RedHanded - Episode 263 - Larry Nassar: Mental Gymnastics

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

In the gruelling world of elite gymnastics, Larry Nassar was seen by a lot of young athletes as a friendly face in tough times. As the USA Gymnastics National Medical Coordinator, he performed treatments on children as young as ten, for almost 30 years.  And under cover of those treatments, he was routinely molesting hundreds of young girls for decades – sometimes multiple times a day, often with their parents sitting just metres away. After multiple investigations, he seemed untouchable. But thanks to the bravery of his survivors – and the discovery of three external hard drives – the world saw him for what he really was: a calculated predator, with more victims than Bill Cosby, Jerry Sandusky and Harvey Weinstein combined. Hannah and Suruthi chart the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sports history. 2022 LIVE SHOW TICKET LINKS: https://redhandedpodcast.com Sources: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/19/16897722/sexual-abuse-usa-gymnastics-larry-nassar-explained The Girls, Abigail Pesta https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/how-did-larry-nassar-deceive-so-many-for-so-long.html https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/26/larry-nassar-abuse-gymnasts-scandal-culture https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42725339 https://www.netflix.com/title/81034185  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42806911 https://www.npr.org/2018/01/28/581397061/how-larry-nassars-abuse-went-on-for-so-long https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/01/24/here-are-the-larrry-nassar-comments-that-drew-gasps-in-the-courtroom/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/sports/larry-nassar-gymnastics-hbo-doc.html See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to this week's serving of full-fat red-handed. It's pretty miserable. It is miserable. We really have been hitting some misery gongs recently. Why did we do another child rape case? I don't know, because we are in complete control of which episodes we pick. Misery gongs recently. Why did we do another child rape case? I don't know, because we are in complete control of which episodes we pick, but for some reason, that's what we're doing.

So yeah, here you are. Trinae Gonzar started at Twist Stars USA Gymnastics Club when she was six years old, and she took to it immediately. Soon enough, it was all she wanted to do outside of school. She made an inseparable group of friends and best of all, she was really good. Trinae worked hard and she had a six pack by the age of nine. What? How? I mean, obviously by being incredibly talented and hardworking.

Yeah. Is the answer to that. Yeah. So in order to be, we go on to discuss this a bit later. Standard wise in gymnastics, being short and being tiny are very, very good things. One of my neighbours growing up was a gymnast and he was on a special diet from the age of 12 to stop him from growing. Because you have, you know, it's easier to throw yourself around if you don't weigh anything. And he was a boy. So worse for the girls. Wow.

And Trinae was over the moon to be selected for the team by the owner himself. But not long after she was picked, her hip started popping out of its socket whenever she was on the bars. It was painful, but it also threatened her hard-fought chances of success. Trinae was sent to the gym's respected doctor, Larry Nasser. He was friendly and assured her that they'd get her back to her best in no time. But, he said, she needed more work than he could offer her at Twistars. And when he invited her and her mother to come to his home for further treatment, she felt honoured.

There, after a freezing cold bath, Trenet lay on his living room table with her mother Dawn sitting on a chair just metres away. Dr Nasser sat between them so that Dawn could only see her daughter's head and shoulders. He bent Trenet's knees up, pushing her leg over her hip, then turned her onto her stomach. Nasser chatted to Dawn throughout, and without breaking the flow of the conversation, he molested nine-year-old Trenet with an ungloved hand. These so-called treatments continued through her training. He told Dawn that any time Trené was in pain, she could call him to arrange another session. Over the years, Dr Nasser became a trusted family friend, inviting her around to meet his wife and kids, and even going over to the Gonzars' home for dinner. Years later,

Trené's lawyer would estimate that this man molested her 846 times. That's one of the things about this case is that the numbers are so unfathomably large. Yeah. And it's one of those ones where I feel like it's in danger of becoming like the numbers are so big that, what is it Stalin said, like one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.

It's so unbelievable, this case. Because Larry Nassar was the perpetrator of the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sports history with a recorded 499 victims. Those are the ones that we know about. I would say if those are the ones we know, what the real number is, I can't even begin to imagine. Because Larry Nassar has almost as many recorded victims as Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein combined.

Yeah. Cosby, Sandusky, Harvey Weinstein, like famous people. Larry Nassar, obviously if none of this happened, no one would ever know his name. He looks like Jared Fogle, the subway guy. He looks like him. Yeah, I guess he was gymnast famous. Yes, very gymnast famous, as we'll go on to find out. And though Nassar absolutely bears the responsibility for his horrific crimes, this case today, like many of the ones that we've just listed,

like Sandusky, Cosby and Weinstein, is about a lot more than just one man. Because not all of Nasser's victims suffered in silence. Multiple reports were made, numerous investigations were carried out, and apparently the FBI were even involved long before he was ever brought to justice. So how was Larry Nassar able to continue routinely abusing children for almost 30 years? To answer that question, we're going to throw you a little bit of a curveball and we are going to have to start off

in Ceaușescu's Romania. Not somewhere I thought we'd go today with an episode on Larry Nassar. No, no. Although, if you know anything about gymnastics, you'll know... All roads lead to Romania. All roads lead to the Soviet bloc. The Cold War was pretty rough on the Eastern Bloc, which of course is the states of Eastern Europe that were still under the control of the Soviet Union. Those countries couldn't compete with world powers on many things. But the Eastern Bloc were fucking great at gymnastics.

Is it just because it is a severe, austere, horrendous place to live, probably quite a lot of the time, that they were just used to this incredibly punishing regime that would have to be done if you're going to be a top-tier gymnast? I think it's a discipline thing. I remember really clearly, this is such a bizarre memory. Do you remember Newsround? Yes.

