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[ethereal music playing]
[indistinct chattering]
[woman 1] Tight knees, tight knees.
Head in, Abbie.
[woman 2] When I was young, my dream was always to go to the Olympics.
And so I always had that in the back of my head.
[woman 1] Guys, the goal is no arm circles on any of your sticks.
Only count the ones that are stuck cold, okay?
[woman 2] I just love gymnastics.
I love the drive that it gives me.
[woman 1] Carly, try not to stagger.
[woman 2] It teaches you to be strong, independent.
-[woman 3] Yep. Sorry. -[woman 4] It's okay.
[woman 2] Being able to fly through the air and do the things we do,
it's just so thrilling, and you get that adrenaline rush and...
You can't even explain it.
[girls] Maggie! Come on, Maggie! Go, Maggie!
[cheering]
[boy] Yeah!
[applause]
[Maggie] I started gymnastics when I was three years old
because I was always climbing out of my crib
and climbing on the furniture and everything, so...
my parents put me in it, just be in a safer environment
where there's mats and coaches and stuff like that.
[shouts]
[woman 5] I liked the sport. I mean, I did it in high school.
I always watched it on TV, and I loved it.
And so I had this little girl, after three sons, and I put her in it.
So, yes, as a preschooler.
[applause]
Right away, the coaches picked up on her.
They nabbed her up as a little girl, like in second grade.
I mean, she was the only ten-year-old in the country that competed at Nationals.
[man] You know, somebody drove her to the gym, maybe 45 minutes from here.
Come back, maybe go back to work,
pick up Maggie at the gym.
That was every day for years and years and years.
[woman] Here's Maggie Nichols, Level 10 junior from Twin City Twisters.
[Maggie] The goal was to try to be an elite gymnast
and to make the national team.
Did online school as well, so I could train more in the gym.
And this is probably one of my favorite leos. Um...
I love the white.
Like, I don't know what it is, but if it has white on it, I just-- I just love it.
I don't know why. [laughs]
If you wanted to take the next step to make national team,
you need to be very strong, because gymnastics would be like...
you know, almost your whole life. I mean, it was almost my whole life.
You give up almost everything.
[man 1 over PA] Now on balance beam for Twin City Twisters, Maggie Nichols!
[man 2] When I asked you who impressed you,
in terms of who's coming up after Simone Biles,
you said Maggie Nichols was one.
[woman] Talking to her earlier this week,
she said she finally feels like she's in the mix.
[ethereal music playing]
[Gina] USA Gymnastics took Maggie's Olympic dream away from her.
It was just so hurtful and so painful. Everything that happened.
[John] We have fairly good ideas on...
what actually happened.
Evidence, I would say.
[man] So you're watching justice happen in slow motion?
Well, hopefully justice. [laughs]
Hopefully justice.
[man] When we started reporting on the initial story,
this was really the most explosive story
that the USA Today Network has had in several years.
Yet it was coming out of the sticks, you know?
[laughs] It was coming out of a small little newsroom.
Okay, what do we got?
Um, one of our sources who runs the popular blog--
[man] Like everyone, I'd watch gymnastics during the Olympics,
and I had witnessed some of the stars, you know, over the years.
USA Gymnastics was an organization in this town,
but I really didn't know a lot about what was going on behind the scenes.
So, you know, what that culture was like was new to me and, uh...
and we sort of were plunged into it.
[man 1] Every four years, it's our time to shine.
Our moment.
When the toughest sport in the world
takes its rightful place on the world's biggest stage.
[crowd cheering]
The moment when the brightest spotlight shines
on the best athletes these United States have to offer.
Every four years...
starts right now.
[crowd cheering]
[man 2] It is one of the most in-demand events at the Olympics,
and it could be historic.
In 1996, there was a Magnificent Seven.
In 2012, a Fierce Five.
This group will make a name for themselves tonight one way or the other.
[crowd cheering]
[woman] As the Summer Olympics gets underway in Rio,
an IndyStar USA Today Network investigation
unveils a possible sexual abuse scandal at USA Gymnastics.
It alleges the organization has a policy that may have harmed child athletes.
I had been working on an investigation
into failure to report sexual abuse in schools.
We'd had a number of local cases in Indiana.
And so, as I was looking at a broader piece on,
why does this seem to keep happening?
Why do people not report as they're required to do?
A source suggested that I look at USA Gymnastics
and how they handle sexual abuse allegations.
And that source pointed me toward a lawsuit
involving a predatory coach...
who had moved from gym to gym to gym,
despite warning signs about his conduct.
You'll have to edit it just a bit.
[man] One coach was shown to have abused a young gymnast
after USA Gymnastics had been warned about him years earlier.
In the file, one complaint said,
"This coach needs to be put in a cage before he rapes somebody."
Uh, USA Gymnastics did nothing.
[indistinct chattering]
[Kwiatkowski] As we were pursuing this investigation,
we got access to these depositions
with current and former high-ranking USA Gymnastics officials
that described their policy for how they handled these allegations.
[man] Mr. Penny, uh, you are the president currently of USA Gymnastics?
[Penny] Yes.
[man] If you receive a complaint of sexual misconduct,
whether it be by a professional member or anyone that has a membership with USAG,
do you turn it over to local authorities?
No.
[man] Okay.
We don't turn over a complaint.
[Kwiatkowski] For the first time, it showed USA Gymnastics had a policy
of not reporting all allegations to authorities.
That they would dismiss allegations as hearsay
unless they were signed by a victim, a victim's parent,
or an eyewitness to the abuse.
[Berta] And we found USA Gymnastics had sexual abuse complaint files
on 54 coaches.
And if there was no signed statement
by the victim or the victim's parent, they just tucked it in a folder
and stuffed it in Steve Penny's filing cabinet.
And then those coaches went on to molest other children.
[upbeat music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[man 1] Get the gold medals ready again.
[man 2] That is an Olympic gold medal-winning moment.
[cheering]
[woman 1] As athletes are gathering in Rio,
a stunning report from The Indianapolis Star
and USA Today Network dominated this day.
[woman 2] The paper is reporting that, on multiple occasions,
USA Gymnastics compiled complaints of coaches accused of sexual misconduct
but refused to share the information with police,
most often dismissing it as hearsay,
because the complaints were not made by the victims,
those young athletes, or their parents.
[woman 1] In a statement, Steve Penny, the president of USA Gymnastics,
said the organization is quote, "Committed to promoting a safe environment,"
and noted quote, "We feel The Star left out significant facts
that would have painted a more accurate picture."
[woman] I was cleaning my kitchen,
and I had two babies that were 13 months apart.
And they were both fussy,
and so I had my baby strapped to me.
I was wearing her while I cleaned the kitchen.
And I needed to make a shopping list, so I opened my computer
and Facebook was up,
and trending in the news section was the headline for the IndyStar article.
It was a complete accident that I even saw it.
But I clicked on it, and I read it right away.
And the first thought was, "I was right.
They've been burying sexual abuse. I was right.
And this is it.
Now's the time.
If it's ever going to come out, it's going to come out now."
[indistinct chattering]
[Alesia] On the morning of publication of that first story...
we got an e-mail from Rachael Denhollander.
And she wrote, "My abuse wasn't by a coach,
but it was by a famous doctor.
And if they're covering things up for the coaches,
I think they would be covering it up for him."
And that was the first time
I had heard there could be something wrong with Larry Nassar.
[beep]
[woman] Hi, Mr. Alesia. My name is Jessica Howard.
I just wanted to call you as a follow-up to your story.
Um, I am very nervous about talking to you about it, but...
I think it would help...
bring justice to a lot of the people
who have been affected by USA Gymnastics and their policies.
Thank you. Bye.
[crowd cheering]
When the...
story came out in 2016...
Nassar just came back into my head.
When something hits you like...
that realization that it was sexual abuse...
and you haven't known, haven't thought about it...
it becomes...
so real.
Like it was yesterday.
Like it just happened to you. Like you are 15.
[Dantzscher] My head started kind of like spinning a little bit.
I've never told anybody, but...
I was like, "Wait a minute...
this doctor used to do very similar things to me."
At that point, I was...
still scared, but...
