A report reveals that disastrous FBI investigation allowed Larry Nassar to abuse more athletes

Larry Nassar heard his sentence on February 5, 2018 in a Michigan court.Cory Morse / AP

A highly anticipated report released Wednesday has dealt a serious blow to the reputation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI. The Justice Department's office of the inspector general has pointed out the many shortcomings officers made in the investigation of the sexual abuse committed by Larry Nassar, the doctor for the US gymnastics team. Although Nassar is today in prison serving a life chain, the authors of the report consider that the serious failures of the agents attached to the Indianapolis (Indiana) office allowed the predator of more than 300 women to continue to act. “The FBI did not conduct any activity in the investigation for more than eight months following an interview in September 2015 [with one of the athletes who denounced]. During this period,As has been stated in detail in many civil lawsuits, Nassar's sexual abuse continued, ”the document states in one of its devastating conclusions.

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Around 70 women have been abused by Nassar since the FBI first learned of the accusations against the doctor, in July 2015, and his arrest, in November 2016, on several counts of rape. The report made by the Department of Justice finds the origin of the problem in the FBI office in Indianapolis. Agents from that jurisdiction were the first to hear from Steve Penny, the president of the Gymnastics Federation, the accusations against Nassar. It was July 2015. Penny told investigators there were three athletes willing to talk to them about the harassment. He also gave the agents a USB with photos and videos of alleged treatments that the doctor performed on his patients, most of them minors.

The agents, however, were not interested in the case, the report said. Over the next six weeks the effort to investigate these allegations was minimal: only one telephone interview with one of the victims, made on September 2; the USB review and a discussion of the case with the local prosecutor's office and with colleagues from the Detroit (Michigan) office, the state where Nassar worked for a gymnastics club and for a high school. The little interest of the agents was evident in the little documentation they had done. Only five handwritten pages after the talk with Penny, another three pages of the interview with the athlete and about 45 emails exchanged with prosecutors and agents.

The investigators and prosecutors did not understand why the case should originate in Indiana, since after the interview to the interview in September there was nothing to bind the violations to this State. "Both offices [the FBI and the prosecution] had serious doubts that the accusations against Nassar were sufficient to support a federal indictment," the document said. The case of Nassar, who was detained at the request of the Michigan District Attorney, became that of the greatest sexual predator in recent United States history. Prosecutors even recommended turning the case over to FBI agents in Detroit.

The investigation was at a standstill for eight months. He revived it when, again, employees of the Athletics Federation contacted the FBI office in Los Angeles to meet with them. It was May 2016. At that meeting, the agents heard accusations that had already been made in July 2015 on the other side of the country. The phone rang at the Indianapolis office. The Angelenos agents asked their colleagues what they had done with the accusations. The response was that they had created a formal petition to transfer the case. They lied. "The Los Angeles office and other FBI employees indicated that they looked for this FD-71 form in the FBI systems but did not find it," says the inspector general's office, who also searched for the document on its own without being able to find it.

Los Angeles agents began the investigation.

It was that moment that the case began to be built after

published an investigation in which several athletes recounted their experiences.

The University of Michigan police had also received complaints from a woman who claimed to have been a victim at age 16.

After that, Detroit FBI agents discovered 30,000 images of child pornography on computers seized from Nassar's residence.

The wheels of justice were finally beginning to move.

But they could have done it much earlier.

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