Transcriber: Eunice Tan Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
How many of you, by a show of hands, have heard the name Larry Nassar?
Wow, that's a lot.
For those of you who don't know who Larry is,
he was sentenced
and is spending the rest of his life in prison
for sexually abusing over 500 girls.
I was one of his first.
I'm here today to pay tribute to an army of women
who came together
to put away one of the most prolific serial pedophiles of all time -
not just the sister survivors
but the other women
who pushed the boundaries,
who saw something was wrong,
and who did something about it.
I'm going to start my story at age 37,
at a point that some might call a midlife crisis
but I'm choosing to call it "a midlife enlightenment."
I was a high achiever:
Ivy League, Wall Street, law school, business school;
corporate consultant for Fortune 500 companies;
money, success.
But also two massive pelvic reconstructive surgeries;
extremely compromised fertility;
migraines, anxiety, depression,
suicidal.
Something I'm going to share with you that is very vulnerable for me to say here
is that the only way that I could fall asleep at night
was to picture my own death over and over again
until I fell asleep.
It was the only thing that soothed me
and the only thing that brought me peace.
But in the fall of 2016, everything changed.
I was sitting in my office,
and I got a text message from a girlfriend of mine,
with a link to an article in The Indianapolis Star.
I clicked on the link, and it said:
"Former USA Gymnastics doctor accused of abuse,"
with a picture of Larry Nassar.
My first thought was,
"Not my Larry.
My most loved one, trusted one,
one of the most formative males in my entire childhood.
Someone whose wedding I went to.
Someone who came to every one of my birthday parties.
Not my Larry."
But then I read the accounts of the two brave survivors
that came forward in that article,
and it hit me:
that intravaginal and anal "treatment" that I had been receiving
from 8 years old through 25 years old,
three to four times a week, every week, every year
was not, in fact, medical treatment,
and it was not, in fact, designed to help me.
It was the sexual abuse of a child.
It was a lot.
I had been groomed;
my parents had been groomed;
my entire community had been groomed
by this man.
We loved Larry;
we believed Larry;
we believed in Larry.
Larry's first reaction was to deny everything
and blame everyone else.
He blamed the police, the lawyers.
And the community?
They rallied around him;
they supported him.
Officials at the U.S. Olympic Committee,
Michigan State University,
and USA Gymnastics
supported Larry.
But they did not know Gina Nichols and Lynn Raisman,
mothers of champion gymnasts,
who, when with their daughters
they came forward and alerted USA Gymnastics and the FBI
one year before the IndyStar article came out
and nothing happened,
they did not stop.
When USA Gymnastics and the FBI did nothing,
these two mamas wouldn't let it go.
And they did not know the brilliant Rachael Denhollander -
the first woman to come forward publicly,
the impetus for that IndyStar article,
the woman who blew this whole thing wide open.
And they did not know Olympic champion Jamie Dantzscher -
one of the first women to come forward
and the first to file a civil lawsuit.
They did not know Hall of Fame rhythmic gymnast Jessica Howard
or national champion gymnast Jeanette Antolin,
who along with Jamie, the three of them came forward,
and they were the first to go on camera on a 60 Minutes interview
to speak their truth about Larry Nassar
when no one else had come forward yet.
And they did not know Detective Lieutenant Andrea Munford
of the Michigan State Police Department,
who did what other law enforcement and the FBI had refused to do:
she served a search warrant.
And she went to Larry's house
and opened his trash cans about to be picked up by the garbage man.
And in his trash cans,
she found hard drives
that had 37,000 images of child pornography on them,
including infants.
And Larry's supporters did not know
Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis,
who, as part of the plea deal she struck with Larry,
insisted that every victim of Larry
get the chance to deliver a victim impact statement -
to walk into that courtroom and stand at that podium four feet away from Larry
and look in his eyes and tell him the destruction that he had caused.
At the time, I was not ready to put my name on this list.
I was only known as "Victim 125."
Here is a portion of my victim impact statement.
(Video) Sarah Klein: So what you need to hear from me today is this:
when a grown man penetrates the vagina or anus of a small girl
or does anything at all to compromise her sense of trust or safety,
the course of her life is changed forever.
In that moment,
when you had each and every girl who is here this week on your table -
not to mention the hundreds and thousands, potentially,
of girls who are not here or who have not yet come forward -
in that split second,
when you made the choice
to put that finger inside of our little, tiny bodies for the first time,
not for medical treatment but for your own pleasure,
you changed the entire course of our lives.
One moment.
One finger.
You took something from us that we will never, ever get back:
our innocence,
our childhoods,
and in a sense,
our virginities.
Those were not yours to take.
(Onstage) And Larry's supporters, they did not know Maura Mandt.
Maura is the executive producer of the ESPY Awards.
And Maura approached me
and asked me to come forward publicly for the first time,
live on national television.
And this time, I was ready.
(Video) (Applause)
Sarah Klein: Speaking up and speaking out is not easy.
Telling our stories of abuse over and over and over again
in graphic detail
is not easy.
We're sacrificing privacy,
we're being judged and scrutinized,
and it's grueling,
and it's painful,
but it is time.
(Applause)
As a mother,
I am here to say that we must start caring about children's safety
more than we care about adults' reputations.
(Applause)
And as a survivor, I am here to say
that if we can just give one person the courage to use their voice,
this is worth it.
If one more victim of sexual abuse feels less alone tonight,
then our suffering has meaning.
(Onstage) On behalf of this army of women
and the other men and women who have joined our army,
we are dedicated to -
and this is worth repeating -
we are dedicated to caring more about children's lives,
children's dreams,
and children's safety
more than we care about adults' reputations
and more than we care about the institutions.
And if we can give our children a voice -
and we must give our children a voice -
it would be to say,
"Question authority.
Think for yourself.
And use and trust your intuition."
I was Victim 125.
I am attorney Sarah Klein.
Thank you.
(Applause)