The United States government and victims of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar are close to finalizing an agreement that will resolve abuse victims’ complaints that the FBI failed to properly investigate the allegations of wrongdoing against the doctor, according to a source close to the negotiations.
The final amount is not yet completely finalized as discussions between the parties may continue, CBS News has learned.
If a settlement is reached, it will be paid by the Justice Department to approximately 100 Nassar victims, including the Olympic superstar. Simone Biles and fellow gold medalists Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.
The Justice Department, the FBI and lawyers for some victims declined to comment.
News of a potential settlement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
A Justice Department inspector general report released in July 2021 found that the FBI learned that Nassar had been accused of assaulting gymnasts in 2015 but failed to act, leaving him free to continue to targeting people for months. According to the report, FBI agents even lied to the inspector general to cover up their actions. Although the officers involved were fired or retired, the Justice Department never prosecuted anyone involved in the case. In May 2022, federal prosecutors said, after reviewing the case, that they would not bring criminal charges against the agents who failed to quickly open an investigation.
“He was seeing 8 to 10 patients a day, sometimes 15, and molesting little girls,” John Manly, one of the attorneys representing Nassar survivors, told “CBS Mornings” in 2022 about Nassar’s actions.
The victims collectively filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the FBI, alleging negligence and wrongdoing. Any final settlement in this case would likely resolve the victims’ claims against the federal government.
Speaking before Congress in 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray condemned the agents’ handling of Nassar’s allegations, adding: “On no planet is what happened in this case acceptable. » Again in 2022, he told Congress that the FBI would not make the same mistakes in the future, a sentiment echoed by Attorney General Merrick Garland that same year, when he called the FBI’s failures ” “horrible”.
Neither Wray nor Garland were leading their respective organizations at the time of the FBI misconduct.
In total, the regulations concerning the disgraced former women’s national gymnastics team doctor have now totaled almost a billion dollars. University of Michiganwhere Nassar was a doctor, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls assaulted by him.
The school was also accused of missing opportunities to arrest Nassar. USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee have agreed to 2021 a $380 million settlement with his victims. As part of the agreement, the organizations must also undertake significant reforms to prevent future abuses, CBS News reported.
Nassar is serving several prison sentences for crimes of sexual abuse and child pornography after pleading guilty to several charges in 2017 and 2018.
—Kerry Breen contributed reporting.
Grub5
