Disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor faces additional prison term

[February 05, 2018]  (Reuters) - Former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, already convicted of molesting young women athletes and sentenced to 175 years in prison, is due to receive a further sentence on Monday for his plea of guilty to related charges.

Nassar was sentenced last month in Michigan's Ingham County to sexually abusing female athletes under the guise of medical treatment, and will receive a further sentence on Monday in neighboring Eaton County.

He faces a minimum of 25 years behind bars for the related charges but he is already assured of spending the rest of his life in prison. Nassar is also serving a 60-year federal sentence for child pornography convictions.

The case against Nassar has sparked investigations into how U.S. Olympic officials, USA Gymnastics - the sport's governing body - and Michigan State University, where Nassar also worked, failed to investigate complaints about him going back years.

The fallout has rattled Michigan State and led to the resignation of the school's president.

Faculty leaders at Michigan State are moving to hold a no-confidence vote against the university's Board of Trustees, the Lansing State Journal reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said a ballot was emailed over the weekend to 2,776 faculty members who belong to the university's Academic Congress. The majority — nearly 87 percent of those who responded — called for a no-confidence vote in the trustees at an upcoming Faculty Senate meeting.

 

Larry Nassar, a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault charges, sits in the courtroom during his sentencing hearing in the Eaton County Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., February 2, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

A time and date for that emergency meeting has not yet been determined, it said.

In the latest fallout from the scandal, Valeri Liukin, coordinator of the U.S. women's gymnastics team, said on Friday he was resigning. In a statement cited by NBC News, Liukin said, "The present climate causes me, and more importantly my family, far too much stress, difficulty and uncertainty."

USA Gymnastics said it had accepted Liukin's resignation.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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