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Unknown Speaker
Hi, beautiful people. How is everyone doing? I hope you guys are having a good start to your week. I started this new thing, if you don't follow me on TikTok. It's called, it's like a mental health check in day, but we're calling it a vibe check. And honestly I've only posted one video about it. I'm planning on doing another one this week. But it's literally just to make sure that we're all like, mentally well, because a lot of my audience is are girls my age and I feel like being in your 20s is just kind of weird. But. But obviously we love people of all ages. Everyone is welcome in to chat on the vibe check. But I do think that being in your 20s is weird because there's no guideline and you're just kind of like your entire life has been structured around school and then you're just released into the wild and you're supposed to like get a job and get an apartment or a house or whatever and figure it out. So vibe checks are going to be good for everyone Anyway. Today's story is one that made me actually so emotional. And because of the kind of stories and cases that I cover, I do happen to get emotional often for obvious reasons. But this one, it wasn't until towards the end when we start talking about the victim impact statements in the courthouse that I actually, I like got teary eyed and I actually started crying reading through them. And at one point I was like, I don't know if I can finish out this video because I think that I'll start crying because it's just so heavy. But in the same breath also so incredibly important to talk about because it is shocking. This case also resonates with me because I was an athlete at one point in my life, don't get me wrong, I was not going to go to the Olympics. I was young, young, but I was in gymnastics for a good amount of years when I was a little girl. And I think that if you've been an athlete in any sport, this case might stick with you a little bit longer. Also with Alex Cooper's recent documentary that came out and what she spoke about her experience with Nancy Feldman at Boston University, which was an amazing documentary, by the way. Horrible story. It was, it was sad, but like uplifting in a way. Alex Cooper just has a really good delivery and anything that she does. But listening to that kind of resurface this case with me and that's why we're talking about it this week. Larry Nassar and The man that he is, he is a terrifying one. And I've always said the scariest people to me are the people that can do horrific things but then still look you in the eye like a normal person and tell you that they care about you. I'm terrified of those people, because how are you capable of doing that? But that pretty much sums up the exact kind of guy that Larry Nassar is. So let's get into it. When I was a little girl, I was introduced into the world of gymnastics and all that it is. And I would have to confirm with my mom, I think I must have been around six, maybe seven years old when I was trying to learn how to do a handstand. And I remember it exactly like it was yesterday. I would. I would stand in the same spot of my house practicing a handstand over and over again. I would try, I would fall, I would get back up, I would do it again and again until I finally got it. And when I did, I celebrated for two seconds. And then it was, okay, let's do a handstand, and then a round off and then a backflip. And it just continued. At that point in my life, I was pretty much eating, breathing, and sleeping gymnastics. And as the years followed, that was just kind of what it was. And I would spend hours a day at the gymnastics gym just training because I was so passionate about it and I loved it so much. And again, don't get me wrong, I'm sitting here talking like I was going to be an Olympic gold medalist. I was not. I was probably around, like, 12, maybe closer to 14 years old when I stopped doing it. But point being, at one point in my life, it was my entire world. And it is for so many young girls across the world. But then you have those people that just have it. They just do. It was like they were born to do gymnastics, and they just go on to get better and better. Their dreams get bigger, and suddenly they're sacrificing many things in their life to go after the one thing that they want the most. Olympic gold. Gymnastics is also an extremely high watch sports. And every time the Olympics come around, every four years, these girls are training hard. They train extremely hard for so long, and they turn into Simone Biles, Mikayla Moroney, Shawn Johnson's. It's also a very physically demanding sport, like a lot of sports are, but it's not uncommon to get injured, get hurt, and then you just have to kind of learn how to keep practicing and keep training through the pain and. And, like in many other sports, you learn how to train your body to push its limits, push its boundaries, because that's what you do if you want to be the best. Larry Nassar was arrested in November of 2016 by Michigan State University Police after multiple survivors of SA came forward. And I hate to say it, but the general reaction of the public wasn't shock. And for a lot of people, that was when they could finally let out a breath of fresh air and say, finally, finally, finally