Michigan police say Larry Nassar's "lie" was dropped: NPR

A Michigan police investigator who investigated allegations that Larry Nassar allegedly sexually assaulted girls and young women in 2004 admitted that he had been fooled by the now-convicted sports doctor and that he did not pursue the case.

"I believed in his lies," said Detective Andrew McCready, a suburb of Meridian.

Nassar, a physician for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 40 to 175 years in January 2018 after confessing to sexually abusing girls and women for decades.

Authorities in Meridian Township have publicly apologized to one of Nassar's victims, Brianne Randall-Gay, a year ago. They opened an investigation into how the local police had handled the complaint she had filed in 2004, at the age of 17.

An 88-page report released Tuesday includes Randall-Gay's original complaint filed the day after the alleged assault and a narrative of how Nassar assaulted him.

At a later interview, Nassar told Detective McCready that he was treating Randall-Gay's scoliosis, a lateral curvature of the spine, and that he was required to touch him the bottom of the spine. back and the top of the leg. In his summary of this interview, McCready says that Nassar gave him a Power Point presentation explaining the medical procedure. The 26-page printed presentation was written by Nassar.

McCready acknowledged that he had not consulted another medical expert, according to the report, and that he had never sent the Nassar case to the local prosecutor's office "because that I believed in his lies ".

The report indicates that out of 14 investigations completed by McCready during his two and a half years as an investigator, the Nassar case is the only one that he has not requested to be reviewed by the prosecution, because "he thought that no crime had been committed". He also said that "it was not his best job," according to the report.

The Township's report was written in response to Randall-Gay's questions about how his case was handled. Towards the end of the conclusion, Township Director Frank L. Walsh made the decision not to sanction McCready for failing to pursue the case.

"We will never be able to let something like this happen again," said Meridian Township Police Chief Ken Plaga at a news conference announcing the findings of the report written by Ken Oulette, an independent investigator chosen by Randall-Gay.

"I've talked to a number of people who have been sexually assaulted and one thing is clear, there's never a closure," Walsh said at the same press conference. "And we do not expect this report to be closed for Brianne, but we hope it will be a healing path for her."

For his part, Randall-Gay, who lives in the Seattle area, expressed his gratitude to the Township for agreeing to conduct the investigation and his frustration with the decisions that delayed the publication of his records. In the end, she spoke of her forgiveness, not for Nassar, but for McCready.

"I have sympathy for Sergeant McCready and the other people involved in this case because I do not think they have had a malicious intent," Randall-Gay wrote in a statement. "They made a mistake, a mistake to live with the rest of their lives, I offered my forgiveness in the past and I continue to grant them my forgiveness."