Disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed multiple times by a fellow inmate after he made lewd comments about girls during a Wimbledon match, the suspect reportedly told prison workers.
The convicted sex abuser, 59, was stabbed in the back and chest by another inmate at the high-security United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida on Sunday afternoon.
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said that an inmate at the prison required “life-saving efforts” after the attack took place and the victim was transported to a local hospital for further treatment and evaluation.
The Daily Beast reports that the incident happened after Nassar said “I wish there were girls playing” while inmates were watching a women’s match at Wimbledon.
The suspect, who The Associated Press has named as Shane McMillan, allegedly stabbed Nassar with a makeshift weapon, wounding him in the neck, chest and back. Four inmates then rushed in and pulled McMillan off Nassar, a source told the news outlet.
McMillan was convicted of assaulting a correctional officer at a federal penitentiary in Louisiana in 2006 and attempting to stab another inmate to death at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado in 2011, according to court records.
Nassar remains in hospital in stable condition with injuries including a collapsed lung, reported AP. The Independent has reached out to the Bureau of Prisons for comment.
The former USA Gymnastics team doctor is serving between 40 and 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young female athletes in his care.
As the team doctor, the sexual predator abused his position of trust and preyed on dozens of young gymnasts for several decades, including Olympic great Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and McKayla Maroney.
In many cases, he sexually assaulted his young victims under the guise of it being medical treatment for hip and leg injuries sustained during the sport.
As well as USA Gymnastics, based in Indianapolis, he also worked at Michigan State University and preyed on athletes there as well.
Many of his victims went on to become America’s biggest gymnastics stars and have since spoken out about the years of abuse they endured at his hands.
The scandal not only plagued USA Gymnastics – with victims revealing that they had confided in adults and coaches about the abuse – but also the FBI which failed to take the accusations seriously and left Nassar to abuse more than 120 further victims while they sat on the information for a year-and-a-half.
It was July 2015 when Maggie Nichols became the first victim to report his sexual abuse to USA Gymnastics bosses, who then passed the information on to the FBI’s Indianapolis field office.
W Jay Abbott, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis office, resigned from the bureau in 2017. He was accused of waiting five weeks before telling the FBI about the first allegations received by US Gymnastics about Nassar’s behaviour.
Agents failed to open an investigation for another 17 months when a complaint about Nassar was then made to Michigan State University’s campus police.
The Justice Department watchdog later released a scathing report on the bureau’s handling of the matter, which it said let the sexual predator go on to abuse dozens more victims.
Following his 2016 arrest, Nassar pleaded guilty to child sex abuse images in December 2017 and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Two months later, he pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct at a separate trial and was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. He is also serving a separate 40 to 125 years for sexual abuse in Michigan.
While behind bars, the serial sex offender has sought to fight his conviction, claiming that he was treated unfairly by the judge at his 2018 trial who called him a “monster” and said he should “wither” in prison like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz”.
