Terin Humphrey was just 15 when she arrived at a competition in Virginia in July 2002. She was on the brink of a U.S. national team career that would make her a gymnastics world champion and she was fighting major injuries in both hips that continue to hound her to this day.
During a pre-competition training session, Humphrey, in severe pain in both hips, agreed to see Larry Nassar, the longtime U.S. Olympic and USA Gymnastics national team physician, for medical treatment.
“I don’t even remember him stretching me,” Humphrey recalled. “I just remember him saying, ‘Alright, here get on the table,’ and then that was it.”
Humphrey, a two-time Olympic silver medalist, in an exclusive interview with the Southern California News Group, alleges that Nassar sexually assaulted her during the session in Virginia and again the following day under the guise of medical treatment. Humphrey filed to register as a Nassar survivor Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Indiana.
“I just remember being super uncomfortable,” Humphrey said. She recalled thinking during the incident, “This is so weird. How is this helping?”
It was one of several questions about those two days with Nassar that Humphrey kept buried for 17 years.
While Humphrey, later an NCAA champion at Alabama, served as an athlete representative for USA Gymnastics between 2009 and 2019 and member of the Olympic and World Championships teams selection committee and continued to have an uneasy feeling around Nassar, she did not come to terms with her sexual assault until memories of the abuse were triggered by treatment for her pregnancy last year, according to Humphrey and a sworn statement under penalty of perjury by psychiatrist who examined her earlier this month. Humphrey said she was unable to even tell her husband, Uriah Holcomb, about the abuse until last month.
“The more I went to the doctors (for her pregnancy), the more I was having issues” with recollections of Nassar, Humphrey said. “The more trouble I had, the more I felt like my puzzle pieces were coming together and I just remember when I had my pelvic exams I remember seeing Larry.
“I had the worst pregnancy ever.”
Humphrey was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with delayed expression and major depressive disorder by Dr. Steven A. Elig, who conducted a 4 hour, 15 minute psychiatric examination of Humphrey on July 18, according to a sworn affidavit by Elig, provided to SCNG.
“It is my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Ms. Humphrey meets psychiatric criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with delayed expression, as a direct result of her experience of child sexual abuse by Dr. Larry Nassar,” Elig wrote in the affidavit submitted with Humphrey’s filing to register as a Nassar survivor.
USA Gymnastics filed for Chapter 11 protection with the court in December 2018. The organization in February proposed a settlement agreement that would pay the 500-plus Nassar survivors $217 million, but also would release the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny, former U.S. National team coach Don Peters, former national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi, 2012 Olympic coach John Geddert and others from “any and all claims arising from or related to Abuse Claims or Future Claims.”
Humphrey also plans to contact law enforcement in Virginia about her alleged abuse, Robert Allard, her attorney said.
“Nassar is 56 and is serving a 40-175 year sentence. It is safe to say that he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” Allard said. “Nevertheless, we intend to confer with Virginia state prosecutors to ascertain whether her experience will add to the harsh punishment that has already been levied against this man. If so, we will have no issue pressing for additional criminal charges.”
Humphrey, who gave birth to a daughter in January, said she is speaking out publicly in the hope that her story will help prevent future generations of gymnasts from suffering similar abuse.
“I want to run the other direction” from gymnastics, Humphrey said. “This has killed me and it has killed my passion. I don’t want my daughter to go through this.”
Humphrey in the interview also discussed her removal as USA Gymnastics athlete representative in May 2019 following complaints about one of her posts on social media. The incident has left Humphrey feeling misled by current USA Gymnastics CEO Li Li Leung and cast aside by an American dynasty she helped launch as a member of the first-ever U.S. squad to capture the most prestigious team title in women’s sports at the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim.
“It’s been rough,” Humphrey said.
Nassar is alleged to have sexually assaulted more than 500 women as U.S. Olympic and national team physician, and while working at Michigan State University and gymnastics clubs in the Lansing area. He is serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges in 2017. He also pleaded guilty in 2018 to a total of 10 sexual assault charges in two Michigan state cases.
A number of former U.S. Olympic and national team gymnasts have said Nassar groomed them for later sexual abuse by befriending them at international competitions like the Olympic Games and World Championships, and especially at Team USA camps at the remote central Texas ranch owned and operated by U.S. national team directors Martha and Bela Karolyi. Nassar gave them candy and gum, snuck them food, let them use his cell phone and laptop and provided a shoulder to cry on, the gymnasts said.