we are doing something about this guy who has been harming young girls and women for years. Larry Nassar was a physician at Michigan State University who worked with the women's national team. He was also hired as an athletic trainer for USA Gymnastics National Team in 1986. And when he was introduced to parents as the person who would be responsible for treating their children, it was always a thank God Larry is here. He was seen as the person whose job was wasn't only to show up and make sure that your daughter was okay, but overall he was seen as generally a good guy. He volunteered in his community, he attended church, he worked at different gyms helping different kind of athletes. He was the go to person. He was the person who showed up to help with injuries, falls, breaks. The person who showed up and when he did, everything was better. He made parents feel lucky to have him in their life. Everyone was so thankful to have this guy around. And his whole thing was, I have to protect my athletes, not just physically, but mentally. And the most important thing for me is to protect my athletes and to show them that I care. When Larry was first brought into the world of gymnastics at that level, the most influential coaching figures were Bella and Marta Caroly. They were a husband and wife duo who had long dominated US Women's gymnastics. Nadia Cominici was the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. She was only 14 years old at the time, but Bella Caroly was her coach. And being the coach to train her to that level of success earned him a pretty solid reputation, you could say. And in the year of 2000, Bella and Marta completely took over the US National Team program. And as part of their required training, they started training at the Corolla Camp in Texas. This training happened every month, it was monthly. And the Karoli Camp was located in Huntsville, Texas. It was sort of tucked away in the Sam Houston National Forest, was sitting on 40 acres of land. I think eventually they bought way more land. But as far as the camp goes, I believe it was around 40 acres. And it wasn't a Small place by any means. It had a gymnastics facility, a dance room, a medical room, an office, a gym, a trampoline and tumble gym, and a sports acro gym. It also housed athletes and coaches, cabins, dining halls, meeting rooms, etc. But that camp became the US Olympic training site for for women's gymnastics. And that camp was a very controlled environment. If you were there, you were there to train and that was it. First of all, of course, it was in the middle of nowhere, so it was isolating as it was. You probably wouldn't even get cell phone service out there. Not that it would matter because you were not allowed to have your phone, no outside contact was allowed. Overall, you weren't allowed to talk to your parents. And while you were at that camp, don't you dare speak up, don't you dare be different, don't you dare stand out and do not dare to complain about an injury. Because if you were at that camp and you weren't able to handle the physical and the mental toughness that was required to be there, you were easily replaceable. And if you didn't want to be there, another girl would come in and take your place. And while we're on the topic, let's talk about training athletes for a second. Because I do think that people can be quite sensitive. I don't know if that's the right word. Maybe I'm going to get hate on this, but quite sensitive to when it comes to being trained. I do think that if you want to be the best at something, you need to be trained hard. Because to become the best, I mean, if it was an easy thing, then everyone in the world would do it. So you have to put in hard work and it is good to have coaches that will test your limits and push you. I think it's just the reality that you have to be challenged, because if you're not, then how are you ever going to push your limits? How are you ever going to be better? But in the same breath, there's being a good coach and then there's straight up just putting your athletes in danger. And that line, unfortunately, is one that can get easily blurred anyway. The dynamic in that camp was strict, to say the least. So you had these coaches in your ear telling you to go, go, go. The entire time you were there. They were likely yelling at you, they were applying pressure. And then on the other hand, you had Larry Nassar, the nice guy, the good cop who, who was there for you whenever you needed him. He would let you use his phone if you wanted to. He would give you candy behind the coach's backs. He would heal your injuries. He'd hear you out and support you. His job was being there and caring for you. He was a friend, or he at least tried to present himself as your friend. He wanted to make sure that you knew that he was a trusted person that you could go to, and he showed that, and he made you really believe that he really did care. You will hear more than one victim in Larry's statement say that they would have considered him a friend. And it makes sense, especially when you take into consideration the kind of environment that they were in. It is not crazy to believe that when they saw Larry as an athlete. When you're used to being yelled at and screamed at and taught to push your boundaries