UNITED STATES
ESPNW
May 24, 2018
By Dan Murphy
USA Gymnastics CEO Kerry Perry plans to offer an apology Wednesday to the gymnasts whom Larry Nassar abused when she addresses a House subcommittee tasked with examining the Olympic community’s role in recent sexual assault scandals.
In her first public comments since taking over in December, Perry plans to update the representatives on the changes that USA Gymnastics has made in 2018 to repair a culture in which warning signs of abuse went unheeded for years.
The subcommittee started its probe in the wake of a sentencing hearing for Nassar, the former national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics who admitted to using his position to molest his patients — most of whom were young female gymnasts. Nassar is serving 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges before he begins a sentence of up to 175 years for sexual assault charges.
“I want to apologize to all who were harmed by the horrific acts of Larry Nassar,” Perry wrote in an opening statement that she plans to read at Wednesday’s hearing, which was first reported by USA Today. “… Let there be no mistake; those days are over. USA Gymnastics is on a new path, with new leadership, and a commitment to ensure this will never happen again.”
Perry says in her statement that the organization hopes to resume settlement talks in August for the hundreds of civil lawsuits it faces from women who say Nassar abused them. USA Gymnastics is one of several defendants in those lawsuits, along with the U.S. Olympic Committee, Michigan State University and Twistars, a Michigan gym where Nassar treated patients on a weekly basis for many years.
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