“We thought Larry was our friend,” said Jeanette Antolin, a former U.S. national team member.
Humphrey, however, said she had no such bond with Nassar and had only limited interaction with the physician both before and after he allegedly abused her.
“I wasn’t Larry’s favorite,” Humphrey said. “It didn’t happen over and over. That’s exactly my story. I hardly ever went to the doctor and it only happened that one weekend. It’s just so hard to fathom you know?”
She took a long, deep breath.
“Yeah, just really hard.”
Humphrey trained during her elite career under Al Fong and his wife Armine Barutyan-Fong at the Great American Gymnastics Experience (GAGE) in Blue Springs, Missouri, 20 miles east of downtown Kansas City. As a young gymnast, Humphrey tore muscles in both hips, she said.
“I just got to the point where I couldn’t do middle splits anymore,” she said.
“At the time my coaches, they didn’t like us to see doctors too often because a lot of times (the doctors would say) go take time off and gymnasts don’t have the luxury of taking time off.”
When Humphrey arrived in Virginia in July 2002, she said the hip pain “was overwhelming” and she was having difficulty training.
The Fongs, Humphrey said, told her, ‘OK go. We’ll go check out your hips basically.”
Nassar, who was attending the meet in his capacity as USA Gymnastics team physician agreed to see her.
Nassar asked Humphrey to lie down on a makeshift training table in a room off the main gym. Instead of stretching or rotating Humphrey’s legs and hips to determine her range of motion or location of pain, Nassar grabbed the front bottom of the leotard and underpants she was wearing and pulled toward her chest revealing her pubic area, Humphrey recalled
“He pulled them super far up so where I knew I was exposed,” Humphrey said.
“I was home schooled seventh and eighth grade,” she continued. “I never had a boyfriend in high school. I was pretty shy outside of the gym. When I went to Larry he seemed, very, very, very knowledgeable. But he kept saying ‘pubic this, pubic that’ and I was just getting so embarrassed.”
As Nassar spoke he began touching her between her legs, Humphrey alleges.
“It was like he was petting me,” she said. “I remember his smile got really wide and he made a sound that I will never forget.”
Then Nassar, without a glove or lubrication, inserted his hand into her vagina. Nassar in responding to USA Gymnastics officials in 2015 about sexual assault allegations referred to the method as a “pelvic adjustment.”
“He went inside me. … I did have massages before and I had never experienced this before so I thought it was odd but I thought he is USAG doctor he probably had more expertise than my previous massage therapist,” Humphrey said.
“We were in the training room only a matter of 15-20 minutes because we were still in practice. I remember walking away back to practice and I didn’t feel any change in my hips. I also remember the feeling of his hands still on me.”
The following day her coaches asked Humphrey if her hips still hurt?
“I said yes,” she said. “So they asked Dr. Nassar to see me again. The same thing happened. But I do remember he stretched me a little bit the second time.
“My coaches asked me again after that if I was still in pain. I lied and said I was not because I did not want to go back to him. I thought maybe I was being sensitive because my injury was in a very sensitive spot and I was embarrassed because Dr. Nassar kept saying ‘pubic’ and I was embarrassed of that being a young girl who never talked about private things. After that, I never sought help again for any injury while in gymnastics, except at home.”
Nassar is currently incarcerated at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, a high-security facility located in central Florida with a reputation for housing high profile inmates. He was unavailable for comment, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.
“Due to safety and security reasons in the wake of the current pandemic, we are deferring coordinating and approving inmate interview requests, to include telephone interviews, out of an abundance of caution,” Scott Taylor, a BOP Office of Public Affairs official wrote in an email.
Armine Barutyan-Fong was present during both treatment sessions but “Dr. Nassar stood in her vision line,” Humphrey said.
“My coach was in the room with me, she never left my side when I had to do stuff, I remember him walking around to where she was and his back was toward her,”: Humphrey said. “I didn’t think anything of it at that time.”
Dozens of parents, athletes and coaches allege in court filings and interviews that Nassar regularly sexually assaulted young athletes under the guise of medical treatment even though their parents, coaches or other medical staff were sitting or standing just a few feet away. Former Michigan State softball player Tiffany Thomas alleges in a suit filed against Nassar and Michigan State in Los Angeles Superior Court that Nassar sexually assaulted her dozens of times between 1998 and 2001 often with a Michigan State trainer in the room during the treatment.