There was a segment on Newsround. Which was like a kids news show. Just in case anybody who's not from the UK or our specific age group. Yeah, it was on before Blue Peter. Every day. School days, obviously. And they did a section on gymnastics. They were discussing how much better China and Eastern Europe are at gymnastics than we are.

And so many kids were like phoning into Newsround and being like, well, it's just because we don't discipline our athletes. And maybe if we did, we would win. Can I have a press pass? Can I have a Newsround press kit? Between 1952 and 1992, Eastern Bloc countries won almost 90% of Olympic medals in artistic gymnastics and 95% of all golds. I mean, can you imagine just being a gymnast from any other country? What's the point? 95% of all golds wow this is where we get into the sort of body image thing the star of that eastern bloc success was 14 year old nadia

comonici who represented romania and until her female gymnasts looked like adult women. Yeah. So this might be an incredibly ignorant question. Is there an age limit on how old you have to be before you can go to the Olympics? Or is it just like whenever you want? I mean, if you can make it through, you know, make it into the... Look at me with my lingo. If you can prove that you can compete compete can you just get in at any age because she's 14 yeah i think so i don't i think it's i think younger than 14 is probably

extremely anomalous but gymnast definitely can be 14 15 interesting i never thought about it and you can't tell because they all look like babies anyway yes no i mean really if i had any sort of physical discipline i should have been a gymnast. But I have no core strength. I'm short. If I had any sort of sports interest or physical discipline or strength, I should have been a gymnast. Maybe it's the secret thing that you just don't know that you would have been the world champion at. Who knows?

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Comaneci became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 for a faultless routine on the uneven bars. Some people call them the asymmetric bars. We're not going to do that. We're going to call them uneven bars. Comaneci's victory was seen around the world. And she was the prodigy of Bella Carolli, one of Ceausescu's chosen coaches. And this coach shared the glory of Cominici's perfect score. But, and here's your theme for this week's episode, that young girl's greatness came at a massive cost.

Before those games, like Hannah said, female gymnasts were grown women, and they looked like grown women, just like with any other sport. But in those Eastern Bloc countries, and Romania in particular, the idea sparked that the smaller and younger you were, the more able you'd be to achieve those more difficult stunts. And so Comaneci's performance in Montreal caused a rush of girls as young as six wanting to get into gymnastics. But it would be years before anyone knew the horrors of what their idol had gone through.

During her training, Komenichi and the other gymnasts that she trained with were relentlessly physically and emotionally abused. The girls were slapped and called fat cows if they didn't reach their goal weight. Bella's wife Marta, another trainer, was known for holding girls up by their necks and starving the gymnasts was commonplace

with eating disorders essentially encouraged. The girls were so hungry that they would eat their toothpaste before bed and so thirsty that some would drink water from the toilet tank. What's the logic of not giving them water? If you're dehydrated, you weigh less and you look better.

Better, in inverted commas. Hugh Jackman famously, when he's playing Wolverine, he doesn't drink any water for three days before he shoots because it makes everything pop out. I see. If you're really dehydrated. So that's why. Fucking hell. Don't do any of these things. Also means you sweat less. So you're less likely to slip. Some ex-athletes have even said that Bella Caroli would sit in front of the starving girls and chow down on steak and chips. Apparently, this was to drive the message home. But what message that is, I'm not totally sure.

It's I'm in control of you and there's nothing you can do about it. But all of this was very much going on behind closed doors. Because around the world, the coaches were seen as the key to Romania's success in Montreal, and so they were in incredibly high demand. They went on a speaking tour of the US with Comaneci. They visited 11 cities, and while there, the Carolis even successfully applied for US citizenship. And part of the reason that they are so urgent to get themselves to the US is because Bella had fallen out with Ceausescu's regime. And anybody who falls out with a dictator's regime will know that he needed out pretty quickly. So the Carolis moved to Texas, leaving their own

seven-year-old daughter behind. Bella was soon picked up by the US gymnastics team, who wanted a piece of his sweet, sweet gold medal pie. And while he delivered, unfortunately, this wasn't the only legacy that the Carolis brought with them. In 1981, they brought a ranch in Houston and opened it as a gymnastics club. Bella Caroli's association with Nadia Cominici

attracted countless girls immediately. And there, the children trained for seven hours a day. They'd be sent away from their parents for weeks at a time with little to no contact. And the conditions were grim. The showers were mouldy, the blankets were stained and the food, when they got it, was almost inedible. Everyone knew that the ranch was strict, and getting in was considered an honour.

It was a necessary experience to hit the big time and achieve gymnastic greatness. By the 1984 Olympic Games, just three years after he defected from Romania, two of Corolli's star gymnasts won big. Julianne McNamara won gold for the uneven bars and Mary Lou Retton was awarded all-round champion. Both instantly became among the most popular athletes in the country. And at the 1996 games in Atlanta, the US got its iconic moment. When Kerry Strug landed a daring vault on an injured ankle and secured yet another gold for Team USA. Have you seen the footage of that? No, I have not. It is heartbreaking. So it's like an old injury, right? And in the vault, you get two goes.

So she does it, lands it funny, agitates this old, and you can see it in her face, right? And then she's limping back up to go again because her coach is saying, go again. Yeah. What's wrong with you? So she goes again. And like, it's just this incredible look of excruciating pain on her face.

And everyone knew she was injured and they made her do it anyway. And the worst thing is that it was celebrated as an athlete overcoming when actually her career was over. She was permanently injured after that. Yeah. So Strug obviously was a strong and talented athlete, but there's no doubt that the culture of fear and intimidation fostered by Bella Caroli

would have been a key reason why Strug felt like she had to perform despite her serious injury. And it was against this backdrop that Lawrence Gerard Nasser really got his name out there. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts.

