US gymnasts tell AP sport rife with verbal, emotional abuse

They were little girls with dreams of Olympic gold when they started in gymnastics. Now they're women with lifelong injuries, suffocating anxiety and debilitating eating disorders.

They are the other victims of USA Gymnastics.

Thirteen former U.S. gymnasts and three coaches interviewed by The Associated Press described a win-at-all-cost culture rife with verbal and emotional abuse in which girls were forced to train on broken bones and other injuries. That culture was tacitly endorsed by the sport's governing body and institutionalized by Bela and Martha Karolyi, the husband-and-wife duo who coached America's top female gymnasts for three decades.

HOLD FOR STORY - FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2015, file photo, Martha Karolyi, national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics, gives instructions to gymnasts after a training session at the Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas. Much of the widespread culture of abuse in USA Gymnastics, AP found, can be traced to the training methods of the Karoylis. The Romanian-born couple gradually assumed leadership of the U.S. women's gymnastics program after defecting to the United States in 1981. They trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, selected gymnasts for the national team, and earned millions from USA Gymnastics. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

The gymnasts agreed to speak to AP, some for the first time, after the recent courtroom revelations about USA Gymnastics' former team doctor, Larry Nassar, who recently was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment.

The Karolyis' oppressive style created a toxic environment in which a predator like Nassar was able to thrive, according to witness statements in Nassar's criminal case and a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics, the Karolyis and others. Girls were afraid to challenge authority, Nassar was able to prey on vulnerable girls and, at the same time, he didn't challenge the couple's harsh training methods.

"He was their little puppet," Jeanette Antolin, a former member of the U.S. national team who trained with the Karolyis, said. "He let us train on injuries. They got what they wanted. He got what he wanted."

FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2015, file photo, Martha Karolyi, national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics, watches over gymnasts during a training session at the Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas. Much of the widespread culture of abuse in USA Gymnastics, AP found, can be traced to the training methods of the Karolyis. The Romanian-born couple gradually assumed leadership of the U.S. women's gymnastics program after defecting to the United States in 1981. They trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, Texas, selected gymnasts for the national team, and earned millions from USA Gymnastics. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Young girls were virtually starved, constantly body shamed and forced to train with broken bones or other injuries, according to interviews and the lawsuit. Their meager diets and extreme training often delayed puberty, which some coaches believed was such a detriment that they ridiculed girls who started their menstrual cycles.

USA Gymnastics declined to answer questions for this story, and the Karolyis didn't reply to requests for comment. The Karolyis' Houston attorney, Gary Jewell, said the Karolyis didn't abuse anyone.

Some female gymnasts in the U.S. were subjected to abusive training methods before the Karolyis defected from their native Romania in 1981. But other coaches and former gymnasts say the Karolyis' early successes — starting with Romania's Nadia Comaneci becoming the first woman gymnast awarded a perfect score in competition — validated the cutthroat attitudes that fostered widespread mistreatment of American athletes at the highest levels of women's gymnastics.

The Karolyis, who helped USA Gymnastics win 41 Olympic medals, including 13 gold over three decades, trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, Texas, known as "the ranch." They selected gymnasts for the national team and earned millions from USA Gymnastics.

CORRECTS FROM CONVICTED TO SENTENCED - FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2017, file photo, Dr. Larry Nassar, 54, appears in court for a plea hearing in Lansing, Mich. Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

A congressional committee investigating the gymnastics scandal said in Feb. 8 letters to the Karolyis, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee that they were all "at the center of many of these failures" that allowed Nassar's sexual abuse to persist for more than two decades.

It's unclear what the Karolyis knew about Nassar's sexual abuse and whether they took any action to stop it.

Martha Karolyi, in a deposition given last year as part of the lawsuit against the Karolyis and numerous others, acknowledged that "in or around June 2015" she received a phone call from the then-head of the national gymnastics organization, Steve Penny, informing her that the organization had received a complaint that Nassar had "molested a national team gymnast at the ranch."