Barutyan-Fong said she was unaware of Nassar’s alleged sexual assault of Humphrey until her former athlete informed her this month
“Terin told me of her abuse by Nassar last week,” Barutyan-Fong said in a statement to SCNG. “I was devastated by the news. I have always been protective of my athletes and was shocked to hear that Nassar took advantage of her. My heart goes out to Terin for the suffering and pain that she is going through. I support Terin 100 percent in whatever course she decides to take in the near future.”
This week Humphrey recalled the conversation with Barutyan-Fong.
“She’s been devastated,” Humphrey said. “She was literally in tears. She’s like my second mother. I love her so much. She always tried to protect me.”
In the weeks and months after the Virginia incidents, Humphrey asked teammates on Team USA about their experiences with Nassar.
“All of them stated he was ‘wonderful and great,’” she recalled. “I felt it was just me being sensitive, everyone else loves him. I buried this deep down and attempted to forget about it. I never spoke of this to anyone. In fact it was easier to say it didn’t happen because you wouldn’t get questioned. I was very shy with anything to do with the body. I convinced myself it never happened.”
An early pregnancy exam with her doctor changed that.
“I remember I got really uncomfortable when I went to her and I remember shaking and it was so noticeable that I remember she even said, ‘Sweetie, it’s OK, you’re about to have a baby. This is going to be so normal,’” Humphrey said. “And I don’t know, something inside me, I was shaking so bad, I was triggering something, something is so wrong and each time I went back it didn’t get better. In fact it got worse and worse.
“Every time I would get an email from USA Gymnastics my heart would start racing. I had certain triggers that just, just oh, my gosh, it’s so hard to explain.
“What I put my daughter through emotionally, I feel so bad,” she continued, her words broken up by gasps and soft crying. “I had so much stress that I put on her and obviously USAG didn’t make it any better. I just feel so guilty. She’s such a good baby I just feel so bad for putting her through my emotional state when she was inside me.”
Humphrey told Elig during the psychiatric exam that she experienced severe anxiety during pelvic exams and that her level of anxiety escalated during childbirth.
“I felt helpless and overwhelmed because people were staring at me (my genitals) and examining me, especially when the male doctor, not my usual doctor, did it,” Humphrey said according to Elig’s affidavit.
Elig said in the declaration that “these events reminded her directly of her confusion and embarrassment when being examined by Dr. Larry Nassar. Further reminders immediately followed when she needed physical therapy for pelvic/back pain caused by childbirth with a previous spinal injury. She ended treatment prematurely because she could not endure it any longer, prolonging her physical pain.”
Like Humphrey, most of the Nassar survivors did not recognize that they had been sexually assaulted until years, even decades later.
“Delayed reporting is very much the rule than the exception. It is in most cases overall victims do not make a report,” said Laura Palumbo, National Sexual Violence Research Center communications director. “Sexual violence is the most underreported violent crime and for those who do make a report, generally, it is not immediately after an assault. So disclosure is very much a process.”
Elig made a similar assertion in detailing his examination of Humphrey in the affidavit.
“Delayed symptoms and disclosure of sexual abuse are not uncommon, and must be understood individually with respect to content, context, and developmental stage,” Elig said in the affidavit. “Ms. Humphrey clearly recalled the incident of child sexual abuse during adolescence and early adulthood, but she did not experience significant psychological symptoms until genital examination during pregnancy and childbirth served as a powerful reminder and precipitated a feeling of recurrence of sexual abuse. She was then flooded with feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, guilt, defectiveness, and lack of trust. Prior to that time, she had also been in the unusual position of working for the organization being blamed for failing to protect victims of child sexual abuse, creating a potent loyalty bind. These factors credibly explain Ms. Humphrey’s pattern of delayed symptoms and disclosure from a psychiatric viewpoint.”
Elig also diagnosed Humphrey with “severe major depression due to sex abuse,” according to a summary of the exam provided to SCNG and recommended she see a therapist twice a week and prescribed anti-depressants.
This summer the secret Humphrey carried through her pregnancy finally became too much to bear alone.
Humphrey spent a day with her parents at a local lake last month.
“I was coming back from the lake and my mom said something about USA Gymnastics but my heart just stopped,” Humphrey said. “And I didn’t say anything to her or my dad. They dropped me off at my home and I just started crying and I sat in the living room. My husband works nights so he was sleeping and I walked into the bedroom and I was just sobbing and he was like what is going on and I couldn’t tell him. ‘Nothing, I’m OK, I’m OK.’ And I walked back into the living room and I just started bawling again so I finally went back in there and said I have to tell you something and I told him and he didn’t know what to say.”