Ethics CasesSport

Cases · FBI / U.S. Department of Justice · 2015–2024

The FBI's Nassar Failures: Accountability for Law Enforcement

In July 2015, USA Gymnastics reported allegations against team doctor Larry Nassar to the FBI's Indianapolis field office. The Justice Department's Inspector General later found that the office failed to act with urgency, made fundamental errors, did not notify the right authorities, and then gave incomplete and inaccurate accounts of its work. Nassar kept treating athletes until September 2016. In 2021, elite gymnasts testified to the Senate, and the FBI director apologized. The Justice Department twice declined to prosecute the agents involved, and in 2024 paid $138.7 million to settle 139 claims. The case asks how public institutions should be held accountable when their failures enable abuse in sport, and what accountability means when criminal charges aren't brought.

By Tanner Simkins, editor

Timeline

  1. USA Gymnastics meets the FBI's Indianapolis field office and reports the allegations.
  2. After eight months of inaction in Indianapolis, the FBI's Los Angeles office receives the allegations.
  3. Michigan State University police search Nassar's home; the FBI's Lansing office learns of the allegations.
  4. The DOJ Inspector General releases its report on the FBI's handling of the case.
  5. Gymnasts testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee; FBI Director Christopher Wray apologizes.
  6. The Justice Department opens a review of its earlier decision not to prosecute the agents.
  7. The Justice Department again declines to bring charges.
  8. The Justice Department settles 139 claims for $138.7 million.

The ethical issues

  • Law enforcement's duty to protect potential victims.
  • Honesty of officials under scrutiny.
  • Accountability when officials retire or are not prosecuted.
  • Conflicts of interest between investigators and the organizations involved.
  • Compensation versus other forms of accountability.

Stakeholders

StakeholderInterests & obligations
Survivors and their familiesAccountability, acknowledgment and compensation.
Athletes abused after July 2015Recognition that earlier action could have protected them.
The FBI and Justice DepartmentPublic trust and institutional reform.
CongressOversight of federal law enforcement.
Sports organizationsClear reporting channels to law enforcement.

The case

The broader Nassar story, including the failures of USA Gymnastics, Michigan State and the U.S. Olympic Committee, is covered in Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics. This case focuses on the federal law enforcement failure and how the government was held to account.

Background

On July 28, 2015, USA Gymnastics met the FBI’s Indianapolis field office and reported allegations against Nassar.[1] According to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), senior officials there “failed to respond… with the urgency that the allegations required,” made “fundamental errors,” and did not notify the FBI’s Lansing office or state and local authorities.[1] After eight months, the Los Angeles field office received the same allegations; it took investigative steps but also failed to alert Michigan authorities.[1] The Lansing office learned of the allegations only after Michigan State University police searched Nassar’s home in September 2016. In the meantime, Nassar continued to treat gymnasts.[1]

The missing fourteen months

The OIG’s full report traced what happened while the Indianapolis office did nothing. In May 2016, USA Gymnastics took the same allegations to the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. That office opened a sexual tourism investigation and interviewed several alleged victims, but, like Indianapolis, it did not contact state or local authorities.[6] In August 2016, Michigan State University police received a separate complaint from a gymnast who said Nassar had assaulted her at 16. Two weeks later, The Indianapolis Star published former gymnasts’ allegations. On September 20, 2016, campus police searched Nassar’s home and found child pornography. Only then, on October 5, 2016, did the FBI’s Lansing Resident Agency open its own investigation; neither Indianapolis nor Los Angeles had told it about the allegations.[6]

According to civil court documents cited by the OIG, approximately 70 or more young athletes were allegedly abused by Nassar “under the guise of medical treatment” between July 2015, when USA Gymnastics first reported to the FBI, and September 2016.[6]

Nassar was eventually prosecuted on several fronts. He was not charged with the federal sexual tourism offense the FBI had considered. Instead, he pleaded guilty in July 2017 to receiving and possessing child pornography and to destroying evidence, and on December 7, 2017, a federal judge sentenced him to 60 years, to run consecutively to any state sentences.[6][7] The federal plea included an enhancement, which he agreed not to oppose, for a pattern of sexually abusing minors.[7] In Michigan state court he pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct and was sentenced in January 2018 to 40 to 175 years and in February 2018 to a further 40 to 125 years.[6]

The rules and governance

The OIG’s July 2021 report found that Indianapolis officials violated FBI policies. They failed to document the July 2015 meeting, mishandled evidence and did not write up a September 2015 interview with a gymnast until February 2017.[1] It concluded that the field office’s special agent in charge and a supervisory agent made materially false statements, and that the special agent in charge discussed a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee with the USA Gymnastics president while the two were discussing the allegations.[1] When scrutiny came in 2017 and 2018, the OIG said, officials “provided incomplete and inaccurate information to make it appear that they had been diligent.”[1]

What the OIG asked the FBI to change

The OIG also identified “shortcomings in FBI policy” and made four recommendations.[6] It asked the FBI to state more precisely when employees must “promptly contact and coordinate with applicable state and local law enforcement and social service agencies” after receiving allegations of crimes against children that may fall under state jurisdiction, “even when the allegations also potentially fall within the FBI’s jurisdiction.” It also asked the FBI to require confirmation of receipt when complaints of serious or multi-victim sexual abuse are transferred between field offices, to clarify when child forensic interviewers should be used and when victim services must be offered, and to set rules on supervisory approvals, the length of “Pre-Assessment” activity and telephone interviews of alleged child victims. The last recommendation was to train employees on all of these.[6] In its response, dated the day before the report’s release, the FBI said it “accept[s] in full the OIG’s recommendations.” It called the Indianapolis supervisor’s actions and inactions “completely unacceptable” and “violations of the policies in effect at the time.” It said that employee was no longer a supervisor and had been removed from FBI matters pending disciplinary review.[6]