and told to do better and be better because you're not good enough. When you saw Larry and he presented himself as the nice, sweet guy who would hear you out, who would be there for you, to help you and tell you how awesome and great you are, after an entire day of training and being yelled at, there he is, like, patting you on your back, telling you how amazing you are. He would ask you about your personal life, about your family and friends, about all your hopes and dreams. Oh, tell me what you want to be when you grow up. Tell me about your best friend. Tell me what you like to do for fun. That kind of communication in a young girl's mind can very easily be registered as, oh, my God, this guy is so nice to me. He's so sweet, he's so caring, and he really does want what's best for me. So then when he does something that doesn't seem right, it is easy to say, well, Larry is my friend. He told me that he cares about me. Everyone tells me to trust Larry because he's here to help us. He told me that he wants the best for us. He's my friend. He would never hurt me. And then it becomes this twisted, complicated reality in your brain. Larry Nassar had access to these young athletes, these young girls, often, whether it was at camp, at the dorms, at hotel rooms, at the gym, at the Olympics, even in his own basement at times, we will get to that. But point being, he had access to these girls with little to no supervision. And that was the problem. Actually, no, that was not the problem. He was the problem. But mix the kind of person that he is with the access that he had available to him, and it becomes a living nightmare. He was painting himself out to be this very trustworthy guy that cared about you. And that was the trick, that he needed to be able to manipulate them in the ways that he did. And what looked to be like compassion for Larry in reality was the mask that he needed to hide who he really was. And who he really was was a trusting doctor, but one that was violating the very girls that he was supposed to protect. He did it while their parents sat feet away. He did it when coaches looked the other way. And he did it while institutions handed him more access, more power, and more victims. And that's the sickening thing about it, is that Larry Nassar wasn't only hiding in plain sight, he was protected there. And this guy definitely had a pattern when it came to the abuse. He would take advantage of these girls when they were at their most vulnerable, when they were injured, they were hurt, when they were looking for help. And he would see you if you were injured and would like, actually give you a medical treatment at the start of your appointment. But then it quickly turned into the farthest thing for medical. Larry Nassar would tell the gymnast that he saw that in order to help them with their injuries, he had to do what he described to to be an internal procedure. A lot of times he would say that there were pressure points inside of your private area that he needed to be able to reach with his bare hands to release the pressure and to make you feel better. Everything that he did, he worded it in a way that would be beneficial to you. He was saying that he was doing those things to help you. But he never asked for consent. He didn't actually ask at all. He would just do it, and he would tell you that it was part of the his medical treatment. Even if the reason why you were seeing him was because your ankle hurt, your wrist hurt, he would still find a way to make you believe that he needed internal access. He wouldn't wear gloves. He would rub his patients in places that no one should be touching you. And he would excuse it and say that it was normal at different times as well. He would continue talking throughout the entire thing, asking you about how your day was, what your plans were for the weekend, about your life, about your friends, and what you've been up to. And he would do that to make it feel all that more casual so that you wouldn't question it. Oftentimes as well, this would happen while the parents were standing in the room. So many victims have come out and said that their mom or their dad or someone else was standing in the same room as them as Larry was touching them in that way, parents were often seating just feet away from them. And either I guess they couldn't see clearly or they were not paying too much attention or just flat out did not know what they were witnessing. And for the victims, they would be lying on that table with Larry Nassar's bare hands on their bare skin, and they would start to feel uncomfortable. They would start questioning why Larry was touching them in certain places. And they would think, wait, hold on, is this normal? But then they would think, but my mom and dad are in the room, my mom or my dad. So surely this isn't weird. Surely they can see what's happening, but they're not doing anything to stop it. So this must be normal. Or at the very least, this is okay. But is it okay? I don't know. It's kind of weird. But how do I bring this up to my parent? Well, no, this is crazy. Larry is my friend. I trust him. He wouldn't hurt me, especially in front of my parents. So this must be normal. He is a doctor, after all. He must know what he's doing. These were all the kind of different thoughts that