The gymnasts who were victimized by Larry Nasser at the Karolyi Ranch would like to see a higher level of action.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office should take the steps of the Michigan attorney general in aggressively pursuing charges against the men and women who enabled Larry Nassar — the former doctor for the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team — to sexually assault more than 200 young female athletes, a group of survivors and their lawyers said at a press conference Thursday morning.
Standing in the sunshine and wind outside the office of Texas’ top attorney, five women who say they suffered abuse at the hands of Nassar asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to take action against the couple they say allowed that abuse to continue — action Paxton’s office has said it does not have the power to take.
The women and their lawyers claim that Martha and Bela Karolyi, owners of the famed Texas Karolyi Ranch north of Houston, knew about the abuse at the longtime official training site of the team but took no steps to prevent it from continuing. They point to a May 2017 deposition in which Martha Karolyi answers “yes” after being asked whether she was aware of molestation accusations against Nassar.
The Karolyis have said through their lawyer that “Martha misunderstood the question and misspoke.”
[…]
The Texas Rangers, in consort with the Walker County Sheriff’s Office, have been investigating Karolyi Ranch since January at the request of Gov. Greg Abbott. That investigation is ongoing, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Thursday.
Lawyers for the women called that investigation insufficient, saying there have been no search warrants or charges yet issued. And there’s no indication that that probe is “seriously looking into the Karolyis,” said California attorney John Manly, who’s representing more than 100 survivors in the Nassar case.
Michelle Tuegel, a Waco attorney representing many of the Texas survivors, said a case of this scope requires action from the state’s top attorney — and, perhaps more importantly, the resources his office brings with it.
But in a statement shortly after the press conference, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General’s Office said the investigation is “outside of our jurisdiction” but that the office would “gladly and immediately assist with this investigation and prosecution” if asked by local law enforcement.
See here and here for some background. The Texas Rangers have been working on this and I’d say it’s probably a little early to say that it’s taken too long for anything to happen. That said, Martha Karolyi’s “misstatement” deserves closer scrutiny, as does the entire history of the Karolyi Ranch, to be honest. It’s certainly fair to say that if either Karolyi didn’t know what was going on with Larry Nasser, they should have, and any professed ignorance on their part doesn’t excuse their culpability. Whether that translates into legal liability or not I don’t know, but the moral case is clear. The Chron has more.
Seems like the issue is, did the Karolyi’s know what was going on with the perv doc, or not? If not, I don’t see how they have any culpability for the abuse that went on. The doctor was either an employee or contractor of USA Gymnastics, and that’s the exact same relationship the Karolyis have or had with USA Gymnastics.
If I contract with a house painter and a landscaper to do work for me, and the landscaper does something bad, am I to blame the house painter, if the painter knew nothing about what was going on?
The only way the Karolyis could have known something was going on is if the victims reported the abuse to them, and it sure sounds like a big code of silence, none of them reporting, even the Olympic stars. The Karolyis aren’t mind readers, as far as I know. That’s why it went on for so long, because none of them would speak up and say anything.
I’ll reserve judgement on this until the TX Rangers turn in their investigative results.