Christine Hauser and Karen Zraick

After investigations by The Indianapolis Star in 2016, hundreds of women came forward with accusations of sexual abuse, dozens and dozens of them publicly confronting Nassar during sentencing hearings in early 2018.

As the scandal widened, officials from several organizations — including USA Gymnastics, the governing body of the sport; the United States Olympic Committee; and Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked as a doctor — were ousted or charged in relation to the case. Here’s a look at many of those figures.

USA Gymnastics

The organization has been in upheaval since the revelations about Nassar emerged.

Steve Penny, president and chief executive of USA Gymnastics, was forced to resign in 2017 under pressure from the USOC and was arrested the following year on a felony charge of evidence tampering. He was accused of ordering the removal of documents from a national team training center in Texas after learning of an investigation into Nassar’s behavior there. He has pleaded not guilty.

Paul Parilla, chairman of USA Gymnastics’s board; Jay Binder, vice chairman; and Bitsy Kelley, treasurer — resigned last year under intense pressure as women spoke out at one of Nassar’s sentencing hearings. The rest of the board resigned within days, after the head of the USOC threatened to decertify the organization.

Kerry Perry, who replaced Penny as president, was forced out by the USOC amid criticism of her handling of the Nassar scandal after less than a year in the role. Nassar’s victims criticized Perry for only briefly attending his dayslong sentencing hearings, and for failing to reach out to the highest-profile women who had been abused.

Mary Bono, who was appointed last year as interim president and chief executive, stepped down within days over criticism of her opposition to Nike’s support for Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest social injustice and police brutality. She was also widely criticized for her connection to a law firm that advised USA Gymnastics as it delayed revealing what it knew about Nassar’s abuse.

Valeri Liukin, who became the women’s national team coordinator in 2016, stepped down in February 2018. He said, “The present climate causes me, and more importantly my family, far too much stress, difficulty and uncertainty.”

Rhonda Faehn, a senior vice president at USA Gymnastics for the women’s program, was fired by the organization last year. Faehn told a Senate panel that she had informed Penny about several accusations about Nassar in 2015, and that Penny directed her and others not to discuss “the current issue” about a member of the medical staff with anyone. Faehn had also been hired by the University of Michigan in 2018 to be a coaching consultant for its women’s gymnastics team, but the university ended its contract with her just days later after an outcry.

Mary Lee Tracy, a longtime coach who initially defended Nassar, was asked by USA Gymnastics to resign her position last year, only days after the federation hired her as its elite development coordinator. In a statement, USA Gymnastics said Tracy had acted “inappropriately” by contacting a gymnast who was suing over the Nassar case.

Ron Galimore, a former elite gymnast who rose to become the long-serving chief operating officer for USA Gymnastics, resigned last year. The Indianapolis Star had reported that Galimore worked with other officials to give “false excuses” for Nassar’s absence during an investigation into abuse in 2015.

In December, USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy. Kathryn Carson, the federation’s newly elected chairwoman, characterized the filing as a reorganization, “not a liquidation,” and said she believes the bankruptcy will hasten claim payments to the hundreds of plaintiffs who have sued the organization for failing to protect them from Nassar.

It was unclear how the bankruptcy would affect the United States Olympic Committee’s efforts to decertify USA Gymnastics, a process it began in November in order to strip the organization of its power as a governing body. A spokesman for the USOC said the organization was reviewing the filing.

United States Olympic Committee

Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the USOC, stepped down last year after calls for his resignation from two senators, a group of former Olympians, athletes’ representatives and child-advocacy experts amid criticism of the committee’s handling of the abuse scandal.

In December, a blistering report commissioned by the Olympic committee accused Blackmun and another official of doing nothing to investigate, report or stop Nassar despite learning in 2015 that he had been accused of sexual abuse. Failures by the committee to intervene helped create “an ecosystem that facilitated his criminal acts,” the report said.

The other official, Alan Ashley, who was the committee’s chief of sports performance, was fired the same month.

Karolyi Ranch

In January 2018, USA Gymnastics cut ties with the national training center in Texas, known as the Karolyi Ranch. (It has since closed.) The move came as gymnast Simone Biles, a four-time Olympic champion, fueled a fierce backlash against USA Gymnastics for still holding camps at the ranch. Days later, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas ordered an investigation into accusations of sexual assault by Nassar at the center.

Martha Karolyi and Bela Karolyi, the retired coordinators and coaches of the women’s national gymnastics team, said last year that they had not been aware of Nassar’s abuse. The Karolyis have been named in lawsuits.

Debra Van Horn, a former trainer at the ranch who also worked for USA Gymnastics, was charged last year with one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child by prosecutors in Texas. Van Horn had been charged as “acting as a party” with Nassar, according to authorities. Her lawyer said Van Horn was “innocent” of the charge.

When one former gymnast appeared at one of Nassar’s sentencing hearings, she also accused Van Horn of being in the room while Nassar abused her.

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Twistars Gymnastics Club

John Geddert, a former coach for the women’s Olympic gymnastics team and owner of Twistars Gymnastics Club in Dimondale, Michigan, where Nassar offered treatment, was suspended last year by USA Gymnastics. (He also announced he was retiring). The Eaton County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan said people had come forward with complaints against him, according to The Associated Press. (Several women have accused Geddert of being physically abusive and indifferent to their injuries.) Geddert has said he had “zero knowledge” of Nassar’s crimes, The AP reported.

Michigan State University

Many of the abuse charges against Nassar stemmed from his time at the university, where he was a faculty member for years and the team physician for two female varsity squads.

Lou Anna K. Simon, the university’s president, resigned last year under pressure over the way she handled the Nassar scandal. (Her resignation came the same day that Nassar was sentenced for sexually abusing seven girls.) She denied that a “cover-up” had taken place. In November, Simon was charged with lying to police about her knowledge of a Title IX complaint filed against Nassar in 2014.

John Engler, the interim university president who replaced Simon, said in January that he would resign after remarks he made that some of Nassar’s victims appeared to be enjoying “the spotlight.” The comments were criticized by university administrators and board of trustees members.

Mark Hollis, the university’s athletic director, resigned shortly after Simon stepped down. “This was not an easy decision for my family, and you should not jump to any conclusions,” he said. “I am not running away from anything.”

Kathie Klages, a former university gymnastics coach, was charged last summer with two counts of lying to authorities about whether she knew that Nassar had sexually abused numerous young women for decades. When speaking to university police detectives, Klages, who retired in 2017, denied learning of Nassar’s sexual abuse before 2016, prosecutors said.

William D. Strampel, the former dean of the university’s osteopathic medical school, was accused by investigators of facilitating abuse by Nassar, whom he supervised before retiring from the university in 2017, and of committing sexual misconduct himself. In June, Strampel was found guilty of neglect of duty and misconduct in office, but acquitted on the more serious criminal sexual conduct charge.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/sports/larry-nassar-case-scandal.html" id="336447ab-71e7-34ad-abcd-3eb1c01c291b">The New York Times</a>.

The sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, a former doctor for the American women’s gymnastics team, led him to be sentenced to decades in prison after multiple convictions, a scandal that reverberated throughout the worlds of sports and higher education.

Larry Nassar Sexual Abuse Scandal: Dozens of Officials Have Been Ousted or Charged

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Christine Hauser and Karen Zraick

Articles written by the author

Larry Nassar Sexual Abuse Scandal: Dozens of Officials Have Been Ousted or Charged