I was thinking, "If he is a pedophile...
and I...
don't do something about it, I can't live with that."
[man] I was approached by Jamie Dantzscher,
who was a 2000 Olympian.
And she told me
the story about this. Dr. Nassar,
and she felt like he had sexually assaulted her.
I believed her.
After I agreed to take her case, I called The Indianapolis Star.
And I said, "Great article.
By the way, have you ever heard of a guy named Larry Nassar?"
I... I was stunned.
I mean, I just thought, "Now this is-- Now we're talking three people."
And these women didn't know each other.
How many more could there be?
[man 1] Oh, golly.
-[woman] Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. -[man 1] Oh, God.
-[woman] Oh, no. -Medical?
[sobbing]
Shh-shh-shh. Easy. easy, easy, easy.
[man 2] You can obviously see the shaking of the head, the resignation.
Everybody knows this goes with the territory, and they hate it.
[man 1] Medical staff. Dr. Larry Nassar on the floor.
He keeps these women together.
[indistinct chatter over PA]
[Kwiatkowski] Larry Nassar had been the team doctor
for USA Gymnastics' women's program for 29 years.
He was also a Michigan State University doctor at the time.
So he was this prominent member of the community...
when we got these allegations about him.
Hello and welcome to GymnasticsDoctor.com.
This is part of the sports medicine tender teaching moments.
I call these TTX.
Over and over and over.
Around and around and around.
It's amazing, the number of treatments
that these kids will get to keep them healthy enough
to sustain them at the World Championship level,
Olympic Championship level that they are.
Um, we'll treat them before practice.
We treat them after practice, then we treat them before the second practice.
There are two a day. We're there for the entire second practice.
Then we treat them to the point that they go to bed.
So we usually see them at seven in the morning
and get done at ten at night.
[man] In medical school, he worked as a trainer. He rose up as a volunteer.
And then, when he got on the staff at Michigan State,
part of his requirement was to do community work.
[applause]
He started a foundation for autistic children.
And he seemed like this larger-than-life, um,
better-than-real person.
Okay, let's see what else you guys have...
discovered down here.
We very quickly started putting together a story,
and we split up those sources.
So Marisa flew out to California and, uh, met with John Manly and Jamie Dantzscher.
[Evans] Jessica Howard, at that time, had spoken to us,
but was not ready to be included in the story, even as a Jane Doe.
But her story helped us have confidence,
because it corroborated everything we'd heard from Jamie
and we'd heard from Rachael.
[Alesia] I happened to get Rachael's tip.
And she said it would be fine to do an interview on camera, on the record,
with her name...
in her home.
Tell me more about why now, why...
you know, why... why you're willing to be brave enough to talk with me.
Um, I didn't know a lot when I was 15,
but one thing I did know was that abuse victims aren't treated well.
They are mocked. They are questioned. They are blamed. They are shamed.
Um, and that does incredible damage to the healing process.
I wish I could have dealt with it 16 years ago.
I don't think I could have, but I can now.
[mellow piano music playing]
I was very much a perfectionist,
and that's what attracted me to the sport of gymnastics,
was the perfection that it required.
But my family wasn't able to afford gym fees,
so I didn't start until I was almost 12.
Because, at that point, I could work,
and my siblings helped me clean the gym, and my mom worked to pay for my gym fees.
But I was five-four when I started. Way too tall, long torso, wrong body type.
So I only competed at the club level and a low club level at that.
So I only competed in Michigan.
I did it because I loved it. I was not any good.
[Dantzscher] I told my parents I wanted to do gymnastics
when I was three years old.
'Cause I saw it on TV and...
I just saw these girls...
-flipping and twisting and flying. -[crowd applauding]
And I just... I wanted to be able to do that.
It was like my first love. I loved everything about it.
I was crazy. I look back now,
and I was chucking triple-backs off a mini trampoline into the pit.
And I was... I was only nine years old.
I had no idea how talented I was.
I was just... I was just having a good time.
[man] This is 15-year-old Jamie Dantzscher,
who's making a move tonight after a fine beam routine.
[classical music playing]
[Dantzscher] I trained with Beth and Steve Rybacki
at Gliders Gymnastics from...
eleven to 18 years old.
I went from training about 18 hours a week...
to about 30 to 35.
At that time, I was like,
"Yes, I get to be in the gym more and train more."
Like, I couldn't get enough of it.
Anything they said it would take to get to the Olympics,
I was going to do.
Come on, Jamie.
[Dantzscher] I remember having stone bruises on my heels.
I couldn't even, like, walk on the carpet.
I mean, I had broken toes I competed on and trained on,
a fractured back I actually competed on.
-[woman] Oh! Bela's gonna love that one! -[crowd cheering]
But yet, it was like every time I had an injury, I wasn't believed.
[man] You can see Bela Karolyi back there. He seems to always be back there.
[crowd cheering]
[Dantzscher] As far as weight...
I remember I had the flu.
I was literally throwing up for five days straight.
And I remember getting weighed,
and I'd lost, I think, like six pounds from being sick.
And...
I remember Beth telling me...
you know, "You lost six pounds.
Now we've got to figure out how to keep it off."
And to hear they don't care how you do it had a huge effect on me.
I mean, back then, I didn't even think of it as abuse.
That's kind of--
It's still psychological for me,
'cause I almost still feel bad for even...
saying the truth.
Like I almost...
Like I hate this sentence, but I actually, like, looked forward to treatment.
And-- Because Larry was...
the only nice adult.
He's really the only nice adult I could remember...
being...
a part of USA Gymnastics staff.
[crowd cheering, applauding]
He was really the only...
nice adult there.
[ethereal music playing]
[indistinct chattering]
[man] Yeah.
That's it.
[Maggie] So when I was, like, 13, that's when I qualified for elite gymnastics.
And when I was 15, I finally made the national team.
[crowd cheering]
[woman] If she keeps this up, she has a great shot
to make that Olympic team next year.
[man] She's still right in the hunt...
to come second to Simone.
[Maggie] The national team camp was in Texas.
And Martha and Bela Karolyi owned it.
Martha would walk out of her office, and we'd all... [gasps]
...go like this and go shortest to tallest in a line.
We trained about seven hours a day.
And they ranked us from top to bottom.
We just had so many eyes on us.
National staff, our own home coaches, other athletes.
So it was pretty intense.
[Gina] I remember Maggie saying that it was really scary,
and they were very strict.
But it was an honor.
That's where the Olympic athletes come from.
You get on that team, and now you have a shot.
[Gina] The parents were never allowed to go to the ranch.
I could hardly ever talk to her when she was there
because they didn't have cell phone reception.
[John] It was a strict way to make them stronger...
and better for their sport.
And so we had to, you know, trust and believe in... in their system.
You know, you would think they'd be able to keep,
you know, people safe. Especially when we're...
not allowed to set foot on the property.
But I knew nothing about Nassar.
I never even thought to ask those questions,
because I didn't even know he was there.
[Maggie] In 2015, Larry was doing treatments for my back.
And there's this room called the back room
where we, like, watched TV and got massages and stuff.
Um, he would just do it right there.
And I was just, like, kind of, like, confused
and, like, wondering what it was.
It didn't seem right.
Um, because I grew up always going to physical therapy and stuff,
because I had many injuries growing up,
um, and I'd never experienced anything like that.
So I thought I'd ask Aly just 'cause...
I mean, we were really close friends, and she was older, too,
and has been to national team camps and has worked with him before.
So I kind of just asked her. I was like, "Does he do this to you? Is this normal?"
And she said, "Yeah, like, he does it to me, too."
Maggie's coach, Sarah Jantzi, called me up, and she said,
"I want to let you know that I overheard from Maggie and another athlete...
that Larry Nassar was touching her funny,
and Maggie told her he was, you know, touching her private parts.
He was putting his hands in her vagina, and he was fingering her."
And I'm like...
"What?"
And I said, "We need to call the authorities."
And she said, "Yeah, I'm gonna call Rhonda Faehn,
who is in charge of the women's program, right away." So she did.
And then, the next day, Steve Penny called me.
I've never spoken to him personally.
All he said was,
"I hear you have a concern."
I said, "A concern?
