Lawrence Gerard Nassar (born August 16, 1963) is an American convicted serial sex offender and former family medicine osteopathic physician. He served as a team doctor for the United States women's national gymnastics team from 1996 to 2014, where he used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes as part of the largest sexual abuse scandal in sports history. Nassar was a team physician at Michigan State University under William Strampel from 1997 to 2016, and multiple student athletes reported his inappropriate behavior.
In 2016, following an eight-month investigation, Nassar was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting at least 265 girls over a 22-year period under the guise of medical treatment. His victims included numerous Olympic and United States women's national gymnastics team gymnasts.
Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on December 7, 2017, after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography and tampering with evidence on July 11, 2017. On January 24, 2018, Nassar was sentenced to an additional 40 to 175 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections, after pleading guilty in Ingham County to seven counts of sexual assault. On February 5, 2018, he was sentenced to an additional 40 to 125 years in Michigan State Prison after pleading guilty to an additional three counts of sexual assault in Eaton County.
The judge in charge of the federal case ordered his state and federal sentences to run consecutively, ensuring a de facto sentence of life imprisonment without parole. In the case he is alive after his federal sentence is complete, upon release he will immediately be transferred to a Michigan state prison to serve his two state sentences concurrently.
Nassar is a central figure of the 2020 film Athlete A, a Netflix documentary about the scandal.
Nassar was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to a Catholic Lebanese-American family. In 1978, he began working as a student athletic trainer for the women's gymnastics team at North Farmington High School at age 15. His older brother Mike, an athletic trainer at the school, recommended him. Nassar graduated from North Farmington High School in 1981. He then studied kinesiology at the University of Michigan, where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1985. During this time, he worked for the university's football and track and field teams.
In 1993, Nassar graduated as a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed his residency training in family practice at St. Lawrence Hospital before completing a fellowship in sports medicine in 1997.
He began working as an assistant professor at MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1997, where he earned $100,000 a year (equivalent to $201,000 in 2025) and worked with many of the current staff and faculty still practicing there. Nassar is listed as a co-author on at least six research papers on the treatment of gymnastics injuries.
Nassar began working as an athletic trainer for the USA Gymnastics national team in 1986. In 1988, Nassar began working with John Geddert at Twistars, a gymnastics training club. He began working as a team doctor at Holt High School in 1996. He served as the national medical coordinator for USA Gymnastics from 1996 until 2014. He became a team physician at Michigan State University in 1997.
Sexual assault accusations and convictions
Female athletes have stated they complained to authorities – including various employees at Michigan State University – about Nassar's behavior as early as 1997, with some athletes stating abuse occurred in 1994, but USA Gymnastics did not take action against him until 2015. According to court filings and interviews, Maggie Nichols and her coach, Sarah Jantzi, reported Nassar to USA Gymnastics officials on June 17, 2015, after the coach overheard Nichols and another gymnast talking about Nassar's behavior.
In September 2016, USA Gymnastics dismissed Nassar, citing "athlete concerns". On September 20, 2016, The Indianapolis Star had reported that Rachael Denhollander and another former gymnast had accused Nassar of sexual abuse. Michigan State University reassigned Nassar from clinical and teaching duties in August before terminating his contract on September 20, 2016.
In February 2017, three former gymnasts, Jeanette Antolin, Jessica Howard, and Jamie Dantzscher, gave an interview for 60 Minutes in which they said that Nassar had sexually abused them. They also alleged that the "emotionally abusive environment" at the national team training camps run by Béla and Márta Károlyi, at the Karolyi Ranch near Huntsville, Texas, gave Nassar an opportunity to take advantage of the gymnasts by grooming them and made them afraid to speak up about the abuse. Rachael Denhollander, one of the first women to accuse Nassar publicly, said in court in May 2017 that Nassar had sexually abused her on five doctor's visits in 2000 when she was 15 years old.
In May 2017, victim impact statements during pre-trial hearings, sentencing, and later interviews, several victims described Nassar's modus operandi: after having gained a girl's trust and friendship, he would insert his ungloved finger into her vagina and anus during physical therapy, describing this as normal "pressure point" therapy for pain relief. On some of these occasions a parent was in the room, unaware of what happened as he would often position himself to block the view between them and patients.
In October 2017, Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, using the #MeToo hashtag on Twitter, said that Nassar had repeatedly molested her from 2008, when she was 13 years old, until she retired from the sport in 2016. Maroney subsequently filed a lawsuit against Nassar, Michigan State University, the United States Olympic Committee, and USA Gymnastics. The lawsuit accused USA Gymnastics of covering up the sexual abuse by requiring her to sign a non-disclosure agreement in her $1.25 million settlement. Maroney's attorney John Manly called Nassar a "pedophile doctor".
In November 2017, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman said during a 60 Minutes interview, that Nassar had also sexually abused her, when she was 15 years old. Gabby Douglas sent a tweet saying that "dressing in a provocative/sexual way incites the wrong crowd." She was criticized for it by fellow Olympic teammate Simone Biles and others, who interpreted the tweet as criticism of Raisman and "victim-shaming". Douglas apologized for the tweet and said that she was also a victim of Nassar's abuse.
In January 2018, former national team member Maggie Nichols said that Nassar abused her. Nassar had connected with her on Facebook and complimented her appearance on numerous occasions. Nichols stated, "I was only 15 and I just thought he was trying to be nice to me. Now I believe this was part of the grooming process." Also in January 2018, Biles came forward with accounts that she, too, had been sexually abused by Nassar. In January 2018, Jordyn Wieber made an impact statement at Nassar's court sentencing, in which she also accused Nassar of sexually abusing her during her time at USA Gymnastics and talked of the effects of the abuse on her life.
FBI failure to investigate and FBI false statements