Report: School Got 1st Warning About Nassar Decades Ago

'He wasn’t stopped by a single person who could have, and should have, stopped him'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 18, 2018 2:38 PM CST
Report: 14 at Michigan State Were Warned About Nassar
Larry Nassar reacts to a victim's "impact statement" during a sentencing hearing in district court on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, in Lansing, Mich.   (Dale G. Young/Detroit News via AP)

In 1997, Larissa Boyce told the head gymnastics coach at Michigan State University that sports doctor Larry Nassar had molested her during treatment. She says she was told she "must be misunderstanding what was going on." Over the next two decades—until Nassar's arrest in 2016—at least 13 other MSU representatives were informed of allegations against Nassar by at least seven other women, the Detroit News reports in a lengthy investigative piece. One of those representatives was reportedly university president Lou Anna Simon, though she says she wasn't given Nassar's name. "A monster was stopped last year, after decades of being allowed to prey on women and little girls, and he wasn’t stopped by a single person who could have, and should have stopped him at least 20 years ago," former gymnast and Nassar accuser Rachael Denhollander says.

MSU's legal defense team denies anyone at the university knew about allegations against Nassar, but six women tell the News they told at least one person at MSU about Nassar's actions. A seventh woman told police she informed an MSU representative, and an eighth said the same during Nassar's ongoing sentencing. Amid calls to resign, Simon says she was informed in 2014 of a Title IX complaint and police report filed against an unnamed university doctor but "did not receive a copy of the report. That's the truth." Other MSU representatives reportedly told of allegations against Nassar include coaches, trainers, and university police. "I am really frustrated that MSU did not stop him when I gave them information," says the woman behind the 2014 complaint. "It’s time for MSU to be held accountable for what happened." Read the full News piece here. (More Larry Nassar stories.)

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