I have... This is... My daughter was molested.
We need to call the authorities."
He said, "No, no, no, don't worry about that. I will take care of that.
USA Gymnastics will take care of calling the police."
Three or four weeks later, Steve Penny calls me again,
and he says, "Well, now, we want you to talk to an investigator.
Her name is Fran Sepler."
I thought "Well, maybe this is what they do with child sexual abuse cases."
I'd never been involved with one, so I didn't know.
You know, at competitions, following...
you know, Maggie's reporting...
Steve Penny would always tell me...
that, "Don't worry about Maggie.
We'll take care of Maggie. Don't worry about Maggie. We got Maggie."
So why would I not believe him?
You know, we're talking USA Gymnastics.
We're talking US Olympics.
-[phone beeps] -[Evans] Can you hear us all right?
-I can. Can you hear me? -Yeah, we've got you on speaker,
-so if it's weird, let us know. -Okay.
So... This is Steve Berta.
When you were active in gymnastics, were there coaches,
or other officials like Nassar, who the girls were suspicious of
or talked about as being abusive?
[Sey] Yes, absolutely.
There were sexual predators everywhere.
They were in my gym.
The national team coach, Don Peters, was a known sexual abuser.
They were everywhere across the country, and we knew who they were.
Uh, but, more broadly, emotional and physical abuse was actually the norm,
and we were all so beaten down by that...
um, and made so obedient
that, when we knew that there was a sexual abuser in our midst,
we would never say anything. We were just...
We felt utterly powerless.
[crowd applauding]
[woman] Now watch her face after this tumbling pass. She's hurt her ankle.
Do you see that little grimace? It hurts her.
[man] But she must go on here, the title at stake.
The courage of Jennifer Sey led her on to the title
as women's all-around champion of the USA,
but the pain was a heavy price.
[Sey] I started the sport in the mid-'70s.
And, I would say, the standard methodology
of coaching in elite gymnastics was cruelty.
That was the accepted methodology.
You could be as cruel as you needed to be
to get what you needed out of your athlete.
Um, so this is not new.
We just weren't good at it. We weren't getting great results.
We were getting okay results.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Bela and Martha Karolyi, husband and wife,
and what a coaching team they are.
[Sey] And then Bela and Martha Karolyi came here, and they...
validated that approach.
If success is winning, you know, medals in the Olympics,
then, you know, they proved that that methodology was successful
and was the right way to coach.
People know the Karolyis, but I'm not sure many of them really know their history.
[woman] Chris, this could be the highlight of the compulsory event.
She is one of the technically strongest, best gymnasts that I've ever seen.
Watch this.
Beautiful rhythm. Right to a handstand.
Oh, look at that amplitude.
Ooh!
[man] Faultless. Absolutely faultless.
Nadia Comaneci.
Now, what are the judges gonna say about that?
There's the smile.
Some cynics say it had to be trained...
because she so rarely smiles.
[Manly] They were Nicolae Ceausescu's chosen coaches
for the Romanian national gymnastics team.
And they coached Nadia Comaneci to a gold medal in 1976.
[Sey] If you look back at teams from the '50s and the '60s,
they look like grown women.
They are grown women.
But that started to change in the late '60s,
but really solidified in 1976
when Nadia won the Olympics as a 14-year-old.
And there was just this mad rush of little girls that wanted to do gymnastics,
'cause we related to her.
And what emerged was an aesthetic that was very, very young. Childlike.
And so it created a really dangerous environment,
because eating disorders became very prevalent.
You know, delaying menstruation
and delaying maturation.
But I think people really believed
that, for the more difficult skills to be performed, you had to be tiny.
There's also the benefit of the coaches
having more control when the girls are younger.
[crowd cheering]
[Manly] What's important for people to know
is that Nicolae Ceausescu and his regime
was arguably the most repressive regime in the Eastern Bloc.
And the Karolyis were part of that system.
[man] The Romanians started this idea
of training gymnasts from a very young age.
Like from six years old, they are selected from their kindergarten
or elementary schools,
and we tested them.
Flexibility, strength and, uh, no fear.
-[woman] No fear? -No fear, yes. No fear.
We have to put this in the context of the Cold War.
The Soviet Union or Romania,
they could not say, "Okay, we build better products
than the American side."
But we can have Nadia Comaneci.
Nadia was Romania's best product.
[laughing]
[man 1 speaking French]
[speaking Romanian]
[man 2 speaking French]
[woman] 1976, Nadia was definitely the one to be like at that point,
and the Russians, the Romanians, the East Germans,
all the, what we call the Communist Bloc,
they were the best, by far, in the sport.
And certainly, you always want to be like the ones who are winning.
But we would be at competitions, and they always seemed very scared.
The gymnasts did.
And you never saw them talk,
and they almost looked like robots.
The-- All I can say is the athletes...
did not look happy, ever.
[Pozsar] From the very beginning, Bela had this idea
that we will have total control over the girls
absolute control.
Bela was controlling their weight.
They had to step every single day on a scale.
He was yelling at them and putting them down.
"Fat cow."
"You are a pig."
He, you know, slapped the girls,
and the girls were very, very scared.
Martha had this habit of grabbing their neck
and get her fingers into their necks.
Plus slap them, you know, a lot.
The girls have the prints of the... her rings on their faces sometimes.
[woman] Did you report it to the authorities?
[Pozsar] Yes, sure. I reported them, but also you have to understand
that nobody took any kind of measures, you know, to stop them.
In Romania, that was acceptable.
[country music playing]
[man] When he heads for his ranch on a rural highway north of Houston,
in his four-wheel drive with Merle Haggard on the dashboard cassette deck
and a day's collection of bugs on the windshield...
well, you'd swear you were riding with a born Texan.
When Bela Karolyi defected to the West, he defected to the West.
Wee-hoo! Yip, yip!
[Pozsar] When we defected together...
we knew that United States has lots and lots of talent.
We saw the talent in the international competitions.
And we know that it's a very, very fertile soil
for athletes in United States.
[crowd cheering]
I declare open the Olympic Games of Los Angeles.
Mary Lou.
Never better, okay?
The best... the best what you can vault, all right?
[Talavera] With Bela and Martha coming over here...
we copy, cut, paste their style, and now we're doing it in the US.
We knew what their system was,
but we also knew they won all the time.
[man shouting]
[crowd cheering]
[screaming]
[indistinct shouting]
America loves a winner. And when a perky little bundle of energy
from West Virginia named Mary Lou Retton took home the gold medal in gymnastics
at the '84 Olympics, she became the national sweetheart.
[man] I was the president of USA Gymnastics in '84,
and one of my goals was I wanted our property on all the networks.
That was the most valuable thing we could do to build our brand,
the image of our sport.
And then, all of a sudden, gymnastics was earning
almost $12 million a year in revenue in 1991.
[Alesia] USA Gymnastics had a wholesome image,
and they had companies who wanted to be attached to that image.
And that image was vital, uh, to protect.
[Penny] What makes this sport so special are the athletes.
I've never seen athletes that train as hard as these guys do
and that are as intelligent and personable.
I mean, it's just the complete package.
[Evans] Steve Penny was hired as vice president of marketing
when they started out.
He worked with television marketing, then he worked with USA Cycling.
And, um, by the end of the '90s,
the focus of USA Gymnastics just became raising money...
attracting sponsorships
and, you know, making the best out of their Olympic athletes.
[Berta] Eventually, Steve Penny became the president of USA Gymnastics.
So you had an organization that was run by a sports marketing expert.
And, uh, that's what he cared about.
He cared about marketing this brand.
[man] This is the image of Bela Karolyi the world has grown accustomed to seeing.
The intense, relentless coach
who now turns out championship gymnasts for the United States.
[Berta] You know, these children are all being advised by adults
as to how they can realize their Olympic dream.
So you're basically using that child's dream to build this brand.
And they were so busy trying to sell that brand...
that they didn't have time for those girls.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Right now, we turn to women's gymnastics
and the United States, which has become a power in recent years,
now looking to become the power.
I remember watching the Olympics in my little apartment, um, in 1996.
And Kerri Strug was vaulting.
And it was viewed sort of as this heroic Olympic achievement,
but I saw it differently at the time.
