Jordyn Wieber has filed a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics and Michigan State.

The suit alleged that former President Steve Penny, former Chairman Paul Parilla of Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics “failed to disclose and hid” Larry Nassar‘s actions from the police and public. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 170 years in prison for sexually abusing underage girls under the guise of medical treatment.

The lawsuit stated, “The organizations that were responsible for caring for the plaintiff, and the individuals within those organizations who the plaintiff trusted to keep her safe, knew or should have known that he was molesting athletes but turned a blind eye to these warnings in order to maintain the status quo and in utter dereliction of their legal, moral and ethical duties to protect the plaintiff.”

The suit continued, stating that the lack of action taken by the defendants allowed Nassar “to remain in a position of influence and his unsupervised or negligently supervised conduct with minor participants and members made the molestation and abuse of minor participants possible.”

According to the document, there is an allegation that USA Gymnastics destroyed athletes’ medical records “in order to further conceal the sexual abuse of Nassar.”

In a released statement, Wieber said she was faced with Nassar “every single month” and that “nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of.”

“My teammates and I were subjected Larry Nassar every single month at the national team training center in Texas. He was the only male allowed to be present in the athlete dorm rooms to do whatever he wanted. He was allowed to treat us in hotel rooms alone and without any supervision. Nobody was protecting us from being taken advantage of. Nobody was even concerned whether or not we were being sexually abused. I was not protected. My teammates were not protected,” Wieber said. “My parents trusted USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar to take care of me and we were betrayed by both. And now, the lack of accountability from USAG and Michigan State, have caused me and many other girls to remain shameful, confused, and disappointed.”

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Raven Haynes

Article by Raven Haynes

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