Feb. 2 (UPI) — The father of three girls who were sexually abused by former Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar lunged at him inside a Michigan courtroom during his sentencing hearing Friday.
Randall Margraves ran towards Nassar before he was stopped by defense attorney Matthew Newburg and multiple deputies.
Margraves asked if he could get “one minute alone with the [expletive],” after he was tackled.
“I would ask you as part of this sentencing grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon,” Margraves said after his daughters’ impact statements.
Eaton County Circuit Judge Janice Cunningham said she understood how the parents in the room felt.
“If it is hard and difficult for me to hear what his daughters have to say, I can’t image what it is like for a parent,” the judge said.
Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis asked the gallery to refrain from attempting to assault Nassar again, saying they shouldn’t let him have “power over us.”
Other victims also addressed Nassar at Friday’s hearing.
“The whole thing makes me feel dirty,” Taylor Helber, who saw Nassar for spine injury treatments, said. “Like I want to crawl out of my body and live in someone else’s.”
Nassar, who served as a Team USA gymnastics doctor from 1986 to 2015, was convicted on all seven counts of criminal sexual conduct, a first-degree felony.
The court heard from 168 women and girls who claimed they were abused by Nassar while getting medical treatments — including Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber.
Nassar, 54, was sentenced in Ingham County last month to between 40 and 175 years on other sex assault charges — and in December a federal judge sentenced him to 60 years on child pornography charges.
Nassar will begin serving the sentences in Ingham and Eaton counties after he serves the federal sentence.
