The measure will not move on to the House.

In a statement after the vote, Senate Republican leaders said they were united against those who commit crimes against children but could not overcome their concerns with the amendment as drafted. If it passed, they said, the retroactive lifting of the statute of limitations for older crimes “would have upended numerous constitutional and legally settled rights we all depend on, including the principles of legal certainty and reliance, the principle of finality of litigation, and due process.”

Previous reporting: The Colorado Senate gave initial approval Tuesday to that seeks to ultimately allow victims of years-old child sexual abuse to file lawsuits against their abusers and the institutions that protected them.

But Republican opposition, which solidified in late February, still threatens to derail the effort before an expected final vote in the chamber this week.

The resolution, if approved by lawmakers and then by voters statewide in November, would amend the state constitution to allow legislators to remove the statute of limitations preventing victims from suing over abuse that happened years ago. The change would be needed because of a Colorado Supreme Court decision last summer that invalidated a state law allowing for retroactive abuse lawsuits.

The threshold to refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot is two-thirds in each legislative chamber — posing a major hurdle for Democrats. They have a large majority in the Senate, but they’re one seat shy of that threshold. Republican opposition repeatedly has delayed the resolution’s advancement and now threatens to sink it entirely.

Supporters held a news conference in the Capitol Tuesday to rally support for moving the measure on to the House. Among those on hand was Rachael Denhollander, who was the first of many gymnasts to report their sexual assaults at the hands of disgraced former U.S. gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.

She described the need to hold institutions accountable.

“Access to the court system is the best chance anyone has at forcing institutions to take responsible, desperately needed, common-sense steps to protect the next generation,” Denhollander said. “Access to the court system is the only chance that survivors have for justice and for the help they desperately need.”

Later, on the Senate floor, the resolution’s backers said the amendment also would address other circumstances that often affect sex abuse survivors.

“The pain and trauma inflicted on victims of childhood sexual abuse is unique,” said Sen. Jessie Danielson, the Wheat Ridge Democrat sponsoring the bill with Sen. Rhonda Fields of Aurora. “Empirical evidence shows how survivors are unable to come forward to face their abusers until much later in life.”

With just over three weeks left in the legislative session, Danielson said the resolution needed to finally be put forward for a vote.

Senate Democrats sought to hammer home the importance of the resolution to skeptical Republicans: Danielson read testimony from abuse victims and said one was set to file a lawsuit but was blocked by the state Supreme Court. Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat, described how she was abused as a child.

But Republican opposition — rooted in concerns about fading memories, constitutional rights and hefty future lawsuits against schools and churches — appears to have held firm.

Danielson said before Tuesday’s preliminary vote that no Republican had committed to supporting the measure. Two top Senate Republicans, Minority Leader Paul Lundeen and assistant minority leader Bob Gardner, told fellow legislators they remained opposed.

Republican Sen. Mark Baisley’s name is still listed as a co-sponsor of the resolution, but he previously said he no longer supports it.

Tuesday’s vote, which required just a simple majority, was taken by voice, and no Republican senator appeared to speak in support. A final vote in the Senate could come as early as Wednesday. If the resolution fails to clear the two-thirds threshold, it won’t advance.

“In some ways, this is the hardest vote of my legislative career,” Lundeen told fellow legislators. He said he was concerned about “miscarriages of justice” and institutions facing lawsuits for incidents from years ago. “… My vote is cast in defense of the constitutional and legal principles each and every one of us, and future generations as well, rely on for protection in our civil society.”

Various insurance groups and the Colorado Catholic Conference are opposed to the bill, and some school groups have expressed concerns.

But Fields said that institutions shouldn’t be able to sweep past abuse “under the carpet.”

“I don’t think they need special protection,” she said. “I want them exposed.”

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Derek Chauvin was stabbed nearly two dozen times in the law library at a federal prison in Arizona. Larry Nassar was knifed repeatedly in his cell at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

The assaults of two notorious, high-profile federal prisoners by fellow inmates in recent months have renewed concerns about whether the chronically understaffed, crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons is capable of keeping people in its custody safe.

In the shadow of gangster James “Whitey” Bulger’s 2018 beating death at a West Virginia federal penitentiary and financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 suicide at a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, the Bureau of Prisons is again under scrutiny for failing to protect high-profile prisoners from harm.

Chauvin, 47, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020, was hospitalized for a week after he was assaulted Nov. 24 at a medium-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona — the same complex where an inmate tried to shoot a visitor last year with a contraband gun.

Chauvin’s suspected attacker, an ex-gang leader, told correctional officers he would have killed him if they hadn’t responded when they did, prosecutors said. He was charged last week with attempted murder and has been moved out of Chauvin’s prison to a federal penitentiary next door.

