Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar gets 40 to 175 years for sex abuse

After a remarkable hearing that featured gut-wrenching statements from 156 of his accusers and an apology that the judge said rang hollow, former Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young girls under the guise of treatment.

"You do not deserve to walk outside of a prison ever again," Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said in the Ingham County, Michigan, courtroom where Nassar was forced to listen to victims for seven days before learning his fate.

"I just signed your death warrant," she added.Nassar, 54, agreed to a minimum 40-year sentence when he pleaded guilty last year to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct in Ingham County. He still faces sentencing in Eaton County for three more counts, and he's already been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.

The judge could have given Nassar a stiffer sentence than the one he agreed to, but that would have given him the option of withdrawing his plea and asking for a tria.He complained that his patients had turned on him. "'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,'" the judge read aloud, her voice full of scorn.

She asked him, "Would you like to withdraw your plea?"

"No, your honor," he said.

"Because you're guilty aren't you?" she pressed.

"I accept my plea," he said.

Aquilina said she simply didn't believe that Nassar was owning up to what he pleaded to: penetrating minors with ungloved hands for his own sexual pleasure.

"I wouldn't send my dogs to you, sir," she said.

After the hearing, some victims found it difficult to put into words their feelings about the sentence.

"It's overwhelming," victim Sterling Reithman said after the hearing. "This whole process has been so long and so difficult, and so to finally have some answers and finally have this all culminate into one day: it's a lot to take in."Nassar was the team doctor for USA Gymnastics for two decades and had a busy sports medicine practice at Michigan State University — and both institutions have been shaken by criticism for how they handled allegations against him before they became public.

On Wednesday night, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon called the accounts "tragic, heartbreaking and personally gut-wrenching," though she noted that the MSU Board had vouched for her "integrity and the fact that there is no cover-up."

Nevertheless, despite her support for an investigation into the matter surrounding Nassar's misconduct at MSU, she said she thought it would be best for her to resign.

Throughout my career, I have consistently and persistently spoken and worked on behalf of Team MSU," she said. "I have tried to make it not about me. I urge those who have supported my work to understand that I cannot make it about me now. Therefore, I am tendering my resignation as president according to the terms of my employment agreement."

Meanwhile, USA Gymnastics said it supported Nassar's sentence and any further investigation.

"USA Gymnastics supports an independent investigation that may shine light on how abuse of the proportion described so courageously by the survivors of Larry Nassar could have gone undetected for so long and embraces any necessary and appropriate changes," the organization said. "USA Gymnastics and the [United States Olympic Committee] have the same goal — making the sport of gymnastics, and others, as safe as possible for athletes to follow their dreams in a safe, positive and empowered environment."

An investigation by The Indianapolis Star in September 2016 first disclosed Nassar had been accused by two former patients of sexually assaulting them under the guise of medical treatments, penetrating them with ungloved hands without their permission.

That unleashed a flood of horrifyingly similar allegations. Nassar pleaded not guilty to all charges and his lawyers insisted his procedures were legitimate, but most of his defenders vanished after the child pornography was found — and he ultimately changed all his pleas.

A year later, some of the most famous names in gymnastics were added to the list: McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas from the 2012 "Fierce Five" Olympics team. Simone Biles, who won gold in 2016, said last week that she also had been abused by Nassar, and Jordyn Wieber of the 2012 team revealed her story at the sentencing hearing.