Rachel Denhollander speaks out on FBI handling of Larry Nassar case
Former gymnast sounds off on 'The Story with Martha MacCallum'
The first woman to come forward with accusations of sexual abuse at the hands of disgraced, and now imprisoned, USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar told Fox News on Friday that more girls could've been protected from the physician's deviancy if not for "multiple errors" made by the FBI as described in an inspector-general report.
Rachael Denhollander, 36, now an attorney, told "The Story" that the bureau dropped the ball multiple times in its investigation of Nassar, and claimed an FBI official "wined and dined" with former USA Gymnastics chief Stephen Penny Jr.
Penny was arrested in 2018 by the Great Smoky Mountains division of the U.S. Marshals and indicted on charges he hid or destroyed documents relating to Nassar's sexual abuse at the Huntsville, Texas, ranch of Olympics gymnastics champion Bela Karolyi.
"What the report unveiled yesterday is multiple errors made by the FBI and also outright collusion and lying about that collusion to investigators when I finally came forward," said Denhollander, who further chronicled her claims in a Washington Post op-ed this week.
"And what that resulted in is the reality that over 100 little girls and women were sexually abused by Larry long after the FBI knew exactly what he was doing and how he was doing it. That’s inexcusable."
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"They did a multitude of things. They didn’t properly catalog it, never opened an official investigation, they never transferred the report to the proper department."
Nassar, 57, originally from Holt, Mich., is serving a de-facto life sentence without parole at a federal penitentiary near Ocala, Florida.
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