"All we needed was one adult to do the right thing," Aly Raisman tells Senate..."It has affected my health. In the last couple of years, I've had to be taken in an ambulance because I passed out. I'm so sick from just the trauma. It might not even be after a hearing like this. It just hits me out of the blue. So I think it's important for people to understand how much, you know, even if we're not crying, how much we are all struggling and how much survivors are suffering, because people often say, well, why did you just come forward now? Because it's terrifying to come forward, the fear of not being believed, but also because it affects us so much. Sometimes it's impossible just to say the words out loud," Raisman said.
"I personally don't think that people realize how
much experiencing this type of abuse is not something one just suffers
in the moment. It carries on with them sometimes for the rest of
their lives. For example, being here today is taking everything I
have. My main concern is, I hope I have the energy even to just walk
out of here. I don't think you realize how much it affects us, how much
the PTSD, how much the trauma impacts us. For every survivor
it's different," she said.
WASHINGTON — Simone Biles, the most accomplished gymnast in history, did not want to be in Congress on Wednesday, testifying to a Senate committee about the F.B.I.’s mishandling of one of the biggest sexual abuse cases in United States history.
Sitting at the witness table alongside three of her former teammates on the United States national team, Biles said she couldn’t imagine being less comfortable. But she chose to publicly address lawmakers for herself, as a survivor of that abuse, but also for other athletes, especially children, whom she feels compelled to protect.
Biles, 24, broke
down in tears when explaining that she does not want any more young
people to endure the suffering that she has at the hands of a pedophile.
She and hundreds of other girls and women were molested by Lawrence G.
Nassar, the former national team doctor. He is now serving what amounts
to life in prison for multiple sex crimes. NYT
 |
| US Olympic gymnasts (L-R) Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols testify during a Senate Judiciary hearing about the Inspector General's report on the FBI handling of the Larry Nassar investigation of sexual abuse of Olympic gymnasts on September 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. |
Gymnasts Slam FBI for Failing to Protect Them From Sexual Abuse
Four of the top gymnasts in the United States told Congress that the FBI, USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had failed them, for years, in a Senate hearing Wednesday—and they want answers and accountability.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing centered on a Justice Department report, released this summer, that found the FBI had botched its investigation into Larry Nassar, a once-celebrated doctor who has since been jailed and accused of abusing hundreds of gymnasts while pretending he was providing medical treatment. The four gymnasts who testified Wednesday—Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman—have all said that they were abused by Nassar.
“They had legal, legitimate evidence of child abuse and did nothing,” Maroney, an Olympic gold medalist, told the senators of the FBI. “If they’re not going to protect me, I want to know: Who are they trying to protect?”
Maroney, who is not named in the report, spoke with a FBI agent about her experience with Nassar, but that agent didn’t properly follow up, according to the report. More than a year after speaking with Maroney, the agent drafted a summary of her interview that included statements she did not make, per the report.
The FBI’s inaction, Maroney said, was beyond devastating. She recalled sitting on her bedroom floor and spending nearly three hours telling the agent about the abuse she endured. After recounting one particularly horrific memory, she began to cry; the agent, she said, only asked her, “Is that all?”
“By not taking immediate action from my report, they allowed a child molester to go free for more than a year and this inaction directly allowed Nassar’s abuse to continue,” Maroney said. “I am tired of waiting for people to do the right thing, because my abuse was enough.”
“Despite the extraordinarily serious nature of the allegations and the possibility that Nassar’s conduct could be continuing,” the Justice Department report concluded, “senior officials in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies.”
The report also found that the special agent who led the Indianapolis field office had lied to the Justice Department inspector general’s office, “in an effort to minimize or excuse his errors.”
However, the inspector general’s office declined to prosecute anyone in the FBI over the handling of the Nassar case—a decision that came under fire in the Wednesday hearing. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, called on the Justice Department to pursue “criminal prosecution where appropriate.”
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, and Christoper Wray, the FBI’s director, are also expected to testify Wednesday in a panel after the gymnasts.
In her statement, Biles echoed a question that has been raised by Rachel Denhollander, who spoke out publicly against Nassar in 2016: How much is a little girl worth?
“The scars of this horrific abuse continue to live with all of us,” said Biles, who suggested that her experience with Nassar, USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had contributed to her mental health at the Tokyo Olympics, where she largely stepped back from competing.
At one point, Biles was clearly holding back tears.
“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” she said. “USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by the Olympic team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”
Nassar was sentenced in 2018 after pleading guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. More than 150 young women spoke at his sentencing hearing, delivering wrenching testimony about the lingering effects of Nassar’s abuse and the mass failure to act to stop him.
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