would go through their heads. And then at the next appointment, the parent wouldn't go. And suddenly an appointment that was supposed to take five minutes would turn into 45 minutes, just so Larry could take advantage of those girls in the ways that he wanted to. And as time went on, things just got worse and worse. Larry would offer free, quote, unquote, free treatment to the athletes, but said that all they had to do was come over to his house and go to his basement. But again, the girls are thinking, well, this must be normal because a lot of my friends are doing it, a lot of the other athletes in my gym are doing it. So surely Larry isn't doing anything to hurt them. And in this whole case, in this whole Larry Nassar case, it feels like there are so many moving parts to it, but it also feels like they were so many people who just facilitated the way that he moved. A really big one being John Gettert. John Guetter was. I would best describe him as Larry's bad cop to his good cop. In 1996, John founded the Twistars USA Gymnastics Club. He was the head coach there. He was also the 2012 Olympic team coach, the person who coached Olympic champion Jordan Weaver. And to give you an idea of the kind of coach that he was, I mean, honestly, look up any interview by any athlete that he ever trained. Any. He was an intimidating guy. And he would refer to himself as intimidating. He would say that he was intense. He would say that he was, quote, not warm and fuzzy in his own words. And it sounds like he was a kind of coach that used the approach of, I would say, like a fear based approach. He seems like the kind of person that would want you to be scared of him. And it wasn't uncommon to find him in his gym screaming, cursing and humiliating his athletes. Honestly, that's what he was doing more oftentimes, not in front of all the others. He. Something about John Getter is that he liked to have control. And if it felt like he didn't have it or he was losing grip of the control, you would be able to tell because it also was not an uncommon thing to find him throwing things around. When he would get really upset or get in a fit of rage, he would physically throw things around. A few sources also stated that he was the type of coach that forced gymnasts to train through their injuries. For example, I'll give you an example to give you an idea. There was one athlete, a young girl, who had a really big pain in her leg and she was getting treated for it. But it got to a point where she would have to see Larry Nassar every single day. But John kept telling her to keep training. John encouraged her to train and kicked her out of the gym. When it got to the point where she was in so much pain that she physically could not do what was being asked for her, John basically kicked her out of the gym and told her to never come back. When she left the gym, though, after being kicked out, she went to the er. She found out that she had been training on a broken leg for an entire month. To recap, John Getter, if you asked him, he would say that he was tough, but if you asked his athletes, they would say that he was psychologically damaging. John owed the gym Twisters in Michigan, and Larry Nassar was pretty much the designated doctor for that facility, meaning that a lot of the things that he did took place underneath that roof. And again, in this case, it was the kind of dynamic that you would be out all day training on the floor, getting yelled at by John, practically just being yelled at and told that you're not good enough. But then after practice, you would go see Larry, who would be the helpful person who would be there to comfort you, to hear you out, to help you. And that's kind of what I mean by they played good cop, bad copy. They unfortunately, the two of them worked well together in their own sick way. Whether John was aware of what Larry was doing or not. That's up to you to decide. Although gymnasts have said, gymnasts who trained in that gym, that they would talk about the things that Larry was doing to them amongst themselves on the floor, being like, well, Larry did this to me. He touched me in this way. Is this normal? Does he do this to you? And. And they would talk about it openly at John's gym. And in my opinion, knowing how much John liked to be in the know, how much he liked to be in control, I can. I find it hard to believe that if athletes were talking in his gym about a situation that was going on, that he would have no idea about it. But that brings us to a person that we know for a fact did know and was aware about the situation. Kathy clagges. She was MSU's head gymnastics coach, also conveniently a friend of Larry Nassar's. Kathy spent around 27 years coaching gymnastics at MSU, and her time there overlapped with the time when Larry Nassar was working at MSU from the 1990s to through 2017. I want to say. Safe to say the two of them were not strangers. In 1997, a gymnast named Larissa Boyce trained at Kathy's gym. And she had been building up these feelings and these things, thoughts about Larry and what he had been doing to her, how he had been claiming that what he had been doing was medical, when in reality, what Larry was doing was going internally. Well, she finally got the courage to go to an adult about this. She couldn't take it anymore. And