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Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainy Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who

desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Nasser started as an athletic trainer when he was still at school, icing, taping and bandaging athletes on the side of high school football games.

Safe to assume, I think the vibe with teen NASA is that he liked sports, but he wasn't very good at sports and he never made the team. So this was like the closest he could be to the action without actually being a sports person. Yeah. If you can't fly, spend your life looking at the birds. Exactly. So NASA went on to graduate in kinesiology, the study of human movement, from the University of Michigan in 1985.

The next year, he joined USA Gymnastics as a trainer. He'd volunteer long hours at the gym and impressed everyone with his dedication to getting athletes back on the mat. In 1993, NASA graduated as a doctor of osteopathic medicine. And after his residency, he began working as an assistant professor at the Michigan State University Hospital. He was soon named the National Medical Coordinator for USA Gymnastics. And importantly, at those gymnastics clubs, Nasser didn't have the usual scrutiny of a doctor's office. Medical records weren't kept

and there were no insurance companies involved. Yet, his various positions surrounded him with girls as young as 10 who were unmonitored, away from their parents and who all saw him as a trusted authority figure. Not only is he like at USA Gymnastics, not only does he have this title keeping him in the upper echelons of that club as national medical coordinator, he's also a doctor.

It's just the layers of duty of care, but also the layers of power and authority he had over these girls cannot be over exaggerated and soon nasa gained a reputation and a level of responsibility that seems to outweigh his pretty minimal medical experience it's all very calculated with nasa he knows very clearly exactly what he wants to achieve and he can spot all of the holes in the systems and institutions and he's like who do i like because i'm a big fucking sick pedophile it's these girls and these girls look really young even when they're a bit older and how can i have unfettered access to as many of them as i want with no supervision this is it yeah because he couldn't have done this in a school he

couldn't have done this in a hospital he literally couldn't have done this in any other setting almost no it's true apart from do a richard huckle and move to some impoverished country where no safeguarding exists so in sport and this is an important explanation because it is a very important part of how nasa was able to catapult himself to the position that he did. Because in sport, a trainer's reputation is often linked to the calibre of athlete that they have trained in the past. Yeah, you're only as good as your last performance. Exactly.

And after Nasser helped champion Kerry Strug overcome her injury and land that iconic vault at Atlanta 96, that reputation grew quickly. Nasser would continue to treat athletes at the next five Olympic Games, and all the while he'd collect photographs of his champions for the walls of his office. It was soon considered an honour to be sent to Nasser, because it felt to people who were sent there like they'd made it, if you were referred to Larry Nassar.

And he was also a friendly face in tough times. Gymnastics training was and is pretty unforgiving. And not just at the Carolee Ranch. Gyms all across America were attracting younger and younger participants and putting them through harsh, punishing training regimes. Girls were taught to ignore and work through pain, hunger, injury and exhaustion. They were repeatedly called lazy, fat and greedy if they fell short of expectations. In the Netflix documentary Athlete A, USA Gymnastics national champion Jennifer See remembers it this way.

These kids go to national training centres when they're 10 years old. They are abused and mistreated for years. So even by the time they're of age, the line between tough coaching and child abuse gets blurred. So then when obvious abuse happens, sexual abuse, you already don't believe your own take on things. That's so interesting obviously i know nothing about the world of competitive sports but it is so interesting to look at it that way that these kids are pushed so hard that already their sort of frame of reference for what is normal in terms of like how hard you should be being pushed is already so blurred if and when

sexual abuse begins they have no frame of reference for whether that is an acceptable part of what should be happening and obviously being separated from your family at such a young age being in this environment where these other people are completely in control of your your life also leaves you so vulnerable so it is just so shocking the lack of any sort of safeguarding that was in place to protect these girls. Yeah, I think I am familiar enough with hyper competitive settings that I completely understand why. Because all these girls are getting told it's like, well, if you don't want it, leave. Yeah.

And there'll be a hundred people begging to take your place. So it's very easy for those lines to get blurred because, you know, you do want it and you want to prove that you want it. So there's a lot of things that you'll withstand, but also will have no point of reference to know what's appropriate and what's not. And it was in the haze of this culture that Larry Nassar first came across coach John Geddet. These two met at the Great Lakes Gymnastics Club in Lansing, Michigan, and were quickly BFFs. So when Geddert founded Twist Stars USA Gymnastics Club in nearby Dimmondale,

Nasser came on as his trusted physician, and he would remain at that club for 25 years. An athlete has since said that Geddert and Nasser together were the perfect storm. As a trainer, Geddad was the brutal, unpredictable disciplinarian. He would scream at the girls and twist their arms behind their backs as punishment. The athletes would be terrified to disappoint him or admit any sort of injury. The good Dr Nasser was the sympathetic voice.

He was goofy and kind and would chat to the girls about their ambitions and dreams of gymnastic success. He would assure them that they'd be back on the mat in no time and always seemed to know what to do to help. He'd even sneak sweets under their pillows and knock on their doors at night to hand them snacks. If the girls felt broken down by their harsh training and weeks spent away from their parents, Larry Nasser was there to pick them back up. Many of them saw him as the only nice grown-up. Some of them would even text him multiple times a week just to chat. And he treated some of these girls for years. They trusted him completely. That entire bit is just like the perfect summation of like a groomer's manifesto.

