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After an extraordinary seven-day hearing that drew more than 150 young women to speak out publicly about sexual abuse they said was committed by Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar, the former team doctor for the American gymnastics team, a judge sentenced him on Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison.
He had faced a minimum term of 25 to 40 years.
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who had opened her courtroom to all the young women who wanted to address Dr. Nassar directly, and forced him to listen when he pleaded to make it stop, handed down the sentence, saying to him, “You’ve done nothing to deserve to walk outside a prison again.”
“It is my honor and privilege to sentence you,” she said, and noting the length of the sentence, added, “I just signed your death warrant.”
Given an opportunity to address the court before sentencing, Dr. Nassar apologized and, occasionally turning to the young women in the courtroom, said: “Your words these past several days have had a significant effect on myself and have shaken me to my core. I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days.” Several women sobbed in the gallery as he spoke.
More than 160 women say Larry Nassar sexually abused them. Here are his accusers in their own words.
He was lauded as the must-see doctor who worked with America’s best gymnasts. Now Lawrence G. Nassar will spend the rest of his life in prison. Over seven days, women recounted his sexual abuse at a marathon sentencing hearing in Michigan.
Just before sentencing Dr. Nassar, the judge read parts of a letter that he had submitted to the court last week, in which he complained about his treatment in a separate federal child pornography case and wrote that his accusers in this case were seeking news media attention and money. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scored,” he wrote in the letter. There were audible gasps from the gallery when the judge read the line.
Dr. Nassar, 54, was accused of years of molesting girls as young as 6, many of them Olympic gymnasts, under the guise of giving them medical treatment. In November, he had pleaded guilty to sexually abusing seven girls. He has already been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for child pornography convictions.
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