Oversight and apology

On September 15, 2021, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. FBI Director Christopher Wray told them, “I’m deeply and profoundly sorry,” and called the failure “inexcusable.”[2] He said the supervisory agent no longer worked for the FBI, and that the former special agent in charge had retired in January 2018, before any review, leaving “little disciplinary recourse.”[2] He said the FBI was implementing all of the OIG’s recommendations, including new documentation and review requirements for abuse allegations.[2]

Aftermath

In October 2021, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told the committee that the Criminal Division had opened a review of the earlier decision not to prosecute.[3] On May 26, 2022, the department again declined to bring charges, saying “the Principles of Federal Prosecution require more to bring a federal criminal case.”[4] On April 23, 2024, it settled 139 administrative claims alleging that the FBI failed to investigate adequately, for a total of $138.7 million. An official said the allegations “should have been taken seriously from the outset.”[5] Over nearly two decades, the department said, Nassar had abused “hundreds of victims under the guise of performing medical treatments.”[5] For the claimants’ law firm, Sarah Klein, an attorney and Nassar survivor, said the settlement “concludes the darkest chapter in the history of competitive sports.” She named Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee “and now the FBI” as institutions whose failures had enabled the abuse. She also noted the earlier settlements: $500 million with Michigan State and $380 million with USA Gymnastics.[8] The federal settlement resolved claims against the United States over the FBI’s investigation. It was separate from those settlements with the sports bodies and the university.[5][8]

The core dilemma

The FBI’s failures allowed abuse to continue. Officials apologized, some left, and the government paid compensation, but no one was charged. What does accountability for a public institution require?

Competing values

  • Accountability vs. prosecutorial standards.
  • Compensation vs. other forms of justice.
  • Institutional reform vs. individual responsibility.
  • Trust in law enforcement vs. candor about its failures.

Strongest arguments

For the outcome as sufficient: criminal law requires proof beyond negligence; the OIG report, apology, departures, reforms and settlement amount to substantial accountability.

For more: false statements and conflicts deserved consequences; retirement should not shield officials from discipline.

On compensation: money acknowledges harm but cannot replace the protection survivors didn’t receive.

Applying the frameworks

Justice

A justice lens asks whether survivors received fair redress and whether officials faced proportionate consequences.

Care ethics

A care lens focuses on the obligation to protect vulnerable athletes who depended on authorities acting on reports.

Kantian ethics

A Kantian lens condemns false statements made to protect oneself and asks whether officials treated victims as ends in themselves.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

  1. Spot the issue. You are a supervisor receiving an abuse report from a sports body. Stakeholders include athletes still being treated. Less visible are future victims. The codes are FBI policy and the law.
  2. Gather facts. What has been reported and where is jurisdiction? Beware delay and assumptions that others will act.
  3. Test options. (a) Investigate in your office. (b) Transfer promptly and notify local authorities. (c) Both.
  4. Check codes and law. Check notification and documentation rules.
  5. Decide and document. Record every step promptly.
  6. Communicate and follow up. Confirm that the receiving office and local police acted.

What’s settled and what’s contested

  • Settled: the OIG’s findings, the apology, the declined prosecution and the settlement.
  • Contested: whether the prosecution decision was right; whether accountability was sufficient.

Why this case matters

Sport depends on outside authorities to act on abuse reports. The FBI’s failures show what is lost when they don’t, and how hard accountability can be.

Key terms

Duty of care
The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.
Institutional accountability
Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.
Conflict of interest
A situation where a person’s private interest could improperly influence a decision they make in an official role.
Trust
The public’s belief that what they are watching is real. Integrity failures are ultimately failures of trust.
Whistleblowing
Disclosure of wrongdoing in the public interest by someone inside or close to an organization: a moral safety valve.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

  1. The Justice Department declined to prosecute the agents. Was that the right decision? What other accountability is appropriate?
  2. Does a $138.7 million settlement amount to accountability? What does money accomplish and not accomplish?
  3. The FBI director said it was frustrating that officials who retire escape discipline. How should that gap be addressed?
  4. What should sports organizations do when they report abuse and law enforcement does not act?

Sources

  1. DOJ OIG releases report of investigation and review of the FBI's handling of allegations of sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics physician Lawrence Gerard Nassar — U.S. DOJ Office of the Inspector General
  2. Dereliction of Duty: Examining the Inspector General's Report on the FBI's Handling of the Larry Nassar Investigation (statement of Christopher Wray) — Federal Bureau of Investigation
  3. Following Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Justice Department to review earlier decision to decline prosecution of FBI agents who mishandled the Nassar case — U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
  4. Justice Department declines to charge FBI agents who botched Larry Nassar probe — NPR
  5. Justice Department reaches civil settlement with victims abused by Lawrence Nassar — U.S. Department of Justice
  6. A Review and Investigation of the FBI's Handling of Allegations of Sexual Abuse by Former USA Gymnastics Physician Lawrence Gerard Nassar (Report 21-093, July 2021) — U.S. DOJ Office of the Inspector General
  7. Lawrence Nassar sentenced to 60 years in federal prison (Dec. 7, 2017) — U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Michigan
  8. Statement by Attorney and Survivor Sarah Klein Regarding $138.7 Million Settlement on Behalf of Larry Nassar Survivors in Case Against the FBI (Apr. 24, 2024) — Manly, Stewart & Finaldi (PR Newswire)