IImage Source: Forbes
Attorneys for over 90 women and girls sexually abused by disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar filed claims with the FBI for more than $1 billion, claiming that investigators could have stopped Nassar’s abuse and protected other victims if the case had not been mishandled.
Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and world champion Maggie Nichols are among the claimants. According to the law company that represents them, each has requested $50 million.
According to their attorneys, Kaylee Lorincz and Hannah Morrow, both gymnasts, are seeking $42.5 million in damages. According to lawyers, most of the 90 women are seeking $10 million each, for a total of $1 billion to $1.2 billion.
The Department of Justice oversees The FBI, although both institutions refused to comments when reporters reached out to them.
Claimants must notify the federal agency before filing a lawsuit in federal court under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Before the lawsuit may be filed, the government has six months to reach a settlement or deny the allegation.
Attorneys contend that by July 2015, the FBI received legitimate allegations from several victims but failed to interview them or adequately investigate the abuse, according to the notice of the Federal Tort Act claims.
According to the report, the FBI had credible accusations and confirmed evidence of Dr. Larry Nassar’s (Nassar) sexual assaults of children and young women over several years and throughout the globe.
According to a Justice Department inspector general investigation, the FBI failed to adequately investigate accusations from gymnasts who reported the abuse to the bureau in 2015.
The inspector general found that the agents lied to investigators, but the Justice Department declined to press charges under the Trump administration and again early in the Biden administration.
13 of Nassar’s sexual assault victims filed separate claims against the FBI in April, alleging that all FBI agents participating in the Nassar investigation chose to “turn a blind eye” to Nassar’s sexual abuse of youngsters.
According to administrative tort claims seeking $10 million for each victim, those 13 victims accused agents of “negligence” and “wrongful acts” during the investigation.
The Justice Department said in May that it would not press charges against two former FBI agents accused of mishandling the sex abuse investigation into Nassar, marking the third time prosecutors have come to this judgment.
The decision to not prosecute the agents came “after several examinations and analyses of information acquired in the investigation of the former agents, and follows the recommendation of experienced prosecutors,” the department said at the time.
