Report: Larry Nassar spent more than $10,000 in prison while largely avoiding restitution, fees
Disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar has avoided paying most of the financial penalties that he was ordered to when he was sentenced to prison more than three years ago, according to a new court filing obtained by The Washington Post.
Nassar has only paid about $300 in penalties, which has barely made a dent in what he was ordered to pay to the Crime Victims Fund, multiple victims in his child pornography case, court fees and more.
Yet Nassar still managed to spend more than $10,000 through his government-run prison bank account over that timespan — something federal officials are now trying to fix.
Nassar spent more than $10,000 in prison
Nassar was sentenced to decades in federal prison for possessing thousands of images of child pornography in 2017, shortly after hundreds of women and girls came forward and said that Nassar sexually abused them while working both at Michigan State and for USA Gymnastics.
He is currently serving his sentence at a high-security prison in Florida.
As part of that sentence, Nassar owes more than $57,000 in restitution to victims, $5,300 to the federal Crime Victims Fund, and $834 in court fees, per The Washington Post.
Despite owing all of that money, Nassar hasn’t paid much. Per the report, Nassar was paying about $8.33 a month toward his penalties, and has only paid about $300 since he’s been in prison.
During that time, Nassar managed to spend more than $10,000 from his prison bank account, which covers commissary, email and phone expenses, per the report. He had just more than $2,000 in his account as of Wednesday.
Nassar has had $12,825 in his account in total throughout his time in prison, according to a court filing — $2,000 of which came as COVID-19 stimulus payments from the federal government.
A federal prosecutor officially asked a judge to order the rest of Nassar’s account be taken to help cover his restitution costs.
“The notion that anybody in the Justice Department would let this happen is just revolting,” said John Manly, an attorney for many of Nassar’s victims, via The Washington Post. Simone Biles, one of Manly’s clients and Nassar’s victims, withdrew from multiple events in the Tokyo Olympics this week due to mental stress.
“The timing of this, with my client being unable to compete because of what happened to her, couldn’t be more upsetting … They’re allowing the worst child predator in American history to spend thousands of dollars on himself and pay $8 a month to his victims. Something is completely broken and needs to be fixed.”
There was more than $100 million across all federal prison bank accounts in May, per the report, and almost two dozen inmates had more than $100,000 each in their federal bank accounts.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) asked Attorney General Merrick Garland in a letter to “review the policies” that are allowing Nassar to spend money in prison while avoiding his fees.
“[This] gives the appearance that the Department of Justice places greater importance on Nassar’s comfort than on collecting the debt he owes his victims,” Wicker said, via The Washington Post.
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