U.S. Olympic Committee boots Alan Ashley for silence in Nassar sex abuse case
Report finds chief of sport performance didn't elevate concern when told of allegations
The U.S. Olympic Committee has fired chief of sport performance Alan Ashley in the wake of an independent report that said neither he nor former CEO Scott Blackmun elevated concerns about the Larry Nassar sexual abuse allegations when they were first reported to them.
Blackmun resigned in February because of health concerns.
The report says the USOC took no action between first hearing of the allegations in July 2015 and September 2016, when the Indianapolis Star published an account of Nassar's sex abuse.
The report concludes that lack of action allowed Nassar to abuse dozens more girls over the 14 months of silence.
Nassar is serving decades in prison on charges of child pornography and for molesting young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment; many of his accusers testified in heart-wrenching detail at his sentencing hearing.
Key objective was to keep allegations under wraps: report
Though Ashley was the only one to get fired in the immediate aftermath of its release, the report paints a harsh picture of leadership of the entire U.S. Olympic movement, from the offices of the USOC to what it portrays as an essentially rogue, unchecked operation at the Karolyi Ranch in Texas — the training centre run by Bela and Martha Karolyi where some of the abuse occurred.
Meanwhile, Penny is portrayed as repeatedly trying to get the FBI to investigate Nassar, but the report concludes "the investigation appears to have languished … for over seven months" in the FBI's Detroit office. USAG took the allegations to the FBI's Los Angeles office, but not until the newspaper report came out did that office take action.
The report says Penny notified Blackmun and Ashley that Nassar had retired in September 2015, but that both leaders had deleted the email, which referenced Nassar by name.
The report details the USOC's relationships with the sports organizations it oversees as too deferential and not involved enough in policymaking to ensure athlete safety.
"In this governance model, the USOC exerted its broad statutory authority and monetary influence over individual sports primarily for the purpose of encouraging success at the Olympic Games, effectively outsourcing any decisions regarding on-the-ground child-protective practices to the NGBs," the report states.