The US Department of Justice will pay around $100 million to around 100 gymnasts sexually assaulted by former national team doctor Larry Nassar to end charges against police, the Wall Street Journal reported. (WSJ).
Asked by AFP on Thursday, the ministry neither confirmed nor denied this information.
This agreement would bring to more than a billion dollars in total the financial compensation paid to the victims of Larry Nassar’s actions, including 500 million by the State University of Michigan, underlines the newspaper.
Larry Nassar, 60, is serving a life sentence after being heavily convicted in 2017 and 2018 for sexual assaults on more than 250 gymnasts, most of them minors, committed within the gymnastics federation at the University of Michigan State and a gymnastics club.
The agreement to end the lawsuits filed in June 2022 against the federal police, the FBI, by more than 90 gymnasts, including champion Simone Biles, was reached a few months ago, but has not yet been finalized, according to the WSJ.
In July 2021, a report from the General Inspectorate of the Ministry of Justice concluded that there were “fundamental errors” on the part of the agents responsible for this investigation.
The first charges against Larry Nassar were sent in July 2015 to the FBI field office in Indianapolis.
The investigation was quickly abandoned and it took another report, in May 2016, for the federal police to launch new investigations.