WASHINGTON — Larry Nassar, a disgraced sports doctor who was found guilty of sexually abusing female athletes, was stabbed several times by another inmate at a federal jail in Florida.

The Associated Press heard from two people who know about the situation that the attack took place on Sunday at the United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida. Monday, people said that his health was steady.

One of the people said that he had been stabbed in the back and in the chest.

People who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity did so because they were not allowed to talk about the attack or the investigation in public.

Nassar was given a long jail term because he sexually abused gymnasts, including Olympic medal winners.

Nassar is in jail for a long time because he was found guilty in both state and federal courts. He said that when he worked at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, he sexually assaulted athletes. Nassar also pleaded guilty to having child pornography in his possession.

During victim impact statements in 2018, several athletes said that over the more than 20 years that Nassar sexually abused them, they told adults, like teachers and sports doctors, what was going on, but no one did anything about it.

More than 100 women, including Simone Biles, who won a gold medal at the Olympics, sued the federal government for more than $1 billion because the FBI didn’t stop Nassar when it learned of the accusations against him in 2015. In 2016, more than a year after he was first caught, he was arrested by Michigan State University police.

Michigan State decided to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were abused by Nassar. The school was blamed for not stopping him when it had the chance over many years. A $380 million deal was reached between USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

In June 2022, Nassar’s last plea was turned down by the Michigan Supreme Court. Lawyers for Nassar said he was treated unfairly in 2018 and earned a new trial because a judge was being vindictive when he called him a “monster” who would “wither” in jail like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I just signed your death warrant,” said Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina about Nassar’s 40-year punishment.

The state Supreme Court said that Nassar’s appeal was a “close question” and that it had “concerns” about how the judge acted. But the court also said that Aquilina stuck to the sentence deal made by the lawyers in the case, even though she said things that were rude.

In a two-page order, the court said, “We refuse to use more court resources and put the victims in this case through more trauma when the questions at hand are nothing more than an academic exercise.”

More than four years ago, at a special seven-day hearing in Aquilina’s court, more than 150 victims spoke or wrote down their stories.

“That’s it…. “It’s finally over, almost six years after I filed the police report,” said Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to charge Nassar in public.

This story has been changed to show that Nassar’s last appeal was turned down by the Michigan Supreme Court in June 2022, not June 2023.

See more articles: