Larry Nassar Set To Appeal Sexual Abuse Case Sentence
Attorneys for convicted sex abuser Larry Nassar filed two motions challenging the sentence he received earlier this year for sexual assault, according to multiple media reports.
A notice of hearings is scheduled for August 22, according to the report.
Nassar, a former Michigan State and USA gymnastics doctor, was sentenced up to 175 years on Michigan state charges of sexual assault, to go along with a sentence of 40 to 125 years in prison on three counts of sexual assault. He also recieved a 60–year sentence on federal child-pornography charges.
Nassar’s state appellate defense attorneys filed the motions in Ingham County Court in Michigan and want Nassar's sentence thrown out so he can be re-sentenced.
His attorneys also want Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to be removed from the case, calling her an "admittedly not an unbiased and impartial judge."
When Aquilina sentenced Nassar in January, she told him “I just signed your death warrant.”
"Judge Aquilina made numerous statements throughout the proceedings indicating that she had already decided to impose the maximum allowed by the sentence agreement even before the sentencing hearing began," Nassar's attorneys wrote in the filing. "Thus, from the defendant's perspective the sentencing hearing was just a ritual."
In the motions filed, Nassar's attorneys also disclosed that he was assaulted in May after being released into general population in federal prison, according to the Associated Press. Nassar is serving his 60-year child pornography sentence at a U.S. penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona.
More than 300 women have said they were sexually assaulted by Nassar, including 156 women and girls who give victim-impact statements during the sentencing phase of his trial in Ingham County.
Michigan State has agreed to pay out $500 million in settlements Nassar abuse victims and multiple victims have sued Nassar, alleging that USA Gymnastics failed to act on the abuse claims and failed to notify the U.S. Olympic Committee, Michigan State University, and law enforcement.
