Larry Nassar, the Michigan doctor charged by dozens of teenagers and women of assaulting them, was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on Thursday for child pornography crimes.
Federal Judge Janet Neff handed down the sentence, following the recommendation of the government.
Neff said Nassar “should never again have access to children.”
Investigators found more than 37,000 images of child pornography on Nassar’s electronic devices last year. Images of children as young as infants were among his cache.
The 54-year-old Nassar had worked at Michigan State University and with USA Gymnastics; through his latter role, numerous current and former gymnasts, including Olympians Aly Raisman McKayla Maroney, accused him of sexual assault when they were teenagers.
Student athletes at Michigan State also accused Nassar of assault.
Nassar has also pleaded guilty to molesting gymnasts with his hands in the Lansing, Mich. area, under the guise of providing treatment. He will be sentenced in those cases in January.
Because this Nassar case involved child pornography and not the assault charges, Neff denied a request from the government to have his alleged sex-assault victims make statements, though she said there will be a time for those, once the court turns it attention to sentencing in the assault cases.
Maroney has said she was as young as 13 when Nassar began “treating” her at every chance he could get, alleging that he gave her a sleeping pill for a flight to Tokyo for a competition when she was 15. The next thing she knew, Maroney was alone with Nassar in his hotel room.
“I thought I was going to die that night,” Maroney wrote in a letter to Neff.
“As it turns out, much to my demise, Dr. Nassar was not a doctor, he in fact is, was and forever shall be, a child molester, and a monster of a human being,” Maroney wrote.
“He abused my trust, he abused my body and he left scars on my psyche that may never go away.”