[man] So, Kerri Strug, if she can score 9.493...
then she will win the team gold...
for the USA.
She's the last to go. She's the only one who can do it.
Oh!
[woman] This is scary.
[man] She is limping.
Here's the reaction of her parents.
And she falls on the first vault, and she's clearly in a lot of pain.
She's limping back to the other end of the runway.
We learn afterwards that she had been competing on a severe injury.
You can do it. You can do it.
[Sey] You get two vaults, and the highest score counts.
And Team USA needed that second vault.
All right.
-[man] Go. -Go! Go!
-[woman] Come on! Come on! -[crowd cheers]
[Sey] And she does it. She lands the vault on one foot.
[man] Kerri Strug is hurt.
[Sey] And she literally crawls off the mat.
She crawls away.
[man] Everyone in this place is...
[Sey] And Larry Nassar, at the time nobody knew, but is there.
[crowd cheering]
[man] She's being carried off...
by two of the medical technicians.
We have got to find out if she's-- A 9.712! She has done it!
Kerri Strug has won the gold medal for the United States team.
The Russians are in tears.
They got so close, and the Americans took it away from them.
[Sey] And Bela swept her up and carried her off.
And everybody's cheering her on as this hero,
and all I could think was, "Why are we celebrating this?
Don't pretend she had a choice."
Wave to the people.
She was not gonna do anything but go do that vault.
We love winners in this country.
This is a competitive country.
We consider ourselves the best in the world at everything.
Right?
But this notion that we would sacrifice our young to win...
I think disgusts us a little.
We would never have said that that was the case.
You know, in other sports, the athletes are adults.
They can reasonably make choices about what they want.
I don't think that is true in gymnastics.
You know, these kids go to these national training centers
when they're ten years old.
They are abused and mistreated...
for years.
So even by the time they're of age,
the line between tough coaching and child abuse gets blurred.
So then when real, like, obvious abuse, sexual abuse happens,
you already don't believe your own take on things.
Because you think you're hungry. You think your ankle hurts. [laughs]
You think that you're working really hard.
But you're told and you're screamed at that you're lazy and fat
and there's nothing wrong with your ankle. So when a man...
puts his ungloved hand into your vagina without asking you,
I can only imagine that what you feel is,
"He's this great doctor, and I'm lucky to be here. I'm not gonna say anything."
[Nassar] We protect our athletes.
Not just physically, but mentally...
you have to protect your athletes.
If you screw up once...
if you do something where you break their trust, you're done.
Gymnasts first. Gymnasts first.
Gymnasts first.
[Manly] The environment and the culture
Bela and Martha Karolyi created at the ranch
was one of fear...
intimidation...
and silence.
The only bright light at that place was Larry Nassar.
It's just a bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, I like to call it.
You just go, "Bib, bib, bib, bob, bob, bob, boo, boo, boo."
So a little bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.
There. [pops]
Pop goes the weasel. So this little ball--
[Manly] He was kind. He was funny.
He made them laugh.
[Nassar] I can articulate it, go... [gibbering]
That's what I do when I articulate. Okay? And then I thrust--
[Manly] He snuck them snacks and gave them food,
and he engendered trust in all these women.
Nassar was everything the Karolyis were not.
Thank you for visiting GymnasticsDoctor.com,
where you can see over 400 educational videos
on how to rehabilitate your gymnast.
[Manly] To try and justify the methodology that he used,
Larry Nassar produced dozens of videos
of him doing these various,
what he described as osteopathic, procedures to little girls.
It runs through this tunnel
from the ilial... um, uh, iliac crest to the pubic symphysis, and there's a--
[Manly] He has an excellent command of anatomical vocabulary.
And it all seems legitimate.
A standard... this is like a standard tape job.
Um, this will help for, like, up the muscles.
So we're gonna give her a little bit of a wedgie here.
Or a lot of a wedgie, you could say. Okay? When you do this--
[Manly] But if you tune that out and really watched what he did...
the frequency and the ease at which he touched little children
was just wildly inappropriate.
[Dantzscher] When I met Larry Nassar...
I was young.
[indistinct chattering]
They were doing testing on everybody.
You know, "We just want to make sure everyone's healthy on national team."
And Larry gave me a physical.
And he...
got me completely naked.
And I thought that was...
normal.
[Manly] When they went in his office at the ranch,
the walls were littered with pictures of Olympians.
"I treated her. Oh, yeah."
And then he would get a call. And it was Martha Karolyi on the line.
And he would discuss one of the gymnasts' health
while this person was sitting on his table,
which, you know, to a little child, is very impressive.
It's a HIPAA violation,
but it's impressive to a child.
[Denhollander] The first time I went to see Larry,
it was at MSU sports medicine clinic in early 2000.
I was barely 15 years old.
I had a lot of low back pain and a lot of wrist pain,
to the point that it got very difficult just to do basic daily chores.
Lay down on the table for me.
On your back with your ponytail off the edge.
So if I allow for non-stretch--
[Denhollander] He asked to do myofascial release,
which I knew was a legitimate physical therapy technique,
and he did that with his right hand, externally.
He did legitimate therapy.
And with his left, he sexually assaulted me under the towel.
Arms up over the head. So now she's on--
He would position himself in between me and my mom.
But since she was so close, I presumed that she was aware of what was going on.
I didn't know until months later that she had no idea.
She couldn't see where his other hand was. He was intentionally blocking it.
If she leaps and jumps--
[Denhollander] There was definitely an escalation.
He started anal penetration over time.
Then, on one of the last appointments,
he unhooked my bra and went up my shirt and did a full-on breast massage.
He was clearly sexually aroused.
It was an average of once a month. I saw him for a little over a year.
And on the majority of those visits, he abused me.
It was something that was always present. I couldn't just put it away.
Some years later,
I went to the head coach at the gymnastics facility where I worked...
and I said, "Larry sexually abused me under the guise of a medical exam."
I told her that no one should be seeing him.
When I was told... "No one else is saying what you're saying..."
um, and...
and cautioned even about speaking out, because of the ramifications...
that really solidified to me, "There's nothing I can do. Not right now."
[crowd cheering]
[man] Amy Chow!
Jamie Dantzscher!
[Dantzscher] When they announced my name, I was really able to take in that moment,
to feel like maybe all of this was worth it.
[man] Bela has selected his team!
But, for me, the Olympics were not...
a dream come true.
[crowd cheering]
[man] The United States makes its entrance. Look at the smiles.
Look at the waving flags, the new uniforms.
[woman] Was Larry abusive at the Olympics?
Yes.
Yes. Larry was abusive at the Olympics.
When we got there, we had to train morning and night.
And all that stress, physically and mentally, to do that every day...
My back was always so bad.
I mean, I had to get adjustments...
every day.
Sometimes, four times a day.
I thought that's what was helping me.
And he would sneak us food and candy.
And leave stuff under our pillows.
I wasn't proud to be an Olympian.
[ethereal music playing]
[man] And now, please welcome
the reigning world and Olympic team champions,
the United States of America!
[crowd cheering]
Double world all-around champion, Simone Biles!
Gabrielle Douglas!
Brenna Dowell!
Madison Kocian!
Margaret Nichols!
Alexandra Raisman!
And MyKayla Skinner!
[woman] So, next up, it's Maggie Nichols here.
Can she do it?
Oh, and she does!
It's the Yurchenko two-and-a-half twist. The Amanar.
Maggie reports the child sexual abuse
in, you know, the very beginning of June of 2015.
And actually, she had a huge, huge year.
I mean, she was doing awesome.
She was at the peak of her career. Second again behind Simone Biles.
But Maggie did phenomenal.
I mean, she's amazing and beautiful, and she's consistent and winning.
[girls] USA! USA! [cheering]
A Minnesota gymnast who just won gold with Team USA
returned home to a warm welcome by fellow gymnasts
from Twin Cities Twisters.
-Her mom... -Very proud.
-She did awesome! -[Santaniello] ...her coach
and her dad were in Scotland cheering her on.
[man] As of right now, I would say that, unless something happens,
both Maggie Nichols and Gabby Douglas,
they are on the path to 2016.
