“USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the FBI have all betrayed me.”
of times throughout her gymnastics career beginning when she was 13, said her story was “minimized and disregarded” by the FBI, then buried. “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,” she said. “They had legal, legitimate evidence of child abuse and did nothing.
The trauma of having allegations mishandled adds to the trauma of the abuse itself, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman said in her. “Over the past few years, it has become painfully clear how a survivor’s healing is affected by the handling of their abuse,” she said. According to Raisman, it took the FBI 14 months to contact her, and when they did, “I remember sitting there with the FBI agent and him trying to convince me that it wasn’t that bad,” she said.
The emotional toll of the hearing was clear during Simone Biles’s testimony as well. “I don’t want another young gymnast, Olympic athlete, or any individual to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured before, during and continuing to this day in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse,” Biles said as she broke down. She wondered aloud why she wasn’t made aware of the investigation until after the Rio Games, and said she lives with daily reminders of the abuse.
The Senators at the hearing responded, including Senator Richard Blumenthal, who said, “The FBI’s failure to act had real human consequences. And that will be forever a stain on the FBI’s reputation.” “It should not be a survivor’s burden to continually seek justice and demand an end to their nightmares,” said California senator Dianne Feinstein. Currently, the Justice Department hasn’t brought charges against either of the two agents who were most closely involved with the case,reports.
But Biles made it clear that the fight wasn’t over. “Nassar’s where he belongs. But those who enabled him deserve to be held accountable.” Biles said. Maroney called for criminal prosecution of the agents for what she called an “obvious crime.”
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