'Let me have one minute with him': Father of Larry Nassar victims attempts to attack him in court

By Field Level Media Today at 1:41 p.m.
Larry Nassar, a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault charges, sits in the courtroom during his sentencing hearing in the Eaton County Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

The father of three daughters who were abused by convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar tried to attack the former doctor during a sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom on Friday morning.

Randall Margraves rushed at Nassar in the Eaton County Circuit Court after two of his three daughters provided impact statements outlining how Nassar sexually assaulted them. The third daughter gave her statement in an Ingham County courthouse last month.

Law enforcement officers in the courtroom tackled and detained Margraves after he reached a table where Nassar and two of his attorneys were seated.

After his two daughters spoke Friday morning, Margraves told Judge Janice Cunningham that he was a "distraught father" and cursed at Nassar. He then asked the judge for personal time alone with the "demon."

"I would ask you, as part of the sentencing, to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon," Margraves said. "Would you give me one minute?"

The judge declined, saying, "That's not how our legal system works."

"Well, I'm going to have to," Margraves responded, and he launched into a sprint toward Nassar, who sat in an orange jumpsuit shackled at the ankles.

Nassar and his attorneys were both escorted from the courtroom while officers subdued and arrested Margraves.

After about a 30-minute break, impact statements resumed in the courtroom.

"I'm sorry that happened. I'm sorry you had to experience it," Cunningham said to the gallery of the courtroom, according to ESPN. "My heart started beating fast and my legs felt shaky because of that quick eruption of violence.

"... To have watched the pain and suffering that loved ones have gone through is unimaginable. If it is hard and difficult for me to hear what his daughters have to say, I can't imagine what it is like for a parent. No one is making any excuses for what the defendant did in this case. However, these are legal proceedings, and the criminal justice system is doing what it's supposed to do."

Nassar, who worked as an osteopathic physician for USA Gymnastics and was a faculty member at Michigan State University, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison last week after pleading guilty to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the first of his two sentencing hearings last week. Friday's hearing was to decide his sentence for three other counts of criminal sexual conduct.

More than 160 women and girls described sexual assault by Nassar in seven days of emotional testimony last week before his sentencing at Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Mich.