Again, everything about Nasser is so intentional. He infiltrates this space. And I think he very quickly realises also here are a group of girls who are incredibly lonely, maybe at points, far away from their families, gruelling regimes,

being deprived of basic food in some cases with Carolee at the wheel. Literally, he does it with sweets. Yeah. And these girls don't have friends. Their life is gymnastics. If they have friends, it will be gymnastics friends and that will be it they won't have friends from school they probably won't they'll probably be homeschooled yeah a majority

of them because you need to be training absolutely that's the thing with this case the victim pool that nasa goes after is so vulnerable and so rife for the picking. But it's a group that I think traditionally society wouldn't look at and automatically realise how vulnerable they are. No, because they're successful. Exactly. And everyone wants to be them. When it's the Olympics, I only watch the gymnastics

and the ice skating. I don't care about literally anything else. The Girls is a book by Abigail Pester and it's filled with gymnasts' own accounts of their experiences with NASA, including US Olympic team medalist Tasha Schwickert. In the prologue to the book, Tasha remembered one time she was 15 at the Corolli Ranch and the girls were doing over splits, which is where you do the splits and then both your feet are elevated on blocks, so you're kind of going over, so you look like a dish. Wow. Bella Caroli had just been screaming at Jamie Dansher.

So when Shrickett was pushed too hard, she held back her tears and carried on. The next day, she was limping from an intense pain in her groin and she was sent to Larynessa. During her treatment he massaged and penetrated her vaginally with his bare hands. He talked to her throughout and even referenced what he was doing saying it was a treatment to loosen her muscles. That's one of his like tactics that you see again and again is that he just continues talking as if everything is completely normal as if none of this is out of the ordinary so even if the girl is like oh wait a minute that feels like it's not right oh wait i'm being thrown off by a completely different stimulus and a completely different tone from your voice which is telling me that

everything is completely fine tasha had known larryassar for years. And because all she did was gymnastics, she didn't know anything about sex or sexual abuse either. She trusted him completely. And when Tasha was 17, she developed an Achilles injury, which meant she could barely walk. And she was made up when Nassar invited her to stay at his home in Lansing, Michigan with his wife and children for five whole days. Tasha said that that experience was like staying with family, like visiting a trusted uncle. Nasser had a massage table and medical supplies set up in his basement, and Tasha had three sessions a day with Nasser,

where he would start by massaging her Achilles tendon and work his way up her leg. She was abused every time. How he manages to convince not just Tasha but other people that penetrating young girls vaginally with an ungloved hand has anything to do with an Achilles tendon injury is something we're going to come back to so I don't think we're just ignoring how fucking mad that is. So osteopathic medicine is based on the idea that many of the body's problems are related to musculoskeletal issues. As an osteopathic physician,

Nasser was more likely to move joints and muscles in a targeted way to relieve pain and dysfunction. He was geeky and enthusiastic about his subject and would talk in detail about his own research in the field. Nasser had a particular interest in the musculature of the pelvis. Surprise, surprise. He was really proud of a series of PowerPoint presentations with file names like Pelvic Floor, Where No Man Has Gone Before,

and Pelvic Floor, no man has gone before. And pelvic floor, the final frontier. Obviously having an interest in the musculature of the pelvis is not in and of itself a troubling thing, but I would say that those names are pretty shocking. I don't even know what the right way to describe it is. It's so brazen. Yes. I mean, it's like you said at the start,

when he was abusing many of these girls, sometimes there was a parent in the room. He would just position himself in the way that the parent couldn't see what was happening. And I think absolutely for Larry Nassar that that was a part of the thrill as well. It's just like, look at what I'm doing right in front of the parent's child.

But I'm so smart and so cool under pressure that I can just keep talking as if nothing's happening and do what I want. Mm-hmm. So coming back to these horrendously named PowerPoints, they referenced research that reoccurring aches in the hips or back could be best solved using pelvic floor physical therapy or PFPT. Now PFPT is actually a relatively respected and mainstream technique with more than 30 years of research behind it. Loads of conditions like if you have like a weak bladder, if you have things like vaginismus, PFPT absolutely can be recommended for you to try. It's still not known exactly why but there is a definite correlation between strenuous exercise in young female athletes and pelvic floor dysfunction. I

had no idea about any of this but yes there is definitely that link and it's thought that possibly over developing the glutes might lead to shortened muscles thereby causing pain in the pelvis or the lower back. So that's one theory as to why we might see that correlation. And it's not unheard of for a specialist in pelvic disorders to enter the vagina. It can, in the right context, be a useful technique to identify painful trigger points and work out whether the muscle has lost the capacity to get longer or shorter. But this kind of treatment is not recommended for young girls. It's always explained to the patient in detail first. It's almost always carried out by a female doctor,

often with another medical professional present. Consent is always asked first. Gloves are always worn, and definitely it's never used to treat a dodgy fucking ankle. Nasser, as you might have guessed, was not following any of these rules. He used what he referred to as myofascial release or intravaginal adjustment on the majority of the athletes that he saw, seemingly regardless of what was wrong with them. And in this way, Nasser abused young girls for years, probably more than 500 of them. And for some, it was a daily occurrence. In some cases, though the girls found it initially strange, they did get better, probably because they're incredibly young and able to bounce back.

So what that meant was that everyone thought what Nasser was doing was completely legit. And many even leapt to his defence if he was ever questioned. And that's how he got away with it. If you establish yourself as a trustworthy doctor, people will let you do almost anything. But his plan, although it worked for 30 years, wasn't totally foolproof. Some of his victims could see right through Larry Nassar. In 2004, when then 24-year-old cheerleader Amanda Tomasho reported assault to Michigan State University police, an investigation was launched. An investigator interviewed three osteopathic physicians and one athletic trainer.