I'm sure she thought, well, Kathy is a woman. Maybe the odds of her believing me might be higher than going to, say, another coach who was a man who might not understand. So she spoke to Kathy in her office, and she told her what Larry had been doing. And Kathy's response was, basically, Larry Nassar. No way. You must be mistaken. I know Larry. I know that he's a good guy, and I know that he would never be doing anything like that. Larissa, who was only 16 years old at the time, stood her ground. She knew that what she had been feeling at the hands of Larry Nassar was wrong. And she said, I'm not confused. This is happening. It's wrong, and something needs to be done about it. But Kathy completely and absolutely dismissed her concerns. But even after the initial dismissal, Larissa was standing her ground. And it got to a point where she was not willing to just drop it, but Kathy was pretty much asking her to. And this part was one that reminded me a lot of Alex Cooper and her documentary and the conversation that she had with Boston University staff. Because Kathy basically sat in that chair in that office and told Larissa, listen, if you decide that you do want to move forward with this, if you decide that you want to accuse Larry Nassar of this, this will become your entire world. And it's not going to be pretty for you. It's not going to be pretty for Larry. This will get messy, and it might open up a can of worms, and it will come down to your word against Larry's. You should think about this before you go through with it. And Larissa said, okay, I'm not going to. I do not want to harm anyone's reputation. I don't want to go after anyone. I don't want to be the villain. All I want to do is just do gymnastics. So I will drop it. And Kathy Clegis never reported it to anyone. Actually, the only person who she did speak about that conversation to was Larry Nassar. The first appointment that Larissa had with Larry Nassar after that conversation, he brought it up. He said, I heard what you talked about with Kathy. I heard that you have some concerns, but I just want to clarify that what I'm doing to you is to help you. I'm not meaning to hurt you. Larissa Boyce remained a victim of Larry Nassar for four years after that. From 1997 to 2015, Michigan State University received 17 complaints alone. Honestly, probably more than that. But in 2014, Amanda Thomas show walked out of a meeting with Michigan State University officials after reporting Larry Nassar for sa. She sat in that office and shared the most intimate, painful experiences that she had been trying to work through at the hands of Larry Nassar, specifically telling them that that she felt so uncomfortable that she had to push him off of her. Once in that meeting, she described everything that he had done to her, how it made her feel, how it was wrong, and she expressed how important it was to make sure that this guy was stopped before he could hurt anyone else. Amanda was the first woman to file an official Title 9 complaint against Larry Nassar, accusing him of violating the school policy based on SA allegations. And as a result of that, MSU conducted an investigation. But the thing is, they allowed Larry to hand pick three to four experts of his choosing. So basically, three to four of his friends that would be able to confirm that the procedures that he was doing were medical, that they were professional. MSU after that, came back and gave Amanda a report stating that they found Larry Nassar's technique to Be, quote, medically appropriate. However, this is pretty crazy. It's later discovered that in a separate version of the report, a version that was only given to Larry Nassar and Larry Nassar only, that report flagged significant concerns on his behavior, including lack of consent, the need for him to be wearing gloves in his procedures, and the requirement that he had to have someone in the room on all appointments moving forward. They put him on a 90 day leave and that was that. And nobody was made aware of the second version of the report. The athletes that had been experiencing the same thing as Amanda had never found out. And Larry's treatment to them remained the same. They didn't know that he was. He had been told. He basically was just given a slap on the hand saying, do better. Make sure that you have consent. But nobody knew that he had these new requirements. And in result, nothing changed. In 2015, former CEO of USA Gymnastics, Steve Penny, was notified that Larry had SA'd one of their gymnasts at the Karoli camp in Texas. He told the parents of the victim to just hang on, on reporting it to law enforcement. And then he didn't do a thing for five weeks. It took over five weeks, over a month for him to then take the information to the FBI. Within those five weeks, Steve Penny was allegedly conducting an internal investigation. And after the five weeks, it was, the result of that internal investigation was, yeah, you have a problem here. There is a clear, serious pattern of a problem. And it was only after that that it was taken to the FBI. The FBI's investigation into Larry Nassar began in 2015. And shortly after that, Larry Nassar told USA Gymnastics, all right, guys, I think I'm done here. I'm gonna head out. I'm gonna go and take a. Leave a bath since. Peace out. Thanks