The U.S. gymnasts who famously spoke out against serial predator Larry Nassar, the team doctor who sexually abused hundreds of girls and women over two decades, testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday about the FBI’s botched investigation of the allegations from the very beginning. Jim Braude was on Greater Boston joined by Mary Mazzio, a former Olympic rower who is now a documentary filmmaker, and Natasha Tidwell, a former police officer and federal prosecutor.
Tidwell called out the financial incentives of stakeholders involved as for why they may have turned a blind eye. “The most startling or heartbreaking part of this is not only what McKayla Maroney and these young girls went through before, but the fact that there were more than 70 instances after [the abuse, when] people in a position of stopping it knew about it and nothing was done,” she said.
Mazzio trained alongside gymnasts during her Olympic career and said this case indicates startling problems in institutions that are supposed to keep athletes safe. "Even back then, it was obvious that their childhood was being robbed,” she said. “I think Larry Nasar is just the tip of the iceberg.”
WATCH: The search for accountability in FBI's botched Larry Nassar investigation
