Department of Justice reviewing decision not to charge FBI agents that failed to investigate abuse claims raised against Larry Nassar
The Justice Department is reconsidering its decision against prosecuting the FBI agents who failed to investigate allegations raised in 2015 against disgraced United States Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted just two years later on federal sex abuse and child porn charges.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco during a Senate hearing on Tuesday announced the agency is conducting a review into its initial choice to decline prosecution against two agents, including the former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis Division. It comes less than month after gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman recounted before lawmakers the abuse they faced at the hands of the former sports physician.
“The survivors who testified so bravely deserve better than they got from the FBI and the Justice Department,” Monaco told the Senate judiciary committee.
“I can inform the committee today that the recently confirmed assistant attorney general for the criminal division [Kenneth Polite] is currently reviewing this matter, including new information that has come to light,”
All four Olympic athletes took their time before the Senate panel to blast both agencies for botching the investigating, and ultimately failing to protect hundreds of young and vulnerable athletes from Nassar.
“It was like serving innocent children up to a pedophile on a silver platter,” Raisman told lawmakers in September.
The review also comes after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a scathing report in July which concluded the FBI failed to adequately respond to gymnasts’ claims of abuse “with the urgency that the allegations required,” and then later lied about their shortcomings.
Michael Langeman was serving as a supervisory special agent when he interviewed a young Maroney about her allegations of abuse back in 2015. According to the report, both he and his boss, agent in charge Jay Abbott, lied to investigators from the inspector general’s office about their actions and that they never officially opened an investigation.
“After telling my entire story of abuse to the FBI in the summer of 2015, not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said,” Maroney told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
“What is the point of reporting abuse, if our own FBI agents are going to take it upon themselves to bury that report in the drawer?”
The FBI has since acknowledged its own conduct was inexcusable.
Monaco said both the report findings and subsequent testimonies by Biles, Maroney, Nichols and Raisman left her “shocked” and “horrified.”
“I am deeply sorry that in this case the victims did not receive the response or the protection that they deserved,” Monaco said.
Hundreds of girls and women have said Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics.
He pleaded guilty in federal court to child pornography crimes before pleading guilty in state court to sexually assaulting female gymnasts, and was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison.
With News Wire Services
