Larry Nassar was stabbed and life-threateningly injured in a Florida prison. The doctor, sentenced to hundreds of years for molesting at least 250 patients including gymnastics stars Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney, was attacked by fellow inmates Sunday afternoon at Sumterville Federal Penitentiary, twice in the neck and back and stabbed six times in the chest. He survived the attack, according to federal officials Federal Bureau of Prisons due to the courageous intervention of the guards, he is now out of danger and is being treated in a hospital – among other things, his lungs have collapsed.
“He’s lucky he’s alive,” says Joe Rojas. He is the president of the union Local 506, which fights for the rights of prison workers. In the USA there is currently a heated debate about the conditions there; On the one hand, there is a lack of cooling and ventilation in the prisons in view of the heat wave in many US states, and on the other hand, there is understaffing – which, according to Rojas, can lead to life-threatening situations for prisoners and guards.
Nassar, 59, has worked for the US Gymnastics Federation since 1986 and has served as its medical director since 1996. The case caused a stir around the world; not only because of the sheer number and prominence of the victims, but because it could be proven in detail how Nasser was able to commit crimes unmolested in a system of ignorance and misogyny for a long time: The first allegations against him had already been made in the early 1990s.
The chilling Netflix documentary “Athlete A” also shows what serious mistakes the federal agency FBI made in the investigation. Not only did Nassar molest the young women, he also owned around 37,000 child pornography photos – and at least one video showing him sexually abusing a minor.
The US Gymnastics Federation and the US National Olympic Committee settled out of court with the victims for $380 million; Michigan State University, Nassar was the gymnastics team doctor there, paid $500 million. There is still no verdict in the $130 million lawsuit filed by a total of 13 female athletes against the FBI, but the agency has publicly apologized to the victims. Nassar was initially sentenced to 60 years in a federal prison, later an additional up to 300 years in Michigan – non-computable, meaning he will be incarcerated for the rest of his life.
Nassar has been in custody since 2017 and was assaulted in a federal prison in Arizona in May 2018. He was therefore sent to Coleman II prison in Florida, which has an area for so-called high-risk inmates such as gang members, former police officers or sex offenders. At the time of the attack, Nassar was not in this security area.
The case also sparked debate about security in US prisons for notorious inmates. In June, Ted Kaczynki, who killed three people and wounded 23 as the “Unabomber” between 1978 and 1995, committed suicide in his cell in a North Carolina prison.