[crowd cheering]
[woman] That was excellent. She's one of those athletes
that really does keep improving each time she competes.
[man] Maggie Nichols is from Little Canada.
The graduate of Roseville High School is practically a shoo-in
to be picked for Team USA next month at the Olympic trials.
It's such an honor that, you know, all my hard work
throughout my whole career is paying off,
and I'll just be so honored to represent the US and Minnesota.
And I just want to do my best and help Team USA.
[applause]
[classical music playing]
[man] NBC Sports presents the 2016 Secret US Classic.
Well, Al, Maggie Nichols is not here.
She is back home in Minnesota working her way through a knee injury.
This is an athlete who had an amazing breakout 2015.
And then Maggie tore her meniscus, had to have surgery.
But remember, the last time Maggie Nichols was injured,
she came back stronger, physically and mentally.
She was a completely different athlete. We don't know what's gonna happen,
but, Al, they don't call her Swaggy Maggie for nothing.
[John] Maggie had kind of a rough couple of months...
going into the Olympic trials.
Uh, she had hurt her knee...
um, at the ranch.
She had a tough road ahead of her...
you know, to try to make the Olympic team.
[Gina] So we've got Maggie trying to rehab a knee injury and a surgery,
while in the meantime, during the spring of 2016...
Steve Penny controlled every single thing that we did
before we went to the Olympic trials.
One thing was that Hershey's wanted to make a commercial in honor of Simone.
And the only people who were gonna be in the commercial is Simone's family
and a best friend or two.
So she invites Maggie to be in this commercial for her.
So they get down there, and they started filming in Simone's house.
And then, all of a sudden, the film crew for Hershey's
gets a phone call from Steve Penny,
saying Maggie is not gonna be in that commercial.
He was screaming and yelling,
"I'm supposed to be in charge of this! I'm in charge!"
[woman] And you still haven't heard anything from the FBI?
Not one thing. I was told that they knew.
Um, I was told that the police were all over it,
but Steve Penny told us we could not talk about it.
We really weren't gonna go...
public or say anything,
because we were told that there's an FBI investigation,
and we could possibly jeopardize it.
And also, you know, we didn't want to upset,
you know, Steve Penny and Martha Karolyi.
They knew that Maggie reported Larry Nassar.
We had to do exactly what they wanted us to do.
You know, they were the ones that actually pick our Olympic team.
They had us under the gun.
They had the Olympics hanging over our heads.
[classical music playing]
[man 1] NBC Sports welcomes you to the 2016 US Olympic trials.
And this is a big stage for 13 hopeful women.
As we often say, the selection committee is watching everything,
but the two most important eyes in the building are those.
Martha Karolyi, who's the boss of Team USA.
But tonight, everybody's watching.
We'll start things off with Maggie Nichols on the vault.
She's trying to get to the Olympic Games after two really bad knee injuries.
[man 2] Martha said, for Maggie to be in the hunt,
she has to be as good as she was in 2015.
She was capable of doing this very difficult vault.
We'll see it from Simone Biles. It's called the Amanar.
It's a two-and-a-half twist.
Yup, just the double full. Great landing!
She's gonna get a very nice score, but once again,
it doesn't have the same maximum level score
that the Amanar would have.
[no audible dialogue]
[John] You watch and watch her do her best.
And you watch her compete, and she did well.
But for us, you know, as parents,
every meet that we had gone to up until this point,
we had our seats marked.
You know, we had camera crews following us.
Even at the America's Cup, a couple of weeks prior,
we had a camera crew following us throughout the whole arena.
But we showed up at Olympic trials and...
our seats aren't marked.
We don't have mics. There's no camera crew following us.
And so...
something was definitely off.
[man 1] So here are the final standings.
Laurie Hernandez was the second best, then Aly Raisman,
by a significant amount.
And then MyKayla Skinner, Ragan Smith,
and then Gabby Douglas finished exactly the way she started the night,
in seventh place.
Okay, they took more than 18 minutes.
President Steve Penny is going to step to the microphone.
[man 2] Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
the president and CEO of USA Gymnastics, Steve Penny!
[crowd cheering]
Good evening!
It is now my great pleasure to introduce to you
the five ladies who will represent the United States of America
in Rio de Janeiro.
Three-time world champion, Simone Biles!
[crowd cheering]
The reigning Olympic all-around champion, Gabrielle Douglas!
Making her first Olympic team...
Laurie Hernandez!
The reigning world champion on bars...
Madison Kocian!
And the second member of the Fierce Five,
2012 Olympic gold medalist, Aly Raisman!
They will be joined by the three replacement athletes...
[Maggie] I got sixth in the all-around, and then five girls were chosen.
And then they chose three alternates.
MyKayla Skinner...
Ragan Smith, and Ashton Locklear.
[Maggie] I trained my whole life to make that Olympic team,
and then not making it, even as an alternate...
I was mentally and physically just ready to move on.
[John] Maggie was crushed.
She had, you know, many things...
taken away.
And how do you accept it?
You know , I'm trying to justify and explain, rationalize things to myself.
But it's hard to come up and say things that, you know, you really can't prove.
And so the girls that get selected jump up and down
and get flowers and flashes and photos.
And Maggie stands down...
and congratulated every single one of them.
[Gina] After being abused by USAG, by Steve Penny, by Larry Nassar...
all I wanted to do is get my child out of there
and take her home and hug her and love her.
[Maggie] I try not to...
think too much about it.
I just try to, you know, carry on and...
hope that they made the right decision for the right reasons.
[Alesia] What are your intentions then, going forward?
I will be filing a police report with the hope that the DA picks it up
and presses charges for first-degree sexual assault.
[Alesia] How hard was it to get to that point?
I know that means, if the DA picks it up, I'll be testifying
with great detail in open court in front of him,
knowing we both have the same memories,
and I hate that idea. I hate it.
But if I don't, he can continue.
And I hate that idea more.
[Alesia] By the time I interviewed Rachael...
she had about 100 pages
of medical documents.
She had basically prepared a case
against Nassar herself, as a lawyer, really.
[woman] On August 25th of 2016,
our dispatch called and said, "You investigate sex crimes, right?"
I said, "Yes." They said, "We have a woman that called.
She lives out of state. And she was sexually assaulted by a doctor...
sixteen years prior, and she would like to speak to someone about it."
And I called her that day, and it was Rachael Denhollander.
She said, "I'd like to meet you in person.
I want to bring you some documents and things."
Um, I'd asked her, "What's the doctor's name?"
And she said, "Larry Nassar."
I had heard of him from a 2014 investigation
where another survivor had reported
that he had sexually assaulted her during medical treatment.
But the case was presented to the prosecutor's office...
and they declined to... to charge it at that time.
What I found out when I came forward
was that multiple women and young girls had spoken up
years before I walked in his door.
As early as 1997.
All of the women were assured it was common medical procedure,
that it was not sexual abuse, and they were sent back to him for continued abuse.
-I'm sorry. -I'm Andrea Munford.
Hi. Nice to meet you. Larry Nassar.
[Munford] Thanks for coming in so quick, too.
Obviously, you're not under arrest, and you can leave whenever you want.
Um...
The day after I talked to Rachael, he came in,
and he was very friendly.
Congenial. Quirky. A lot of people call him quirky.
[Munford] Now, how long have you been doing this technique?
[Nassar] I have video from...
thirty pounds ago, um...
[laughing]
From like the.. It would have been in the 1990s.
[Munford] And I started asking him about the 2014 investigation.
There were certain protocols that were put in place
about getting informed consent,
having another medical person in the room, wearing gloves.
[Munford] Have you had any instances
where there hasn't been anyone in the room for an exam?
There would be some... on occasion, of course. You know what I mean?
That just is the way medicine is now, it's difficult.
[Munford] Would this ever involve, like, digital anal penetration?
Only if we're doing a coccyx, you know, problem. I mean, then...
If I... If I actually have to fix a coccyx,
uh, then I would've been using my finger inside
and my thumb on the outside. You know, to--
[Munford] Do you wear gloves when you do this?
If I'm gonna go in-- intra, yes. You know what I mean?
[Munford] Well, the reason I'm asking is that we did have another complaint.
