The Wall Street Journal reports that USA Gymnastics proposed a $425 million settlement in their bankruptcy. This settlement will go to the victims of former gymnastics physician, Larry Nassar.
Larry Nassar is a former physician who has been accused of sexually abusing USA gymnasts as well as student athletes from Michigan State University. Victims who have come forward against Nassar go back as far at 1996. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison due to him pleading guilty on seven counts of sexual misconduct.
This settlement offer comes 5 years after the first public accusation again Nassar. The hundreds of lawsuits against USA Gymnastics forced them to file for bankruptcy back in 2018. Lawyers representing the victims have accused USA Gymnastics of creating “a toxic environment filled with pressure on young teenage athletes to be seen as compliant in which a predator could flourish.”
From The Article:
“John Manly, a lawyer for many of those gymnasts including Biles, Maroney, and Raisman, as well as the first Olympian to accuse Nassar of abuse, Jamie Dantzscher, said he was supportive of the figure proposed by USA Gymnastics, though he still believed that it was lower and slower coming than it should have been because of USA Gymnastics’ bankruptcy filing. He said he wanted to see changes that would prevent bankruptcy being used in that way in the future. ‘These weren’t bad business decisions or a bad loan. This was systemic coordinated criminal conduct,’ Manly said.”