Disgraced former Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was never listed on Michigan’s sex offender registry, according to state police.
Reports earlier this week suggested that Nassar, who served as the national gymnastics team’s doctor from 1996 through 2014, had been quietly removed from the state database.
Michigan State Police have rejected that account, saying the convicted serial sexual abuser was not registered in Michigan to begin with.
“Information suggesting that convicted sex offender Nassar was removed from the Sex Offender Registry (SOR) by the Michigan State Police (MSP) because of the Smith decision is incorrect,” Lori Dougovito, an MSP spokeswoman, said in a statement to Our News Outlet.
Under Michigan law, only sex offenders who live in the state are required to register there and appear in its public database.
“Offenders not currently domiciled, temporarily residing, working, incarcerated, or going to school in Michigan do not have the duty to register in Michigan under Michigan’s Sex Offender Registry Act (SORA), and would not be visible on Michigan’s public Sex Offender Registry (SOR),” Dougovito added.
Michigan State Police have disputed a report that disgraced Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar (pictured) was removed from the state’s sex offender registry
Nassar is serving decades in prison after being convicted of multiple crimes
“Should the offender later domicile (including being incarcerated), temporarily reside, work, or go to school in Michigan, they would be expected to register and be placed on Michigan’s public SOR if still required under SORA at that time,” she said.
Nassar is currently incarcerated at FCI Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. He has spent time in federal and out-of-state prisons since pleading guilty in 2017.
Police confirmed that Nassar would be added to Michigan’s registry if he were transferred to a prison in the state.
The former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics physician used his medical position to abuse hundreds of young athletes, including Olympic medalists Simone Biles and Aly Raisman.
He is serving multiple decades-long prison sentences after convictions in federal and state courts for sexual abuse and child pornography offenses.
Nassar received a 60-year federal sentence in 2017 after being convicted on child pornography charges. If he survives long enough to complete that term, he would then face 40 to 175 years in Michigan prisons for seven state sexual assault convictions in Ingham County.
He also received an additional sentence of 40 to 125 years in Eaton County for separate sexual assault convictions.
Questions about Nassar’s status on Michigan’s sex offender registry arose earlier this week after a social media post from the Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office.
Nassar is pictured in court during his sentencing hearing in Michigan in January 2018
Nassar, a former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, used his position to exploit hundreds of young athletes, including Team USA gymnasts
The post said that 63-year-old Nassar was among more than 20,000 people removed from the registry after Michigan State Police purged thousands of records involving crimes committed before July 1, 2011.
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The mass removal followed a September 9 Michigan Supreme Court ruling, which determined that amendments to the Sex Offender Registration Act passed in 2021 could not be applied retroactively to require registration for older offenses.
The prosecutor’s office wrote on social media that: ‘The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate SORA requirements for these offenders is deeply concerning. Our community, along with the victims of these crimes, expected the registry to provide a measure of protection and awareness – assurances that have now been removed by the Court’s ruling.’
The registry is intended to ‘assist the public’ with preventing future criminal sexual acts by convicted sex offenders, according to Michigan State Police, and typically lists a legal name, photo, primary address, work address, age, physical description and court with records relevant to the criminal conviction.
The Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement on Friday, correcting its original post.
‘We must correct our earlier social media post about removal of convicted sex offenders from the Michigan Sex Offender Registry,’ it wrote. ‘After reporting from the Detroit News, it appears that Larry Nassar was never actually registered under the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.
‘We never contemplated that one of the most notorious sex offenders in the history of the state would not have been registered despite the law requiring otherwise. In our experience, when a sex offender is sentenced to a term of incarceration, they are listed in the Michigan Sex Offender Registry as being “incarcerated” and complaint (sic). That status does not change until the offender is released from custody, at which time the entity incarcerating the individual ensures the registry is updated.’
More than 150 gymnasts were abused by Nassar during his 30-year career. Nassar admitted to sexually assaulting the athletes when he worked at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics.
Olympic icon Simone Biles was among Nasser’s long list of hundreds of victims
The doctor also admitted to possessing child pornography, and more than 100 women sought over $1billion from the federal government for the FBI’s failure to stop him.
He was sentenced in federal court in 2017 to 60 years in prison on charges of possessing child sex abuse material. The following year, Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years and up to 125 years, respectively, in two separate Michigan courts for molesting female gymnasts under his care.
Following the federal sentencing, U.S. Attorney Birge said: ‘Today was a day of reckoning for Larry Nassar. He more than deserves this punishment for what he did.
‘He consumed child pornography on a massive scale. We found 37,000 images of child pornography on his computers. Insatiable hunger of that nature simply encourages those who produce such images to continue to sexually exploit children. Compounding his danger to the public,
‘Nassar was an insidious hands-on child predator in his own right. He took advantage of family friendships. And he treated his license to practice medicine as a license to sexually molest children. Thanks to the brave victims who came forward, we learned the full scope of his depravity. The breadth and dark depth of his heinous acts are extraordinary.’
In April 2024, the US Justice Department announced a $138.7 million settlement with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
When combined with other settlements, $1billion now has been set aside by various organizations to compensate hundreds of women who said Nassar assaulted them under the guise of treatment for sports injuries.
Simone Biles publicly broke her silence in January 2018, revealing in a powerful tweet that she was one of Nassar’s victims.
‘It took me a long time to write that, probably a couple of days, because every time I would go to write, I would start bawling, and I couldn’t get through it,’ she said.
Biles also noted that she was heartbroken over having to continue to train at the ranch, the former USA Gymnastics national training center where she and her teammates were abused by the disgraced doctor.