The deposition was included in a Feb. 14 letter to two U.S. senators from John Manly, an attorney representing Nassar victims in a lawsuit that seeks monetary damages and court oversight of USA Gymnastics.

FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2018, file photo, Gymnast Emily Morales gives her victim impact statement during the sixth day of Larry Nassar's pleaded guilty hearing in Lansing, Mich. Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment. (Dale G. Young/Detroit News via AP, File)

Manly cited the deposition in accusing the sport's governing body of lying to Congress.

In a timeline submitted to a congressional committee investigating the scandal, the organization said it was told in mid-June of an athlete "uncomfortable" with Nassar's treatment, but that it was not until late July 2015 that it decided to notify law enforcement "with concerns of potential sexual misconduct."

Penny, the former USA Gymnastics chief, said in a statement that Martha Karolyi was mistaken about the timing of his call.

Texas has one of the strongest child abuse reporting laws in the nation, requiring anyone who has reason to believe abuse has occurred to immediately alert authorities. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable by jail time and a fine.

In the deposition, Martha Karolyi said she did not discuss what she learned about Nassar with anyone but her husband, her lawyers and the USA Gymnastics official who called her.

Jewell, the Karolyis' attorney, said the couple didn't know about any sexual assault complaints involving Nassar until Martha Karolyi was contacted by a USA Gymnastics official in the summer of 2015.

CORRECTS FROM CONVICTED TO SENTENCED - FILE - In this Jan. 24, 2018, file photo, former gymnast Rachael Denhollander, left, is hugged by Kaylee Lorincz after giving her victim impact statement during the seventh day of Larry Nassar's sentencing hearing in Lansing, Mich. Nassar was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

FILE - In this July 23, 1996, file photo, Bela Karolyi, right, congratulates Dominique Moceanu, left, after the United States captured the gold medal in the women's team gymnastics competition at the Centennial Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. United States team coach Martha Karolyi, center, looks on. Much of the widespread culture of abuse in USA Gymnastics, AP found, can be traced to the training methods of the Karoylis. The Romanian-born couple gradually assumed leadership of the U.S. women's gymnastics program after defecting to the United States in 1981. They trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, Texas, selected gymnasts for the national team, and earned millions from USA Gymnastics. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 12, 1985, file photo, Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, right, instructs Sara Tank on the balance beam at his Olympic training facility in north Houston. When Tank arrived at the ranch in 1985, she said she soon realized that the Bela Karolyi she had seen on television, who was "animated and acted like he loved kids," was "not the Bela that was in the gym." "We were treated like a business plan," said Sara Tank Ornelas, now living in Wichita, Kan. Ornelas said she suffered 13 broken bones while training at the ranch from age 11 to 15. (AP Photo/Richard J. Carson, File)

CORRECTS TO NEARLY 250 WHO GAVE STATEMENTS NOT 160 - FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2010, file photo, Mattie Larson of the U.S. performs on the uneven bars during the women's qualifying session for the World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Larson, who was molested by Larry Nassar and was among the nearly 250 who gave victim impact statements during his sentencing, said the doctor cleared her one time to train at the Bela and Martha Karolyi complex in Texas on an ankle that turned out to be fractured. Larson, who began training at the Karolyi training facility when she was 10, said she feared even drinking water because of possible weight gain and took laxatives daily for six years. (AP Photo/Bas Czerwinski, File)

FILE - In this July 18, 1976, file photo, Nadia Comaneci, of Romania, dismounts from the uneven parallel bars during a perfect "10" performance at the Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. Bela and Martha Karolyi, famous for training Comaneci, the first woman gymnast to win a perfect score, went on to help USA Gymnastics to win 41 Olympic medals, including 13 gold over three decades. Former U.S. gymnasts and coaches interviewed by The Associated Press have described a culture rife with verbal and emotional abuse. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — Jurors heard closing arguments Thursday in a landmark case seeking to hold the state of New Hampshire accountable for abuse at its youth detention center.

