Simone Biles Among U.S. Gymnasts Seeking More Than $1B From FBI Over Sexual Abuse Investigation

DeMicia Inman
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Simone Biles is one of the dozens of women who have taken legal action against the FBI over the Larry Nassar case. The Associated Press reports Biles and approximately 90 claimants are seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The group alleges the FBI failed to stop Nassar when the first allegations were made against him.

“It is time for the FBI to be held accountable,” said Maggie Nichols, a national champion gymnast at Oklahoma in 2017-2019.

More from VIBE.com

“If the FBI had simply done its job, Nassar would have been stopped before he ever had the chance to abuse hundreds of girls, including me,” added former University of Michigan gymnast Samantha Roy.

U.S. Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and NCAA and world champion gymnast Maggie Nichols leave after testifying during a Senate Judiciary hearing about the Inspector General’s report on the FBI handling of the Larry Nassar investigation of sexual abuse of U.S. gymnasts, on Capitol Hill, September 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. - Credit: Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images

Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images

“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in September 2021. She claimed the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, as well as USA Gymnastics, “knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”

In 2015, USA Gymnastics informed the FBI that three gymnasts had claimed to have been assaulted by Nassar, however, the agency did not open a formal investigation nor inform federal or state authorities in Michigan of the allegations. He was eventually arrested in 2016 after an investigation by Michigan State University police.

NBC News reported in December 2017,  he was sentenced to 60 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to possessing and receiving child sex abuse images.

In January 2018, Nassar was back in court and was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women and girls made public statements that he sexually abused them over the past two decades. Nassar had pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County in Michigan and admitted to using his trusted medical position to assault and molest girls under the guise of medical treatment.

Click here to read the full article.