Former USA Gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar has been sentenced to 175 years in prison on sexual assault and abuse charges

Former USA Gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar has been sentenced to 175 years in prison on sexual assault and abuse charges

A judge has told a former Olympic team doctor he will spend the rest of his life in jail, after nearly 160 of the young women he abused and assaulted delivered agonising statements about how his actions had destroyed their lives.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina told long-time USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar he would spend up to 175 years in jail, a sentence that added to the 60 year he had already received for child pornography charges.

“You don’t deserve to walk outside a prison again,” Ms Aquilina told Nassar. “You have done nothing to control these urges and wherever you go will be destruction.”

She added: “I have signed your death warrant.”

The sentencing of the former physician, who began serving as the doctor with the national squad in 1996 and was only fired in 2015, was the latest development in one of the worst scandals to hit US sport in decades.

Dozens of young women and girls claimed that senior officials had failed in their duty to protect them and had either not spotted or ignored evidence of Nassar’s actions. In the spring of 2017, the organisation’s president, Steve Penny, resigned amid accusations of negligence, while three current board members resigned earlier this week.

Before the sentence was announced, Nassar apologised to his victims, telling them: “I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days.”

But the judge said she found his words unconvincing and read aloud from a letter Nassar wrote to her in which he claimed he was a “good doctor” who was “manipulated” into pleading guilty.

“It is my honour and privilege to sentence you because you do not deserve to walk outside of a prison ever again,” she told him.

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