so much. And he walked out. Although USA Gymnastics did not tell MSU that Larry Nassar was under an investigation. So he stayed in Michigan treating athletes for over a year after that. And the reason why the FBI probably failed to inform MSU was, was because the investigation was not really started. It was sent from one office to the next to the next until it just got lost in the air and. Or ignored about and. Or forgotten. It physically pains me. I can't. It's like a little bit unbelievable for me to say the next sentence that I'm going to say, but by this point, USA Gymnastics knew, staff members at MSU knew, coaches at Twist Stars knew, the FBI knew, and. And there was not a stop put to it until 2016. And what it took was for Rachel Denhollander to make the first public allegation against Larry Nassar on an article published by the Indianapolis Star. A victim had to go to a reporter for this to actually be taken seriously, because obviously, either no one cared or didn't want to be bothered with the responsibility that dealing with a case like this would be. And mind you, this could have been stopped in 1997 when Kathy Klages was made aware of it, but it wasn't stopped until 2016. And if that doesn't make you angry, put yourself in the mindset that one of Larry's victim. What if that was your daughter? Would you be angry then? If that does not make your blood boil, imagine your daughter being treated by Larry Nassar. It's sickening. The initial article published by Indianapolis Star was about a story detailing allegations of SA committed by coaches working for USA Gymnastics. It mentioned that the sporting body did not report allegations to the relevant authorities and basically didn't follow the protocol that they were meant to follow. That initial article did not mention Larry Nassar by name, but after it was published, Rachel Denhollander realized that this was her chance to speak up and talk about her story. Rachel contacted a reporter from the Indianapolis Star and said, I am Rachel Denhollander, and I was essayed by Larry Nassar under the guise of medical treatment. She also filed a police report with Michigan State University police, officially launching a criminal investigation. And that was what it took for a lot of his victims to realize that everything that Rachel was describing in her article that Larry Nassar did to her was also done to them. And this entire time, they had been abused. And that when they read Rachel's article, so many people got the courage to come forward and say, this happened to me as well. Other victims saw Rachel being incredibly brave and ready to speak out, and they decided that they had the power to do so as well. Her bravery really was what opened up the floodgates to the sickening and massive case that this would turn out to be. Over time, more than 500 women came forward, including Olympic athletes like Simone Biles, Ali Raisman, and Michaela Maroney. Rachel reported her story at the end of August. By the end of September, Larry Nassar was fired from msu. In November, the Michigan Attorney General filed state essay charges against Larry Nassar in connection to one identified victim. That victim was the daughter of a family friend. And it was reported that in her case, she was not an athlete. She was just the daughter of one of his friends. And in her case, the abuse started when she was only six years old, six years old, still in kindergarten when Larry Nassar began to take advantage of her. Let that sink in to that. Larry Nassar pled not guilty and he was freed on a million dollar bond. But then in December, Larry Nassar was formally charged with federal child por charges. Honestly, anytime that you think it cannot get worse, it does. But According to the FBI, investigators recovered more than 37, 000 images and videos of material from inside of Larry's house. Among the piles of evidence they collected was a GoPro recording that allegedly showed Larry Nassar abusing girls in a swimming. Some of the files were discovered on a hard drive. There were also several discs that he had attempted to dispose of in his trash outside of his residence. It was then and only then that he was rearrested and kept in custody without bond. Then In July of 2017, he pled guilty to those three federal charges and he was given three consecutive 20 year prison sentences. But still, he was still facing 25 essay charges in the state of Michigan. When Simone Biles, Ali Raisman, Mikayla Maroney, amongst other athletes came out with their stories and came out with a B2 movement, it really started to feel like there was never going to be an end to this. And Larry Nassar decided that his best bet was to plead guilty and accept a plea deal. So he pled guilty to the state charges, the essay charges in Michigan. And part of his plea agreement was that if he did that prosecutors wouldn't come after him for the additional, additional 125 essay cases that he was potentially facing against him. Another part of his plea agreement was that he would have to sit in that courtroom and listen to the victim impact statements. And in that courtroom In January of 2018, more than 150 women made impact statements during his week long sentencing hearing. And those statements, this is a part about the case that made me all almost start crying. Actually, I