A number of high-profile gymnasts, including FBI Director Christopher Warr and Simon Byles, testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday about the agency's abuse of Lanny NASA's sexual harassment case, the first public question of failure to properly investigate one of the largest sexual assault cases in U.S. history.
Former Olympic gymnast McKella Maroni told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she told FBI agents how she was repeatedly sexually abused by NASA, only to later misrepresent her statement.
"Not only did the FBI report my abuse, but when they filed my report 17 months later, they made a completely false claim about what I said," Maroni testified. He said he was 15 years old when he spoke to agents. "They chose to lie about what I said and instead of protecting a serial child molster, they saved not only me, but countless others as well."
The FBI comes just days after dismissing an agent who was initially investigating NASA's case, a former national gymnastics team doctor before the national exam, who was eventually convicted of abusing several gymnasts, including Olympians, in the guise of physical exams.
And the Inspector General of the Judiciary comes two months after the release of a report that sharply criticized the FBI for making significant mistakes in this regard. These defects allowed NASA to continue treating patients for eight months at Michigan State University, where he practiced, and in and around Lansing, Michigan, including the local gymnastics center and a high school.
NASA, which is serving a life sentence for sexual misconduct, was able to molest more than 70 girls and women when the FBI failed to act, the inspector general's report said.
Two FBI agents were initially involved in the case and no longer work for the agency. Michael Langman, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Indianapolis office, was fired for a few days before Wednesday's hearing. The men did not want to be named because they did not have the right to comment on the case. The Washington Post was the first to report on Langman's shooting.
Langman, who was not immediately available for comment, did not have his name in the inspector general's report, but described his work as a special supervising agent and several of his significant mistakes. Langman should have known that Nasser's abuse was probably widespread, but he did not investigate the case on an urgent basis, the report said.
Langman interviewed one of the three elite gymnasts who reported Nasser's abuse to USA Gymnastics and did not properly record or investigate that interview. According to the report, Langman included a statement he did not make in an interview report filed with the FBI 17 months after he spoke with the gymnast-Olympic gold medalist McKella Maroni.
Unlike other agents initially involved in the case, Langman did not warn local or state officials about Nassar's alleged abuse, violating FBI policy stating that crimes against children "always require a comprehensive, multifaceted and multifaceted approach."
Langman later said he filed a preliminary report about NASA, asking for the case to be transferred to the Lansing Office because NASA was in the state of Michigan. But no documents were found in the FBI database, the inspector general's report said.
W. J. Abbott, a special agent in the FBI's Indianapolis office, has not been with the FBI since retiring in 2018. He reportedly made false statements to forensic investigators and "violated FBI policy and applied extremely weak judgments. Rules of federal ethics." It was discussed with President Steve Penny. Abbott applied for a job at USOPC but did not get the position - yet he told judicial investigators he never applied.
Hundreds of girls and women abused by NASA are waiting to hear from the FBI about the wrongdoing in the case. Olympic gold medalist Biles was vocal about asking NASA "who knew what, when they knew". He won a silver medal and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games after being dropped from the team competition due to mental health problems.
Byles was testifying with former teammates Maroni, Ali Riceman and Maggie Nichols, known in the NASA case as "Athlete A" because he was the first elite gymnast to report abuse in USA gymnastics. It was July 2015.
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