Larry Nassar, the former sports doctor who is serving a decades-long prison term for sexually abusing young female gymnasts, was stabbed multiple times during an altercation with another inmate on Sunday, according to multiple reports.
Two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press the attack at United States Penitentiary Coleman in Florida left Nassar, 59, in stable condition. The people spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details of the attack or the ongoing investigation publicly.
According to a prison union official who spoke to NBC News, Nassar was stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the back and six times in the chest. Joe Rojas, president of Local 506, which represents employees at the prison, told NBC Nassar also suffered a collapsed lung.
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A statement by the Florida Board of Prisons obtained by the USA TODAY Network confirmed an incident did occur at 2:35 p.m. on Sunday at the Coleman facility in Sumterville, Fla. The statement also said life-saving measures were immediately initiated and an inmate was transported by emergency medical personnel to a local hospital “for further treatment and evaluation.”
Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics team doctor, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal and state charges of abusing dozens of athletes, including U.S. Olympic team members Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, with over 150 giving victim-impact statements at his sentencing hearing. He received a sentence of 40 to 175 years in prison.
Six months after his sentencing, Nassar was moved from a prison in Tucson, Arizona, to a holding facility in Oklahoma City after he was assaulted while a member of the general prison population. He was eventually transferred to the Florida prison.
Nassar’s sexual abuse was exposed in a September 2016 investigation by The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.
