Simone Biles blames FBI for failing to stop Larry Nassar sexually assaulting young gymnasts

A tearful Simone Biles on Wednesday night blamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation for failing to stop Larry Nassar sexually assaulting young gymnasts, accusing it of having “turned a blind eye” to his abuse of her and others.

In forceful testimony during a United States Senate hearing into shortcomings in the FBI’s investigation of Nassar, the four-time Olympic champion demanded that those who “enabled” the former USA Gymnastics team doctor be held “accountable”, adding: “Enough is enough.”

Biles, who said her abuse at the hands of Nassar played a part in her missing almost the whole of Tokyo 2020 to focus on her mental health, warned a failure to act would lead to a repeat in other sports.

Former team-mates Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney also appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with FBI Director Christopher Wray, who said he was “deeply and profoundly sorry” for delays in the prosecution of Nassar.

The bureau had been made aware of allegations against Nassar in mid-2015 but he was not charged until the end of the following year and at least 40 girls and women have said he molested them during that time.

He was finally jailed in 2017, and, following subsequent convictions, was sentenced to up to 175 years in state prison, with his total number of victims estimated to be at least 500.

“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles said.

“I sit before you today to raise my voice so that no little girl must endure what I, the athletes at this table and the countless others needlessly suffered under Nassar's guise of medical treatment, which we continue to endure to today.

“We have been failed and we deserve answers. Nassar is where he belongs but those who enabled him deserve to be held accountable.

“If they are not, I am convinced that this will continue to happen to others across Olympic sports.

“As the lone competitor in the recent Tokyo games who was a survivor of this horror, I can assure you that the impacts of this man’s abuse are not ever over or forgotten.

“This meant I would be going to the gym, to training, to therapy, living daily among the reminders of this story for another 365 days.

“It really feels like the FBI turned a blind eye to us.”

Biles said a message needs to be sent. “If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. Enough is enough.”

An internal investigation by the Justice Department released in July found the FBI made fundamental errors in its Nassar probe and had not treated the case with the “utmost seriousness” after USA Gymnastics first reported the allegations to the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis in 2015.

Addressing Biles and Nassar’s other victims directly, Wray said: “I am deeply and profoundly sorry to each and every one of you.

“I am sorry that so many people let you down over and over again and I am especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed, and that is inexcusable, it never should have happened, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.”

Wray condemned agents who failed to appropriately respond to complaints and promised Nassar’s victims that he was committed to “make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here” and that it never happened again.

He added that a supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and had later lied about having done so, had been sacked by the agency.

Biles, who completed a remarkable comeback at the climax of this summer’s Olympic gymnastics competition by winning beam bronze, told the committee she had wanted her presence in Tokyo “to help maintain a connection” between the failures of officials and the Games, something that had “proven to be an exceptionally difficult burden for me to carry”.

Maroney, a member of the US’s Olympic gold-medal winning gymnastics team at London 2012, told senators she had been met with “dead silence” when she had tearfully told FBI agents that, aged 15, she had found Nassar on top of her while she was naked and thought she was going to die.

Maroney said the FBI “minimised and disregarded” her and the other gymnasts as they delayed the probe.

“For so long, all of us questioned, just because someone else wasn’t fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us,” Maroney said.

Litigation over Nassar’s abuse may soon be coming to an end after USA Gymnastics and hundreds of his victims filed a joint $425 million (£307m) settlement proposal at the US Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis last month.