week before he was fired by MSU. There are reports the MSU Sports Clinic is still attempting to bill the girl’s family for the appointment. The university later says it will not bill patients of Nassar.

Numerous athletic officials aligned with universities and athletic organizations were eventually fired or allowed to resign, and innumerable words were written by involved organizations making all the right noises and promising to make all the right changes. In 2021, the Inspector General of the FBI conducted an investigation  and wrote a report, released in July of 2021, that was not kind to the FBI agents involved, nor the Bureau as a whole, discovering agents did not report evidence to local law enforcement and when under investigation, lied about their actions. None were prosecuted, nor is there any evidence any suffered any significant discipline for their inaction and perjury.

I know what you’re thinking: sue the bastards! Make them pay! That’s exactly what happened, finally, in April of 2021, even the federal DOJ was forced to pay up:  

The DOJ under AG Bill Barr refused to prosecute the FBI liars, but today the DOJ gave the gymnasts $138 million, bringing the total lawsuit settlement to over a billion dollars.

Michigan State University gave $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee settled for $380 million, and today the DOJ settled for $138 million. No one in the FBI was ever held accountable.

Sadly, most, if not all of those funds, came from taxpayers.

All manner of promises were made about reorganizing the entities involved, and time will tell if those promises were mere rhetoric or honest intentions born of the recognition of actual evil. Money cannot, of course, compensate the girls and young women for the years of sexual abuse they endured.

What remains is for those who love those athletes, and those who love the law and civilization, to keep up the pressure, to make those responsible for real change and ethical behavior know they will forever be watched.

Unfortunately, the FBI has proved it cannot be trusted to police itself, nor to act ethically in virtually any other way. If the Bureau had its way, Larry Nassar would still be living his demented dream.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.