The Olympic gymnasts Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman were in a Michigan court on Friday to add their voices to the statements of women and girls who said they were victims of Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for the United States national women’s gymnastics team who pleaded guilty to molestation charges in November.
Ms. Wieber was a member of the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team at the 2012 Summer Olympics, where she won a gold medal in the team competition.
“I had no idea he was sexually abusing me for his own benefit,” Ms. Wieber said. “To this day, I still don’t know how he could’ve been allowed to do this for so long,” she said, wiping tears away.
“I’m angry with myself for not recognizing the abuse and that’s something I’m struggling with today,” she said.
It was the fourth day that dozens of women and girls spoke to the courtroom — and Dr. Nassar directly — as part of sentencing proceedings in Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan. On Friday, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina announced that at least 120 victims’ statements would be read, and more were being added every day. Dr. Nassar’s sentencing, which had been tentatively expected on Friday, would be delayed until at least Tuesday to allow them all to be heard, the judge said.
Continue reading the main storySome of the victims this week have spoken of how he made them change into loose shorts that he kept in his examining room, how he squinted his eyes tightly closed as he was touching them.
They spoke of their discomfort and pain during the abuse, but also their confusion. There were signed photographs of elite athletes on the walls, and he positioned their bodies so that a parent in the room could not see what he was doing, they said.
On Friday, Kara Johnson, now a high school student, spoke about how she was taken to Dr. Nassar for back and hip treatment when she was a 13-year-old cross country track athlete and placed her on a table on her stomach and then molested her.
He left the room, returned with a lubricant, and repeated the abuse. He then smacked her on her “bare butt,” called her “sweetie” and told her that if she ever had her period when she came to see him, to be sure to let him know, she said.
“How was I supposed to know at the age of 13 what was medically acceptable and what the boundaries were,” she said.
Her sister Madeline was also abused. Now 15, she told the court that as a 12-year-old gymnast, she was sent to Dr. Nassar for back treatment and underwent the same abuse. “At only 12 years old, I had no idea that it was inappropriate, illegal and wrong.”
Marie Anderson, another woman who spoke, was a patient as a 15-year-old swimmer who went to see him for back problems when, she said, he penetrated her with his fingers.
Now a graduate of Michigan State University, Ms. Anderson said: “I am disgusted to my core that this man was able to harm so many under their responsibility.”
On Thursday, Dr. Nassar told Judge Aquilina that it was difficult for him to hear the victims’ statements. She was unmoved.
“Spending four or five days listening to them is significantly minor, considering the hours of pleasure you had at their expense and ruining their lives,” the judge replied.
On Thursday, McKayla Maroney, 22, another Olympic gymnast, said she had “scars” that may never heal after being abused by Dr. Nassar as a teenager, starting when she was 13 or 14.
“Dr. Nassar was not a doctor,” she said in a statement read for her by a prosecutor. “He in fact is, was, and forever shall be a child molester, and a monster of a human being. End of story.”
The impact of the trial, and Dr. Nassar’s history of assault, is spreading well beyond the courtroom.
The national governing body for gymnastics said on Thursday it would cut ties with Karolyi Ranch, a renowned training facility that was one of the places where Dr. Nassar had molested the gymnasts.
Michigan State University, which employed Dr. Nassar, was facing increasing pressure after revelations that 14 people, including the president, Lou Anna K. Simon, had been warned about his conduct.
The State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University, called for Ms. Simon and others to step down in an editorial on Thursday.
“All enablers at MSU need to resign,” the students wrote.
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