OAN’s Noah Herring
12:12 PM – Monday, July 10, 2023
Former U.S. gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted of sexually abusing female gymnasts and possessing child pornography, was stabbed multiple times during an altercation with another inmate in prison.
Nassar was stabbed numerous times in the neck, back, and chest, causing his lung to collapse from the incident, according to law enforcement. However, he is currently in stable condition.
“He is lucky to be alive,” said Joe Rojas, Southeast Regional VP of Council of Prison Locals. “The only reason he is alive, in my opinion, is because of the staff members who were there.”
It was confirmed by the Bureau of Prisons that the disgraced inmate was assaulted on Sunday afternoon at the United States Penitentiary Coleman II, a high security federal facility in Florida.
Nassar was the only one injured and officials declined to identify the names of the prisoner(s) involved.
He was serving hundreds of years after more than 300 women, some of whom were minors, accused the former Michigan State sports doctor of sexually abusing them in a manipulative cycle that lasted for decades.
Nassar admitted to sexually assaulting athletes at the university and at USA Gymnastics, a sports federation that trains Olympians.
The former doctor was given three separate prison sentences in both state and federal trials.
Michigan Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told Nassar in 2018 that it was her “honor and privilege to sentence him” to 40 to 175 years in prison.
“I just signed your death warrant,” she said to him. “You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again.”
More than 65 women gave impact statements during a separate trial that gave Nassar a 40 to 125-year sentence for abusing young girls at the Twistars Gymnastics Club in Dimondale, Michigan.
During the trial, a father of three daughters who had been abused by Nassar attempted to attack him in court, demanding “five minutes in a locked room with this demon.”
Nassar was also sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.
District Judge Janet Neff said that the “predator” should “never again have access to children” during the trial.
The attack evoked Nassar’s first known victim to release a statement which called on prison officials to better protect the perpetrator, so he can “face the severe prison sentence he received” and avoid an “easy way out.”
“This assault on Nassar brings no peace to me personally or to the survivors I’ve spoken with today,” said Sarah Klein, a civil and trial attorney who represents sexual abuse victims. “The incident forces us to vividly relive our abuse and trauma at the hands of Nassar and the institutions, including law enforcement, that protected him and allowed him to prey on children.”
“I urge the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons to see that Nassar is not allowed to escape his sentence and consequences of his horrible crimes.”
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