All four said that Larry Nass's treatments had been medically appropriate. And all of the osteopathic physicians and the athletic trainer all decided that it was Tomasho who was in the wrong. She hadn't properly understood the difference between osteopathic treatment and sexual assault. Right. OK. Just a quick moment there. It is shocking to me because, OK, let's say like we did that sometimes these kind of techniques can be helpful in a medical context. But again, remembering the list that we just went through of how that kind of thing is carried out. If someone is saying, I was assaulted, and you're like, no, no, you just haven't understood that this is what needs to be done. Should it not still be looked into? Because

I don't know, it just feels mind-boggling to me that they would just tell somebody, oh no, that's absolutely fine, you've completely misunderstood it and nobody cares how that's made you feel violated or anything like that, you're just wrong. It's power dynamics though, I guess. And the report also mentioned that NASA had presented on the subject internationally, posted videos online on the technique, and he was well known for his work. Again, his success seemed to speak for itself,

and it kept him in a position of power. And a fun fact about the report that came out of this investigation was that all of the people interviewed were colleagues and friends of Larry Nasser. Yeah. Which I imagine is the whole gymnastics industry. Yeah. They very much do zero dotting of I's or crossing of T's. They're just like,

hey, Larry Nassar, somebody's made an accusation of assault against you. Do you have any friends that we could interview who are also osteopaths or athletic trainers? Because maybe they could help clear this right up. Again, it's like coming back to Thomas Cho's accusation, right, saying that she felt like it was sexual assault. And then these people just saying, well, no, that's just what's done. And they all agreed that it was fine. So the investigators dropped it. We just read out a list of how these treatments are meant to be carried out, right, with a medical chaperone present, with gloves, with clear explanation. If they had bothered to do even the basic bit of questioning, surely they would have discovered that none of those things had happened. And Larry Nassar

should have been at least disciplined for not following proper medical procedure or like rules. But they're just like, oh, no, everything's fine. Don't even worry. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down.

Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider

some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. But it didn't stop there, because that same year, 17-year-old Breanne Randall went straight to the police after being abused by Nasser. She had a rape kit administered and Nasser was questioned.

He told a detective that he had touched her perineum as part of a treatment called a sacrotuborous ligament release. This is another classic Nasser technique, which is every time he's questioned by police or journalists or parents, he just uses really long words or medical terminology to confuse people and make people feel like, oh, well, we can't question him. He's talking about sacrotuborous ligament release. What could I possibly know? He said that this treatment had been published in medical journals.

And again, in a classic nasa move he emailed the detectives one of his powerpoint presentations in that presentation nasa is shown cupping a girl's buttocks and pressing around her vagina this reminds me and i know it's not the same thing but this reminds me of that cult oh my god which cult was it with the friendly flirty fishing children of god children of god when they just like had manuals on how to abuse children because it was so normalized because they were like we're gonna put this so on the table we're gonna put make this so open that you know nobody can question this is wrong because it's going to be so ordinary and he is literally sending the detective pictures of him

cupping a girl's buttocks and pressing around her vagina to be like, look, this is what I did, but it's okay because it's legit. And I put it in a PowerPoint. And I put it in a PowerPoint. Nothing bad has ever gone in a PowerPoint. Called Pelvic Flaw Where No Man Has Gone Before. And somehow this PowerPoint presentation was enough proof for the detective that nasa was above board remember by this point there have been two accusations against him that we know about

nobody is like hey nasa you're maybe making people feel uncomfortable with what you're doing so maybe we should review the way you're doing it they're just like don't worry about it. And it was concluded that no crime was committed and the case was closed. Between 1997 and 2015, seven complaints were made to coaches, trainers, police or university officials, but nothing seemed to stick. And again, if you are having this many people making complaints in that space of time, and all of them are getting shut down, imagine how many people wanted to make complaints but wouldn't have come forward because they would have thought there was no point so in 2015 17 year old maggie nichols went to nasa for treatment on her back she went to a back room of the caroli ranch and during treatment was molested by larryar, as usual under the guise of treatment. Now Maggie had grown up going to

physical therapy so she knew immediately that something was wrong and when a trainer overheard her telling champion athlete Ali Raisman the incident was reported to Rhonda Fane, the vice president of the women's gymnastics program. The next day, Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics, called Maggie Nichols, called Maggie Nichols' mother, and told her not to contact the police. Steve Penny is a bad man. I'm not even sure this is his only scandal. He's not a great guy.

No, he does not sound like a good person. And just to remind everybody, he was president of USA Gymnastics. So imagine you are the mother of a 17-year-old gymnast who gets a call from the president of USA Gymnastics telling you not to go to the police because they're going to handle it. Steve Penny is going to fucking handle it. Maggie's mum was also told that USAG were conducting their own investigation and speaking up would only jeopardise things.

That doesn't even make sense. No, of course it doesn't fucking make sense. were conducting their own investigation. And speaking up would only jeopardise things. That doesn't even make sense! No, of course it doesn't fucking make sense. So in the run-up to Rio 2016, Maggie was at the peak of her career, second only to Simone Biles. But after the accusation surfaced, she wasn't picked for the team. Maggie retired from elite gymnastics. NASA seemed to be untouchable.

But it couldn't last forever. Rachel Denhollander had gone to Nasser for pain in her wrist and lower back in the early 2000s when she was 15. Nasser had positioned himself between the teenager and her mother and sexually assaulted her under a towel. Rachel assumed at the time that her mother must have been aware, so she didn't say anything. Can you imagine the bravery it would take to lie there when this was happening and to be like, hey, excuse me, what are you doing? That doesn't feel right. Like, I don't think I would say that. No, I wouldn't be able to do it. Wouldn't be able to do it.