-Really? -[Munford] Yeah.
And it's a patient from a while ago.
-Okay. -[Munford] And she does describe,
um, some things that sound to me like they're out of the norm
-from your typical treatment. -Okay.
And the more I continued asking him about the specifics, he got very nervous.
He was sweating, he was stuttering.
And then he would try to reframe it...
to blame...
Rachael or any other patient.
[stammering] What's confusing me-- to me about it is
why wasn't there anything said back when I was treating them
if they felt that uncomfortable? If I'm talking to the patient--
[Munford] Okay, put yourself being a teenage girl, all right?
Okay.
[Munford] Most people that are sexually assaulted...
Uh huh.
...are very uncomfortable. They don't know what to say.
Okay.
He would talk about, uh, medical terminology,
referencing certain parts of the body.
Then he would say "You don't need to know that,"
or, "You won't understand all that."
The sacrotuberous ligament... it runs from the pubic symphysis,
the falciform process-- It runs-- It's like the pelvic floor.
Okay, you won't understand this stuff...
So you're really coming in--
[Munford] And I didn't understand all that, but it didn't matter,
because he still couldn't explain to me
how any of those
parts or injuries to them would require...
vaginal penetration...
to fix.
[Munford] Do you ever get aroused during these exams?
Do I get aroused during the exams?
[Munford] Yeah, like, do you ever get an erection?
Obviously you don't, you know what I mean, so--
[Munford] Is there a reason you would during an exam?
I shouldn't be getting an erection during an exam...
[Munford] Right.
If there was arousal, it's... it's... it's...
You know what I mean?
It would be because of... whatever.
I don't know, but I'm not trying to--
[Munford] What is "whatever"? I don't know. I don't know.
When you're a guy, sometimes you get an erection.
You know what I mean? But I don't-- It's... [sighs]
[Munford] You get an erection when you're aroused.
[Munford] And so, like last time, there will be an investigation.
-Right. -[Munford] Okay?
Okay.
[Munford] I'm gonna go grab a card so you can have my information.
-I'll be right back. -Okay.
[Berta] As we started looking into the Nassar case,
we talked to Nassar's lawyer.
First thing he said was...
"You know, this is a very important man,
and you're potentially going to ruin his reputation here."
And so we were very aware of that ourselves.
Rachael Denhollander was just a completely credible source.
Mm-hmm.
And John Manly and Jamie Dantzscher were preparing a lawsuit at that time.
That gave us more confidence.
[Evans] We backgrounded him. We couldn't find any lawsuits.
We couldn't find any malpractice allegations.
One of my jobs was to find out if there was an acceptable procedure
where you would use intravaginal penetration
to treat a young athlete,
and quickly found out that there was not.
My job was to contact Nassar for an interview at his attorney's office.
He was a volunteer? Is that his status with USA Gymnastics?
[attorney] Dr. Nassar was a volunteer for how many years?
[Nassar] Twenty-nine.
[attorney] Twenty-nine years with USA Gymnastics. He wasn't paid a salary.
Uh, he resigned-- Actually retired...
uh, in 2015...
because, uh, he went on to other matters
that had nothing to do with allegations of sexual misconduct.
[Evans] What else would you like to say about the allegations against him?
[attorney] He denies all the allegations.
He's never heard these allegations before.
No one from law enforcement...
any other regulatory body, USA Gymnastics...
any individuals, parents, no one has ever...
uh, suggested that Dr. Nassar has done anything
in any context, with either this gymnast or any other,
that he's aware of.
[Evans] And it looks like there's an allegation
that he manually penetrated the gymnast here, her vagina?
Is that a procedure that he uses?
[attorney] No.
There's no circumstance that he ever
penetrated her vagina in any way related to any procedure.
[Evans] Okay.
You know, when I left him there, Nassar was nearly in tears, pleading with me,
"Please don't write a story about this. Don't do this.
You're gonna ruin my reputation. This is gonna harm my family.
I haven't done anything wrong." And, you know, leaving...
I'm a human being, you know. That affected me.
I was confident in the information we had and confident in our story,
but I also, you know, see this... this man who's...
had no spot on his record, as far as we knew at that time, prior,
begging us not to do that.
I had to keep reminding myself. I was like, "Don't feel sorry for him.
Feel sorry for the victims, the survivors." And...
Um, but... but he made a... made a good play.
[man] The former team doctor for USA Gymnastics for 20 years
is facing dozens of accusations of sexual abuse,
including one from a former Olympian.
[woman] The team of reporters from The Indianapolis Star
published accounts from gymnasts who accused Nassar of sexually abusing them
during supposed medical procedures.
[Berta] In that interview with Nassar's lawyers,
he said that he had never performed an intravaginal procedure, which...
was really his downfall,
because, at that point, every woman who he'd done this to,
and there were hundreds,
knew he was lying.
And the reaction was almost immediate.
All these women out there were thinking, "What?
That's not what I experienced."
So we started getting phone calls from victim/survivors.
[Berta] Twelve more victims had come forward.
Then it was 30, then it was 60.
And it was going up every day.
There were more and more and more.
And as it grew...
we started to realize how bad it really was out there.
[Alesia] But at the time, we also got nasty phone calls, nasty letters
from Larry Nassar supporters.
I mean, you have to understand,
this was a beloved man.
[Dantzscher] Yeah, I went in as a Jane Doe.
But, for sure, in the gymnastics community...
everyone knew it was me, and...
that's kind of when
the shit really started hitting the fan for me, because...
people were so...
mean.
[Manly] She wasn't lauded as, "Oh, you know, she's heroic.
Good job, Jamie. Me too."
What she got was, "You're a whore. You're a drunk."
Lawyers for USA Gymnastics
calling her ex-boyfriends, trying to dig up dirt on her sexual history.
They let her get the living shit kicked out of her.
On social media, in the press,
her and Rachael Denhollander.
[Denhollander] It was an incredibly dark time period.
There were a lot of things said.
That I was a bitter, washed-up gymnast who couldn't hack it,
that I wanted fame,
that I enjoyed it.
I was too physically ill to eat most of the time,
so I lost a lot of weight.
I lost every shred of privacy and, I felt like, every shred of dignity
with what I had to disclose.
[Alesia] He was running for school board at the time of our first story on him.
He got 22 percent of the votes.
More than 2,000.
After all that.
[Gina] I read in The IndyStar,
Larry Nassar was allowed to retire from USA Gymnastics
because he wanted to focus on running for school board
and his hometown practice.
And I thought to myself...
"What is going on here?"
I mean, I was so dumbfounded.
I'm like, "Why are they allowing him
to go and run... even run for school board
when he's been molesting my daughter and others at the ranch?"
By that time,
we reported Maggie's child sexual abuse over a year ago,
and we'd been continuously told by Steve Penny...
we cannot talk about this
because it'll ruin their investigation of Larry Nassar.
But nobody was helping me.
I wasn't getting any guidance. I'd had enough.
So then, in The IndyStar, I saw John Manly's name,
and it said he had been working with victims.
And I immediately contacted him.
[Manly] Within a week of The IndyStar story being published,
Gina Nichols e-mailed me.
Didn't know who she was. I didn't know who Maggie was.
But she told me the story and told me that her daughter had reported in June of 2015.
And then I knew...
exactly who I was dealing with.
I was dealing with an organization that didn't give a rat's ass about children,
that cared only about itself, and that was covering up rape.
So when Jamie, Rachael, and Jessica reported Nassar's abuse
to The IndyStar in 2016...
that was the first time it was reported to the public.
This wasn't the first time USAG heard about Nassar's abuse.
They knew in June of 2015...
when Maggie Nichols tells her coach that, "Larry Nassar's touching me funny,"
who then should have reported to the police, but she didn't.
She reports it to Rhonda Faehn,
who should have reported it to the police, but she didn't,
who then reports it to Steve Penny,
who should have reported it to the police, but he didn't.
And their lawyers had them hire somebody
who investigates sexual harassment cases at workplaces.
And she interviewed Maggie Nichols.
And then she interviewed Olympians Aly Raisman...
and McKayla Maroney.
Aly Raisman reported that Dr. Nassar had sexually abused McKayla
in their residence at the Olympic Village in London in 2012.
It was five weeks between the time Maggie reported to USAG
and when Mr. Penny finally told the FBI.
That's a direct violation of Indiana and Texas law.
But then, for some reason, the FBI took no action.
Nothing happened in October, in November,
in December, in January, February, March, April, May.
All this time, Nassar is working at Michigan State.
He's molesting girls, uh, that entire time.
Thirteen months.
[Berta] When the Nassar story came out,
we were trying to get on to the bigger story
of what's wrong at USA Gymnastics?
We wanted to establish that it went far beyond Nassar.
We knew it did because of what we were finding out about the culture.
Okay, so there are some issues
-with the timeline. -I figured.
Both the laws in Texas and Indiana require someone to report immediately.
And there's somehow that there's questions about whether USA Gymnastics,
-uh... did that. -[Kwiatkowski] Right.
But what I'm hoping you guys can do
is sort of go in there and actually just write it like that, to say
there's evidence that they were trying to keep things quiet from the start
and then... then start showing that evidence.
USA Gymnastics has said that they did take action.
They felt that they took action by launching this internal investigation,
hiring somebody to look into these allegations.
In doing so, interviewing people over a five-week period
before they reported to the FBI.
[man] What do you think?
I think that the law, as it relates to mandatory reporting, is pretty clear
that you should err on the side of the child
and report allegations to authorities immediately.
That's what the law says.
[Evans] As we looked deeper into Maggie Nichols' story,
we got a large dump of documents from one of our colleagues in Lansing, Michigan.
And there were hundreds of pages, including a half dozen or so e-mails.
This is a July 22, 2015 e-mail.
So this was after Maggie had reported to USA Gymnastics.
Records that we reviewed
showed that one e-mail was sent to USA Gymnastics' attorney.
Nassar had shared links to some graphic videos
of him performing what he deemed were medical procedures
to defend himself from allegations of abuse.
Once you find the tender point, you can stay on it.
[Evans] I think anybody that saw that and was a reasonable person
and cared about kids would have taken some action immediately.
And there were other e-mails between Nassar
and a couple of USA Gymnastics officials.
Pretty soon, we're fishing those out
and looking at this timeline we've created
of, you know, these lies they were telling to cover for him.
And it says, "We explained on the call, USA Gymnastics has been made aware
of concerns regarding some of your therapy techniques
and that athletes aren't comfortable with certain areas of their body
that are being treated."
[Kwiatkowski] "In addition, we suggest, prior to the championships,
that Ron Galimore will once again advise the medical staff,
the athlete care coordinator, that you cannot attend for personal reasons,
unless you prefer a different approach that we are prepared to discuss."
All right. All right, thank you. Bye.
So tell me what the-- What's the headline? What's the lede?
USA Gymnastics, in negotiating, basically, with Larry,
agreed to lie to people and say that he was sick,
and that's why he couldn't go to a particular competition.
-[Berta] Mm-hmm. -So that... I mean, that shows a cover-up.
It's a pretty good story.
How many co-- were copied on the e-mail?
Three. It was Larry, Rybacki, and Karolyi.
[Berta laughs]
[woman] Since the initial allegations became public this month,
the Michigan State University police
have received two dozen complaints of sexual abuse against Nassar.
As the complaints came in this month, Nassar was fired from MSU,
but he has not been charged with a crime.
[Denhollander] The two biggest fears I had coming forward was
the investigator that I would get and the prosecutor,
because both of them are capable of completely derailing the process
if they don't take it seriously, don't investigate it well,
and if they choose not to file charges.
[woman] John Manly filed the civil lawsuits
against Michigan State and USAG, USOC.
And he represented those victims in their civil litigation.
I played the role of the lead prosecutor in the criminal case
of the People of the State of Michigan v. Larry Nassar
and, um, worked with and represented, um, those victims in court as the prosecutor.
[Denhollander] Andrea and Angela worked very closely together.
And Angela looked at the files, and she said...
"I will take them all, and I will fight for every one of them."
And she did.
This is a neighborhood in Holt, Michigan.
It's not far from MSU's campus, um,
where he lived.
And we had gotten information from some victims
that reported he was doing medical treatments
in the basement of his home.
And, during that time, he was sexually abusing them.
Um, there was also another victim who was not a medical patient
that he had sexually abused in the basement.
And based on that information,
we were able to get search warrants for his house.
We executed the search warrant on September 20th, 2016.
One of our crime scene investigators came in midday
and said, "The trash hasn't been picked up yet.
It's still out by the curb, and all the trash is still in it."
So we did what's called a trash pull.
Inside the trash, there were several hard drives...
with his name and phone number written on them in Sharpie.
That's where the first images of child sexually abusive material...
commonly referred to as child porn, were found.
Thirty-seven thousand images.
[woman] Michigan State University and Team USA Gymnastics doctor,
Larry Nassar, has been arrested.
Nassar will be charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct
with someone younger than 13. Attorney General Bill Schuette is...
[Povilaitis] We were looking toward trial, um, and preparing for that.
And... and we really looked at what could get the highest sentence for him.
In Michigan, we have a statute that, if you have a victim under 13
and she's penetrated, it's a 25-year mandatory minimum.
And then we identified those cases that we thought were strongest
and brought those in February of 2017.
Those victims knew to report because of Rachael's disclosure.
She, you know, at that point, was the only public face.
[man] Do you swear or affirm that the...
[Munford] When a victim comes to report a sexual assault, it's a scary thing
because they're giving up so much control by telling someone what happened to them.
But each of the survivors were very determined...
to make it very clear to everybody...
what really went on.
[Manly] What ended up happening is he made a plea deal...
where he agreed to plead guilty to the possession of child pornography,
to willfully destroying evidence...
and a couple of other charges, in exchange for the dismissal
of traveling with intent to commit a sexual assault overseas,
which is a violation of federal law.
[Povilaitis] Good morning, Your Honor. Angela Povilaitis.
On behalf of the people
and the Michigan Department of Attorney General,
I will let the other attorneys--
We were able to lay out the terms of the sentencing range.
But we also wanted victim buy-in. Like, we wanted them,
all 125, if possible, to be okay with this plea.
So essential to any plea agreement
was that he had to agree to allow all of the victims,
if they chose, to give an impact statement.
So that was something, quite frankly, I am really proud about.
If I may, our first survivor to speak today, Your Honor,
is a former, um, national team member, and I'm very happy that she's here.
Her name is Jamie Dantzscher.
[judge] Thank you. What would you like us to know?
[Dantzscher clears throat]
Larry, you saw all the physical, mental, and emotional abuse
from our coaches and USAG national staff.
You pretended to be on my side, calling all of them the monsters.
But instead of protecting children and reporting the abuse you saw...
you used your position of power to manipulate and abuse as well.
You knew I was powerless.
Mmm.
I'm here today with all these other women, not victims, but survivors...
to tell you face-to-face that your days of manipulation are over.
We have a voice now.
We have the power now.
As an Olympic gymnast...
being able to say...
"You have no power over me anymore..."
I can finally say I am proud to be an Olympian.
It's been so hard to be...
proud of anything.
So to even say that, for me, is like, "Okay.
I think I'm getting a little better. I feel proud of something."
[Povilaitis] Judge, the first victim will be publicly identified,
and her name is Ms. Kyle Stephens.
She has asked for two support persons.
I will be standing in support of her.
The next survivor you will hear from is Amanda Thomashow.
She has authorized to be publicly identified.
Your Honor, the next survivor you will hear from is Larissa Boyce.
She is going to be publicly identified.
I told Michigan State University back in 1997.
Instead of being protected...
I was humiliated, I was in trouble,
and brainwashed into believing that I was the problem.
Every time Angela stood up and said, "Survivor XYZ is coming forward,
and she has decided to speak publicly..."
that was just an incredibly powerful statement every single time.
Because it meant that they felt safe enough.
And it meant that they were able to put the shame not on themselves,
but on their abuser.
[woman] Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles is going public today,
saying she was among the athletes who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar.
[man] Several Olympic champions have also come forward,
including Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas.
Maggie Nichols first came forward more than two years ago,
but her identity has not been publicly known until now.
