Police to apologize for botched probe of sex abuse doc

A Michigan police chief will personally apologize to a victim of Larry Nassar Thursday for his department’s failure to believe her when she reported that the former USA Gymnastics doctor abused her sexually.

Brianne Randall-Gay had reported Nassar to the Meridian Township police in 2004 when she was 17 years old but the case was closed after he convinced investigators his actions were legitimate medical treatment.

“We missed it. We’re not going to hide it. We were deceived,” Meridian Township city manager Frank Walsh said Wednesday.

Walsh said in a statement that he and police chief David Hall would apologize to Randall-Gay during a news conference “on the handling of the 2004 police report.”

Randall-Gay is one of at least 265 young female gymnasts and athletes identified as having been abused by Nassar, who was sentenced January 24 to 40 to 175 years in prison.

She was among 150 women and girls who confronted Nassar at his sentencing.

“You used my vulnerability at the time to sexually abuse me,” Randall-Gay told Nassar in court.

“I reported you to police immediately and had a rape kit done. The police questioned you, and you had the audacity to tell them I had misunderstood this treatment because I was not comfortable with my body,” she said.

“Sadly, they took your word instead of mine.”

Nassar had persuaded investigators with a PowerPoint presentation about the practice he claimed to have employed, which he said was written about in medical journals.

The belated apology comes amid another wave of victim testimony at a separate sentencing hearing for Nassar on  another set of three sexual abuse charges that could bring him an additional 25 to 40 years in prison.

He also was previously sentenced to 60 years in prison for possession of child pornography.

The police department at Nassar’s employer Michigan State University also investigated him in 2014, but prosecutors declined to press charges in that case, as well.

“Mr Nassar’s abuse went on for too long because nobody was listening to us,” Randall-Gay said in court.