And after repeated visits, the abuse escalated. It escalated to anal penetration and even to unhooking Rachel's bra and massaging her breasts. Which again, what that's got to do with her wrist or her lower back is beyond me. And Rachel also noticed that Nasser was quite clearly aroused. So she was certain that this was sexual assault. Rachel told the head coach at her gymnastics facility, but just like the others, Rachel was ignored. And she was told she was alone in her accusations and cautioned against saying anything else. In these kind of cases, the question always comes up is like,

why were so many people so keen to protect him? Is it that they just thought he was such a fantastic osteopath that they didn't want to dare lose him but they knew what he was doing or is it just that if we start looking into all this it's going to cause so much distraction that we just don't have time because we need to win gold medals or is it that these people are all a bunch of wrong ends and they're like we pull this one card out being Larry Nassar, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down or all three. I think it's mainly option C. I think because the abuse of these girls in training camps is kind of accepted.

Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah, you're right. They know what they're doing is wrong. They know what they're doing is getting results. They know what they're doing is getting results they know what they're doing is getting medals so i think there was um certainly in the like romanian gymnastic doctrine it would kind of i guess be seen as maybe necessary evil is the wrong way of putting it but just sort of like that's just how it goes yeah and i think it is also obviously to be an athlete there has to be an element of like you have to plow through the

pain like there is no denying nobody would be good at sports if that wasn't a core tenant of being an athlete there is no denying that but maybe you're right that that whole mentality of you push through the pain regardless of what is happening to you went too far in these cases and also now chuck into that oh somebody's also sexually abusing you. Well, it's like everybody lost their frame of reference of what was acceptable. And you just push through that pain as well. What are you complaining about? You should be lucky to be here.

So let's fast forward now in our story to 2016. By this time, Rachel Denhollander was a successful lawyer and mother of three. One day, she read an article in the Indianapolis Star newspaper, also known as the Indy Star, and in this article it named no names but it revealed a pattern within gymnastics of downplaying sexual abuse allegations and prioritizing its staff and success over the safety of athletes. This report said that they had found that USAC had a policy of dismissing complaints as hearsay unless they were signed by a victim, parent or eyewitness. There were allegations against more than 50 coaches but without a signature they were all ignored. And this just to be clear, that's just for them to even bother to acknowledge

that the accusation had been made. We're not saying that when there was a signature, they were taking it seriously, because as we saw, they were still shutting things down left, right and centre. This article in the Indy Star also spoke of a predatory coach who had abused girls at multiple gyms and been protected by authorities within the sport.

Rachel was, of course, terrified of speaking out publicly but she knew she had to or let future generations of girls be abused as well. So Rachel Denhollander stepped up and on the 25th of August 2016 she phoned the MSU, that's Michigan State University Police Department, and journalists at the Indy Star to report the abuse that she had endured 16 years before. Two other ex-gymnasts, Jamie Dancha and Jessica Howard, also contacted the paper with their accounts of abuse. And the Indy Star ran another story, this time naming Larry Nassar. Complaints about Nassar to Michigan University's police department date back to 1997. But over the years, everyone who spoke up were told that what they'd experienced was a medical procedure, and then their abuser would always be cleared.

But after the Indy Star story and Den Hollander's report, the Michigan University Police Department brought Larry Nassar in again. He started off his interview chatty and confident, going into detail with anatomical and medical terminology to confuse people. His favourite thing. But when he was asked about specific allegations, like why certain injuries like an Achilles tendon problem

would need vaginal penetration to fix, Larry Nassar started stuttering. And since the last time he had been called into the police department, protocols had been put in place. So, Larry Nassar was asked if he had been wearing gloves,

asking for informed consent, or asking another medical professional to be present while he was adjusting these girls. And Larry Nassar admitted that occasionally he had not followed the protocol. What kind of person would do these kind of things without another medical professional present? I literally would never. It is just mind boggling. It's the gloves for me. Yeah. Oh my, it's all of it. It's all of it. Every single thing. But again, it's like this idea that if you are not a predator, I can't imagine that you would do that without somebody being there just to be like, look, look at what I'm doing.

I'm doing my job. I'm doing what needs to be done. Are you watching? Great. Obviously. Fucking hell. Oh, the gloves, the gloves. I know.

That's what I can't stop thinking about. So he admits that occasionally, but occasionally, he did not follow all of the rules, which was strike one. But then he asked the Michigan University Police Department, if the girls were uncomfortable, why wouldn't they have said anything? Oh, yeah. Great question. And that was strike two. Then Larry Nassar was asked if he ever got an erection during his therapy sessions. At first he was indignant, but then he said the following.

When you're a guy, sometimes you get an erection. And yes, they're young ladies, but I'm trying my best to be professional. Jesus Christ. That terrifies me. That terrifies me. Oh my God. I just, can you say it again? I'm going to look at a picture of Larry, Larry Nassar, as you fucking say it. And everybody, I urge you to do the same because,

you know, we often don't get to be visually visceral with you as well, but let's just play this game. When you're a guy, sometimes you get an erection. yes they're young ladies but i'm trying my best to be professional i want to die yeah fucking hell he says this to the police speaking of people who've lost their frames of reference my god yeah yeah yeah so uh yeah it's game over really once he said that larry nasser begged the police not to make anything public because it would destroy his reputation. And we all know that the reputation of a man, of one singular man, is far more important than 499 girls.

So this story sent shockwaves through the gymnastics community. Nasser, like we've been saying this entire episode, was not just a respected doctor, as everybody thought him to be. He was loved. In fact, after this piece was published in the Indy Star, Nasser ran for school board and got more than 2,000 votes. So 2,000 people didn't give a fuck about that article. Jamie Dancher, despite choosing to stay anonymous in the piece, received instant hate from the gymnastics community.

