In 2004, Nassar Denied Her Allegation Using PowerPoint

Meridian Township, Mich., police will today apologize to Brianne Randall-Gay
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 1, 2018 9:58 AM CST
In 2004, Nassar Denied Her Allegation Using PowerPoint
In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Brianne Randall-Gay gives her victim statement during Larry Nassar's sentencing at the Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Mich., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018.   (Neil Blake/The Grand Rapids Press via AP)

A police department in the Lansing, Michigan, area missed an opportunity to pursue criminal charges in 2004 against Larry Nassar and will publicly apologize to the victim who accused the doctor of molesting her during treatment for an abnormal spine. Meridian Township will make the apology Thursday to Brianne Randall-Gay and announce changes in how it handles sexual misconduct investigations, township Manager Frank Walsh said Wednesday. In 2004, Randall-Gay was 17 when she and her mother visited Nassar to discuss treatment for scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. He sent her to physical therapy but saw her again, this time alone. Randall-Gay had a back problem. But she told police that Nassar had removed her underwear, forcibly cupped her genitals with his hand and rubbed her breasts—all without gloves, reports the AP.

Nassar told police he applied pressure to the "perineum," using a formal word for an area between the legs, and said it was done to manipulate a ligament, according to a police report released in the wake of Nassar's sentencing last week. "She thought it was 'weird' and it 'freaked her out,'" the police report says. Nassar provided a paper version of a PowerPoint presentation about the ligament procedure, titled "The Grand Junction." There's no indication that police shared his technical explanation with an outside expert. "We missed it. We're not going to hide it. We were deceived," Walsh said. The case was dropped, effectively allowing Nassar to continue to molest girls and young women, including Olympians, for years until his arrest in 2016. A total of 265 women and girls have said they were assaulted.

(More Larry Nassar stories.)

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