did cry. They were powerful to say the least. And I think at first, at the very, very early stages of this, only around six victims were planning on sharing their stories and giving impact statements. But then it resulted in 156 women and girls in seven days coming forward and putting on the brave face. They needed to say that they too were a victim of Larry Nassar and to give their statement while sitting in the same room looking straight at him. The first to give her statement was Kyle Stevens. She was the daughter of the family friend who was only six years old when she was first essayed by Larry Nassar. She talked about how Larry exposed himself to her first in the basement of his house. She talked about how her parents didn't believe her when she first told them what Larry had been doing to her. She talked about just how much that destroyed her relationship with her father and said that she spent the ages of 12 through 18 distancing herself from her family, from her parents, because they chose to believe Larry, and they chose to believe that Larry would never be capable of what she was accusing him for. And she mentioned that she had been trying to rebuild her relationship with her father before he passed away in 2016. Kyle finished her statement. I just got goosebumps. Kyle finished her statement by saying, quote, little girls don't stay little forever. They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world, end quote. Rachel Denhollander spoke saying, quote, how much is a little girl worth? I stand here as a survivor today to say that I am worth fighting for, end quote. Alyssa Bauman said, you think your reputation will survive, but your victims voices are louder than your lies. Jeanette and Talin said, we were little girls. We trusted you, and you used that trust as your weapon. Michaela Moroney said, I was by Larry Nassar in London before my team and I won the gold medal. And it wasn't until after that competition was over that I realized the treatment that he gave me was abuse. Needless to say, the atmosphere in that courtroom was sad. It was heavy, but there was also a strong feeling of strength. And even though some of these girls and women didn't know each other, they had a bond because they had all been victims of Larry Nassar. And now they shared this empowerment and solidarity through their shared experience of unimaginable trauma at the hands of Larry Nassar. On January 24th of 2018, Judge Rosemarie sentenced Larry Nassar to 40 to 175 years in prison. And she had such a powerful closing statement as well. She looked at him and told him, I just signed your death warrant. That same day, the president of Michigan State University resigned, issuing an apology to the survivors and acknowledging how Larry Nassar was, quote, unquote, evil in her letter. A week after that, the Entire board of USA Gymnastics resigned. On January 31st of 2018, a second hearing began in Eaton County, Michigan, because remember, Larry still had additional charges. And to those, Larry Nassar pled guilty. He listened to an additional 60 women deliver victim impact statements, bringing the total number of survivors who gave impact statements to 265. Kathy Klages, the former head gymnastics coach at MSU, was charged with two counts of flying to investigators. She was only sentenced to 90 days in jail and 18 months of probation. In 2021, John Getter, Larry's friend and the owner and head coach at Twist Stars, was charged with 24 felony crimes, including conduct racketeering and lying to a police officer during a violent crime investigation. Hours after being charged, he unalived himself. And then we have Steve Penny, former president and CEO of USA Gymnastics. He was indicted in Texas for allegedly ordering staff to remove and or hide documents related to Larry Nassar at the Crowley ranch during a search, potentially obstructing the entire investigation. However, In April of 2022, those evidence tampering charges were dismissed because prosecutors determined there wasn't sufficient evidence under current law. MSU they reached a 500 million dollar settlement for athletes who were abused by Larry Nassar. I can't even explain to you how uncomfortable it makes me feel to say that over 500 victims and we're talking about one guy, over 500 victims and he. The truth of it is he was protected by so many powerful people and I cannot believe what it took for this to finally one, be uncovered, but then two for some sort of justice to be served. It's a shocking case to me. It was shocking when it first came out. I remember hearing all about it. But yeah, that is all I have for today's episode. Thank you guys so much for spending time with me today. Let me know what your thoughts are on this case because I'm pretty sure we're all gonna have similar thoughts here. At least I hope so. Anyway, that's all I have for you guys today. I hope that you guys are having the best day. If not, go do something to make it the best day. Make somebody happy. And I will see you guys next week. I love you so, so much. Massive kiss on the forehead to every single one of you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of I wish you were here. As a reminder, you can listen to this podcast anywhere. You get your podcast video version also available on YouTube. Love you guys.