They all knew it had to be her. She was dragged on social media and in the press. And lawyers for USA Gymnastics, no doubt, at the fucking behest of Mr Steve Penny, piece of shit, even phoned her ex-boyfriends to try and dig up dirt on her sexual history. That is so gross. She was 15 when he assaulted her. And then, of course, there's Rachel Denhollander. She was painted as a bitter, washed-up ex-gymnast who had to go on to become a successful lawyer.

And they basically said that she was just doing all of this because she never got good at the sport and she just wanted her five minutes of fame this way. Yeah, because there's nothing anybody likes more than being famous for being the victim of child sex abuse. Right, yeah. Jesus. But the story, once it was out, also rallied more victims.

In the article Lasse's Neues... Lasse's Neues. Lasse's Neues. Oh my god. If we ever have to play like a sick, fucked up version of like a pub quiz, we'll just be called Lassa's lawyers. Okay, great. Sorry. So in the article, Lassa's lawyers were quoted saying that he had never used an intervaginal procedure.

At that point, every woman he had done that to knew that he was lying. Why would you fucking say that when you know that there are like 500 people out there you did that to? He's floundering, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He might as well just be like, I'm made of cheese at this point. Yeah, it's over. It's over. So phone calls and emails were soon flooding into the Indy Star

newspaper from more than 60 other survivors. And because the lawyers representing the survivors had reports of sexual abuse being conducted in Nasser's basement in his family home where he lived with his wife and his children, a search warrant for Larry Nasser's home was issued.

On the 20th of September 2016, Nasser's residence was searched. There are few cases where I have been so happy about what is about to happen next. On that day, on that September day, the rubbish collection men were running a little bit behind schedule. And if they hadn't been, the pavement outside the NASA house would have been empty when investigators arrived.

But it wasn't. There were bin bags sat on the curb outside the house. Inside one of the bin bags was a tied up plastic bag with what looked like the contents of a bathroom bin inside. Tissues, ear buds, face wipes, etc. Vomit, vomit, vomit. But joining the bin bag party that looks harmless on first inspection, there are also three external hard drives. Possibly the least harmless, most nefarious thing that you could possibly come across in a bin.

A hard drive. An external. He hasn't even bothered to take it away from his house. Oh, it's just, it's so much worse. It gets so much worse with the next bit of information you're about to tell us, Hannah. Not only did he not, you know, throw them in a river or something, he put his name and phone number on the side of these external hard drives. He is a mega twat. He really, truly is. Who writes their fucking name and phone number on the side of an external hard drive and

then fill it with all the things we're about to talk about it was being filled with and then leave it in a bin bag outside your own fucking house? With your name on it? This, I mean, people laugh at BTK, right? The floppy disk, church, etc. Yes, this guy, I don't think we have come across anybody quite so fucking stupid. So on those hard drives that were outside his own house with his own name on them, police found more than 37,000 images of child sex abuse on those hard drives. And some of the images were so graphic, seasoned veterans recoiled. And these photos found on these hard drives included pictures of girls in NASA's own bathtub,

and also images he found online, and saved, of outright rape. And this is the thing, the bathtub pictures are so important because he can't just say that he is, like, a looker of child sexual exploitation on the internet. He's a producer. You're a producer. It's made in your fucking bathtub.

And so finally, police saw Dr Larry Nassar for what he was. Not a dedicated physician trying out alternative therapies in the service of his patients. He was a dangerous, calculated predator. And his time was up. Larry Nassar was arrested on the 16th of December 2016. His medical licence was revoked and he entered into a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to possession of child sex abuse images

and of willfully destroying evidence. As a part of the plea deal, Nassar did have certain charges against him dropped, but he did have to agree to give all of his victims the opportunity to make an impact statement if they wanted to. Why exactly the prosecution enter into a plea deal with Nasser is not totally clear to me, because they have so much, they have so many witnesses, they have evidence, they find the bathtub pictures, so why they don so many witnesses they have evidence they find the

bathtub pictures so why they don't just throw the book at him why i mean they do like you know he's he is in prison where he shall be forever but i don't know why the plea deal was in place they basically drop charges against him of things like they don't go after him for like traveling across state lines with the intention of carrying out child sex abuse. Don't know. Weird. I think it's because it gets things done a lot quicker. There's not going to be a trial, right? That's true.

And so, at a seven-day sentencing hearing, Olympic gold medallists and world champion gymnasts took the stand one by one to directly confront their abuser, Larry Nasser. And for a whole week in January 2018, the 54-year-old former doctor had to sit there and listen to it all. The hearing was broadcast live and made headlines around the world. Originally, 88 women were scheduled to testify. But after seeing the statements, more and more decided to come forward.

And many cited Rachel Denhollander as their inspiration to stand up. The judge even called her the, quote, five-star general in the army of survivors. In total, 156 women took to the stand to direct the shame that they had endured back onto Larry Nassar, and many chose to waive their right to anonymity. One of the accounts came from Kyle Stevens, who, unlike most, was not a gymnast,

or even a patient of Larry Nassar's. Kyle was a family friend. She recounted that she was first abused by Nassar when she was six, and she said, quote, when I still had not lost all my baby teeth. Nassar began by exposing himself to her and then started masturbating in her presence. Eventually, he physically abused her too,

while both their families were in the house. At 12, she told her parents that he had touched her too while both their families were in the house. At 12 she told her parents that he had touched her bare feet with his erect penis. Her parents invited Nass around and Kyle ended up apologising to the doctor for the accusation. God, he learned so early on.

Yeah. In her testimony she told him directly perhaps you have it figured out by now, but little girls don't stay little forever. They grow into strong women who return to destroy your world. Judge Rosemary Aquilina, who is a crime novelist in her spare time, fun fact. How much spare time do judges have?