The plaintiff, David Meehan, went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later alleging he was brutally beaten, raped and held in solitary confinement at the Youth Development Center in the 1990s. Since then, 11 former state workers have been arrested and more than 1,100 other former residents have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual and emotional abuse spanning six decades.

Meehan’s lawyer David Vicinanzo told jurors that an award upwards of $200 million would be reasonable — $1 million for each alleged sexual assault. He argued that the state’s clear negligence encouraged a culture of abuse marked by pervasive brutality, corruption and a code of silence.

“They still don’t get it,” Vicinanzo said. “They don’t understand the power they had, they don’t understand how they abused their power and they don’t care.

But the state’s lawyer said Meehan’s case relied on “conjecture and speculation with a lot of inuendo mixed in” and that zero liability should be assigned to the state.

“There was no widespread culture of abuse,” attorney Martha Gaythwaite said. “This was not the den of iniquity that has been portrayed.”

Gaythwaite said there was no evidence that the facility’s superintendent or anyone in higher-level state positions knew anything about the alleged abuse.

“Conspiracy theories are not a substitute for actual evidence,” she said.

Meehan, whose lawsuit was the first to be filed and first to go to trial, spent three days on the witness stand describing his three years at the Manchester facility and its aftermath. He told jurors that his first sexual experience was being violently raped by a staffer at age 15 and that another staffer he initially viewed as a caring father-figure became a daily tormenter who once held a gun to his head during a sexual assault.

“I’m forced to try to hold myself together somehow and show as a man everything these people did to this little boy,” he said. “I’m constantly paying for what they did.”

Meehan’s attorneys called more than a dozen witnesses, including former staffers who said they faced resistance and even threats when they raised or investigated concerns, a former resident who described being gang-raped in a stairwell, and a teacher who said she spotted suspicious bruises on Meehan and half a dozen other boys.

“The rot started at the top," Vicinanzo said Thursday. “The fish rots from the head. The tone starts there.”

The state called five witnesses, including Meehan’s father, who answered “yes” when asked whether his son had “a reputation for untruthfulness." Among the other witnesses was a longtime youth center principal who saw no signs of abuse over four decades, and a psychiatrist who diagnosed Meehan with bipolar disorder, not the post-traumatic stress disorder his side claims.

In cross-examining Meehan, the state’s attorneys portrayed him as a violent child who continued causing trouble at the youth center and a delusional adult who is exaggerating or lying to get money. In her closing statement, Gaythwaite apologized if she suggested Meehan deserved to be abused.

“If I said or did anything to make that impression or to suggest I do not feel sorry for Mr. Meehan, I regret that,” she said. “It was my job to ask difficult questions about hard topics so you have a full picture of all of the evidence.”

Her approach, however, highlighted an unusual dynamic in which the attorney general’s office is both defending the state against the civil lawsuits and prosecuting suspected perpetrators in the criminal cases. Though the state will be relying on Meehan's testimony in the criminal cases, it has tried to undermine his credibility in the current case.

Continuing in that vein Thursday, Gaythwaite reminded jurors that log books and other records indicate Meehan sustained a groin injury in playing football in 1998 and not from a rape in which he said he was knocked unconscious and left on an athletic field. It wouldn’t make sense for multiple staffers to coordinate their reports, she said.

“Even if all those folks were motivated to help someone cover up a crime, are you really supposed to believe they could pull it off?” she said.

“Do you know any governmental agency anywhere that could be that efficient and that organized?” she said. “We couldn’t even get our witnesses here on time to court.”

But Vicianzo pointed out that the staffer who initially documented the injury had been promoted despite an ombudsman's recommendation that he be fired for hitting a teen.

"The denial, the entitlement of our state government, our state bureaucrats, is unbelievable,” he told jurors. “It’s hard to accept. You don’t have to accept it, and I’m confident you won't.”

The jury will begin deliberations Friday after hearing further instructions from the judge.

FILE - The Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, N.H., stands among trees, Jan. 28, 2020. Jurors on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, heard the final witness in a landmark trial seeking to hold the state accountable for alleged abuse at the facility. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)