[Gina] Maggie did not want to be here today.
She is a full-time student,
and she's training as a full-time athlete still for the University of Oklahoma.
So this is-- It's too painful.
So I'm gonna read, um, the statement from-- that she put out to the public.
"USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee
did not provide a safe environment
for me and my teammates and friends to train.
We were subjected to Dr. Larry Nassar at every national team training camp,
which occurred monthly at the Karolyi Ranch.
Up until now, I was identified as Athlete A
by USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee,
and Michigan State University.
And I want everyone to know that he did not do this to Athlete A.
He did it to Maggie Nichols."
Thank you so much for being here.
[Munford] Watching them...
support each other...
and... and just that momentum of empowerment...
was incredible.
I'm not gonna look at her. She's gonna make me cry.
[Povilaitis] I am so honored...
to let you know that the next person you will hear from
is Rachael Denhollander.
[cameras clicking]
[Denhollander] There are two major purposes
in our criminal justice system, Your Honor.
The pursuit of justice and the protection of the innocent.
Neither of these purposes can be met
if anything less than the maximum available sentence
under the plea agreement is imposed upon Larry for his crimes.
So I ask... how much priority should be placed
on communicating that the fullest weight of the law
will be used to protect another innocent child
from the soul-shattering devastation that sexual assault brings?
I submit to you that these children are worth everything.
Worth every protection the law can offer.
Worth the maximum sentence.
[judge] Thank you.
[applause]
[no audible dialogue]
[Manly] It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen as a lawyer.
It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life.
He received two 60-year sentences
and, uh, you know, the tongue-lashing of the century.
Now, what people don't realize is that...
for almost every one of these girls, this is their first sexual experience.
And when you take the ability to love and express love from somebody
and take it away or damage it...
it profoundly affects their psyche.
And, at... at the end of the day...
that's really what he did.
[stammers] He stole that part of them.
And they're all struggling to get it back.
And most of them should never have met Larry Nassar,
had the people in charge of him just done the right thing.
And the piece that's missing...
is the accountability for those who knew better
and... the adults who were suppose to protect these athletes
and these women and these girls.
And, um, we don't have that yet.
Clearly, USA Gymnastics was not anxious to have this in public.
They succeeded for a year in keeping an absolute lid on it.
And what I found out is McKayla Maroney
was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
And I believe they required other athletes who were victims of Dr. Nassar
to sign NDAs.
This was a full-court press by USA Gymnastics to keep this quiet
and to minimize the damage.
[man] We began this process in January following the disgusting revelations
that former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar...
sexually abused hundreds of athletes over the span of two decades,
even well after numerous survivors alerted authorities about his actions.
As we now know, many of our American Olympians,
who stood tall in representing our nation in the international stage,
were suffering behind the scenes.
[Berta] We're right in the middle of, uh, finishing up a story
that's based on e-mails that were going back and forth
between USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar, in which they basically--
After all those women...
gave their testimony in that courtroom at his sentencing,
we kept our nose to the grindstone.
I mean, we were just like...
going full bore.
Nassar wasn't our target. Our target was USA Gymnastics.
[woman] USAG struggles to restructure and reinvent itself amid allegations
it turned a blind eye and even covered up rampant sexual abuse
by former team doctor Larry Nassar.
[man] Um, I'll begin with the questions.
And I'm gonna begin with you, uh, Mr. Penny.
Former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar
was convicted of criminal sexual conduct with gymnasts,
including members of the USA national team.
My understanding is that you were first informed about this abuse
on June 17, 2015.
Is that correct?
Uh, Mr. Chairman, um, with respect to you and your question and the committee...
uh, I have been instructed by my attorney
to assert my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
For that reason, I must respectfully decline to answer your question.
[Kwiatkowski] As we started doing more reporting
on Steve Penny's handling of the allegations against Larry Nassar,
we started looking more closely at his relationships with law enforcement.
At the same time the FBI was investigating Nassar,
Penny was talking to him about a job.
This is not the only instance in which the relationship between USA Gymnastics
and law enforcement agencies in Indianapolis was called into question.
-[Berta] Yeah. -Okay.
[reporter] Penny sought to cultivate a close relationship
with federal investigators to protect the image of USA Gymnastics,
going so far as to offer a job to one of the FBI agents.
Mr. Penny, I respect your right to invoke your Fifth Amendment privilege.
You have that right.
But you also have a responsibility.
You were part of an organization...
that, in effect, prioritized medals and money over...
the young women and girls who were sexually abused by...
Mr. Nassar.
Don't you feel you have a responsibility to the athletes who are here today
and to others around the country
to be more forthcoming?
Respectfully, senator, I would like to answer your question.
However, I've been instructed by my attorney
to assert my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution--
Mr. Penny, may I assume that it is your intent to invoke that privilege,
uh, in further questioning?
[Penny] Yes.
[Moran] Let the record reflect that you have availed yourself
of the privileges afforded under the Fifth Amendment
to the United States Constitution
not to give testimony that might incriminate you.
Mr. Penny, you're excused.
[woman] Shame!
What would you like to say to the women that were abused while you were silent?
You have anything to say to the survivors?
Okay. Go ahead and write that up. I'm gonna ask Curly
-about, uh, this photo that we've got. -Of what?
It's of him being arrested.
-We got a photo of him? -Yeah.
See, there's the picture. It's...
I'm worried that New York Times is coming out with it.
[woman] Could we go tonight? I mean, do we have enough?
[reporter] A major new arrest in the USA Gymnastics scandal tonight.
The organization's former president
was arrested at a cabin in Tennessee overnight,
more than a year after he resigned.
[woman] The US Marshals Service arresting a former leader of USA Gymnastics
after hunting him down at a cabin in Tennessee.
Authorities accusing him of tampering with evidence
in the case against disgraced former gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar.
[mellow piano music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[woman] So far so good for Maggie Nichols.
[man] Maggie was second in the world...
in the all-around in 2015.
And yet mysteriously left off the 2016 Olympic team,
did not even earn an alternate spot.
So she has all the capabilities of every one of those young ladies
who came home from Rio with an Olympic gold medal.
[Maggie] After the 2016 Olympic trials, I decided to retire from elite gymnastics
and move on to NCAA gymnastics,
where I had the opportunity to compete for the University of Oklahoma.
In 2017,
I was the last person to go.
And so I did probably the best vault that I did the whole season.
[crowd cheering]
I've never experienced anything like that before,
and that was probably one of the best moments of my life.
I think that it was a huge awakening for her,
because, all of a sudden, she gets there, they're nice to her.
Gymnastics is fun. The coaches are super good.
Oh, the healthcare providers are really, really good.
It's not like it was when she was on the elite team.
[cheering]
[John] Maggie took all the negatives and aimed them into a positive and...
went to Oklahoma...
and gave it her all.
She beat them all on every event
at every meet for the entire year.
[cheering]
[screaming]
[Maggie] When they brought the trophy over,
so I think that's kind of the moment that was just...
indescribable. It was amazing. [laughs]
[indistinct chattering]
[girls] Maggie! Come on, Maggie! Go, Maggie!
[cheering]
[boy] Yeah!
[applause]
[Maggie] Elite gymnastics just kind of...
beat me down,
but I've grown as a person and as a woman.
I found a love for the sport again.
[Manly] Were you ever advised by any USAG official,
in or around June of 2015,
that they had received a complaint that Dr. Nassar
had molested a national team gymnast at the ranch?
Yes, I did.
[Manly] And who reported that to you, ma'am?
Mr. Penny.
[Manly] Okay.
Mrs. Karolyi knew, in June of 2015,
that Larry Nassar had abused little girls.
The law in Texas required her to immediately call the police
or call Child Protective Services and report.
And she didn't.
Nor did Rhonda Faehn, the head of the women's program, nor did Mr. Penny.
That deserves an investigation.
Other questions?
USA Gymnastics once wrote to a gymnast
saying that, if she continued to complain about her coach...
she would be off the team,
regardless of her performance.
-And that system is still in place today. -[Kwiatkowski] Right.
[Berta] They're clinging to a process
that has been used in the past to silence dissent.
That's what that says.
[ethereal music playing]