I don't know, but there you go. I feel like it shouldn't be enough to be a novelist rosemary's a high overachiever clearly so judd rosemary supported the victims throughout and pulled zero punches towards nasa since he had already admitted guilt because remember he did plead guilty she had no obligation to stay impartial nasa had sent a letter asking to be removed from the courtroom because the trial was causing him emotional distress. Oh no. To which Judge Rosemary Aquilina replied,

quote, spending four or five days listening to them, meaning the victims, is significantly minor considering the hours of pleasure you had at their expense and ruining their lives. She also read Nasser's prepared statement to the court. And this statement was written before the testimonies of the 156 women who took the stand. And in it, Nasser moaned about how hard done by he had been by having his reputation ruined for quote, porn possession. It's interesting that he's still saying that after he had been by having his reputation ruined for quote porn possession it's interesting that

he's still saying that after he had pleaded guilty to the charges against him this um letter also said quote hell hath no fury like a woman scorned i think i've pinpointed what i hate the most about this yes is it his face i mean it's up there what i hate the most is that he's relying on this like camaraderie between men of like oh but like you know what it's like yeah yeah everyone gets a boner looking at a teenage girl everyone has porn everyone is looking at child sex abuse images we just don't admit it to each other. Yeah. And that's what he's hiding behind. That's such a good point. And that makes me so sick. You're right.

A lot of it is like wink, wink. Like, come on, boys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I had an erection. Don't tell me you haven't thought about it. Yeah, but look up. You know, I was just doing my job, but look up. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Ugh, yuck. And thankfully for the world, obviously not everybody feels this way. And after Judge Aquilina read his letter, it drew bitter laughs from the courtroom. Good. Yeah. And then she asked Nasser if he wanted to change his plea, presumably because he's saying in there that it was about porn possession and not that he's a big fucking predator. But he said no.

And in his final statements, it does seem that Nasser showed big fucking predator. But he said no. And in his final statements, it does seem that NASA showed some contrition. How much of it is genuine? Well, I'll leave that for you to decide. Quote, I realised that what I'm feeling pales in comparison to the pain, trauma and emotional disturbance that I have wreaked.

There are no words that can describe the depth and breadth of how sorry I am for what has occurred. I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days. Fuck you, Larry fucking Gerard Nasser, you giant piece of shit. I don't believe it for a second. No, of course not. And thankfully, we don't need to give a shit about Larry Nassar

because he was sentenced to two back-to-back 60-year sentences. And Carolee Ranch was immediately shut down. Within weeks of Nassar's sentencing, the entire board of USA Gymnastics, including terrible man Steve Penny, resigned. And a month after that, USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy, and it's still in the process of being declassified by the United States Olympic Committee. Michigan State University has settled with 332 women for an incredible $500 million. And the president of Michigan State University has resigned too. Steve Penny

didn't just resign, he was arrested for tampering with evidence. Although the charges were dismissed in April of this year, 2022. Coach John Geddert, if you remember him, who founded Twistars Gym, was himself charged with abusing gymnasts. And he killed himself a month after Nasser's sentencing. An advocacy group for girls and women in sport called Champion Women sent a letter to Congress in the aftermath of the trial, demanding that more laws be passed to protect children from predators. It was signed by hundreds of athletes, including Martina Navratilova, and it said, I also think that Simone Biles has come forward and said that NASA treated her too. I just am not surprised by anything in this case anymore.

And none of this is limited to USA Gymnastics. This is also important to say because I don't know if people remember, but it only happened this year. There was, of course, a 306-page White review that was released by Anne White QC here in the UK literally months ago and in that it laid bare the terrible abuse suffered by British gymnasts at the hands of their coaches and trainers. The report received evidence from 400 people and this is absolutely staggering. 40% of those 400 described physical abuse and 50% reported emotional abuse. And allegations of sexual abuse were rife with 30 people out of the 400 saying that they had suffered sexual abuse. So it's no means just a culture that was a built-in USA gymnastics by Larry Nassar and people like the Carolis. This seems to oddly be a gymnastics thing. Though again, obviously, I'm not saying it doesn't happen in the church,

in boarding schools, in other forms of sport, obviously. But interesting. I think what I've always thought about gymnastics is that like, the human body is just not supposed to be able to do that. We're supposed to run, you know, we're supposed to throw things. We're supposed to swim, arguably. Gymnastics, we are not supposed to be able to do that. So it's already this superhuman thing.

So I think there is a bit more tolerance within that sport for superhuman training because it's a superhuman thing to do. So to be able to get that good, you have to go through a lot, is the argument. Obviously, I don't agree. But it's in the mentality of the sport and therefore it leaves incredibly young vulnerable people incredibly vulnerable yeah to predators like larry nasser and not even just the sexual abuse but all of the physical abuse and emotional abuse that we've outlined that's it guys that is the case of larry nasser fucking harrowing but yeah there we go okay do watch athlete a it's a very good it's a

very well-made documentary and i yeah i mean your heart just bleeds for all of these women who keep coming forward and keep being ignored absolutely so yeah that's it if you would like to i don't know listen to us talk about something that isn't child predators of children then please come and check out under the duvet immediately after this and if you are a patron and if you're not maybe think about becoming one because uh you get under the duvet every single week and you also get a full-length bonus episode once a month this month we did pick another horrific case that was highly requested by all of our patrons yeah you did it to yourself you did and it is of course the absolute horrendous horrendous torture murder of Shannon Christian and Chris Newsome.

So come and listen to that over on Patreon. And that's it. Buy your tickets to the tour. Yes. We'll see you on the road in October very, very soon now. And we'll see you later. See you later. Bye.

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