Larry Nassar, the disgraced gymnastics physician and admitted sexual abuser, was stabbed multiple times at a federal prison in Florida over the weekend, The Associated Press reports.
During an altercation with another inmate Sunday, July 9, Nassar was reportedly stabbed in the back and the chest. As of Monday, he was in stable condition.
No other details about the attack — such as a motive or cause — were immediately available. According to AP, the correctional officers monitoring the unit where Nassar was being held had been working multiple overtime shifts in a row (one officer was on a third straight shift during a 16-hour day, and the other was on their second shift in a row). Such mandated overtime shifts are tied to staffing shortages at federal prisons, which have made it harder for corrections officers to guard inmates and respond to emergencies.
Neither a lawyer for Nassar, nor a rep for United States Penitentiary Coleman immediately returned Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.
Nassar was effectively sentenced to life in prison in 2018 following a string of guilty pleas and convictions on child pornography and sexual assault charges. The doctor abused an estimated 300 young athletes — including Olympic gold medalists like Simone Biles, Aly Raisin, and McKayla Maroney — under the guise of medical treatment during his time as a team doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University.
Concurrently with the criminal charges against him, Nassar’s victims filed lawsuits against USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee over their responses to and handling of Nassar and the allegations against him. In 2021, USA Gymnastics, USOPC, and their insurers reached a $380 million settlement with Nassar’s victims in bankruptcy court.
There have been additional settlement discussions with the FBI, which survivors said was negligent in its handling of the allegations against the disgraced physician. A 2021 Justice Department report detailed the FBI’s botched investigation into Nassar, revealing, for instance, that the agency didn’t document initial meetings with USA Gymnastics about the allegations and only interviewed one of three athletes made available (that interview also wasn’t documented).
Additionally, the FBI failed to alert local law enforcement about the allegations against Nassar, or transfer the case to another jurisdiction, despite saying they had. It’s believed that Nassar was able to abuse an estimated 70 more athletes between the time the FBI first learned of the allegations against him in July 2015 and the time of his arrest by the Michigan State University Police Department in 2016.