Chauvin’s family is “very concerned about the facility’s capacity to protect Derek from further harm,” his lawyer, Gregory Erickson, said. “They remain unassured that any changes have been made to the faulty procedures that allowed Derek’s attack to occur in the first place.”

Nassar, 60, the ex-U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor who sexually abused athletes, was treated for a collapsed lung after he was stabbed multiple times in the neck, chest and back on July 9 at a federal penitentiary in Coleman, Florida. His attacker was stopped by other inmates before officers arrived.

The attacks on Chauvin and Nassar, among dozens of other assaults and deaths involving lesser-known federal inmates, are symptoms of larger systemic problems within the Justice Department����ap largest agency that put all 158,000 federal prisoners at risk. They include severe staffing shortages, staff-on-inmate abuse, broken surveillance cameras and crumbling infrastructure.

The violence has challenged a perception — repeated by some lawyers and criminal justice experts quoted in the news media when Chauvin was sentenced last year — that federal prisons are far safer than state prisons or local jails. The inmates suspected of attacking Chauvin and Nassar both have violent histories.

After Chauvin’s attack, his mother complained in a since-deleted Facebook post that the Bureau of Prisons was keeping her in the dark on details of the assault and his medical condition — echoing complaints early in the COVID-19 pandemic when families weren’t informed about inmates who were dying from the virus until it was too late. The agency said it gave updates on Chauvin’s health to everyone he asked to be notified.

“Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd was a tragic loss of life and a horrifying reminder of the inequality that pervades our justice system,” said Daniel Landsman, the deputy director of policy at the criminal justice advocacy group FAMM, or Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

“However, no one’s sentence, regardless of their offense, includes being subjected to violence while they’re in prison. The attack on Chauvin is the latest in a long list of incidents that highlight the urgent need for comprehensive independent oversight of our federal Bureau of Prisons,” Landsman said.

An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported problems within the Bureau of Prisons, including rampant sexual abuse and other staff criminal conduct, dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.

The Bureau of Prisons, with more than 30,000 employees, 122 prison facilities and an annual budget of about $8 billion, has drawn increased oversight from Congress and scrutiny from government watchdogs in the wake of Bulger and Epstein’s deaths.

A law passed last year requires the Bureau of Prisons to overhaul outdated security systems and replace broken cameras — one of several critical issues that came to light in the wake of Epstein’s suicide. In some instances, however, the agency has been slow to comply, blaming technological challenges.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, meanwhile, has issued a pair of scathing reports citing management failures, flawed policies and widespread incompetence as factors in Bulger’s killing and blaming a “combination of negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures” for Epstein’s suicide.

“The numerous and serious transgressions that occurred in this matter came to light largely because they involved a high-profile inmate,” Horowitz wrote in a June report on Epstein’s suicide. “The fact that serious deficiencies occurred in connection with high-profile inmates like Epstein and Bulger is especially concerning given that the BOP would presumably take particular care in handling the custody and care of such inmates.”

High-profile inmates are labeled in the federal prison system as “Broad Publicity” because of their widespread publicity as a result of their criminal activity or notoriety as public figures. Incidents involving them typically attract far greater media attention and public curiosity than other prison mayhem, but they’re often a sign of larger dysfunction.

In the wake of Epstein’s suicide, officials at a federal jail in Brooklyn took the unusual step of making his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell wear paper clothing and sleep without bedsheets. They woke her up with flashlights every 15 minutes to make sure she was still alive.

But that����ap far from the norm. In June, another high-profile inmate, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, was found unresponsive in his cell by correctional officers making rounds after midnight at a federal prison medical center in North Carolina. Kaczynski previously attempted suicide while awaiting trial in 1998 but rejected a psychiatrist����ap diagnosis that he was mentally ill.

Responding to Horowitz, Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters wrote that lessons learned from the investigation would be “applied to the broader BOP correctional landscape.” But asked by the AP last week, the agency declined to detail what changes, if any, have been made, saying it does not “discuss specific security practices.”

Peters also promised a sweeping security review after the Tucson gun breach in November 2022, telling the AP that the Bureau of Prisons would assess safety measures and identify lapses at prison camps, potentially providing lessons for tightening protocols throughout the agency. Asked for an update, the agency said it “does not comment on matters related to investigations.”

A spokesperson, Benjamin O’Cone, said the Bureau of Prisons “takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community.”

“As part of that obligation, we review safety protocols and implement corrective actions when identified as necessary in those reviews to ensure that our mission of operating safe, secure, and humane facilities is fulfilled,” O’Cone said.

Chauvin began his incarceration in solitary confinement at a maximum-security Minnesota state prison, sequestered from other inmates and kept in his cell 23 hours a day “largely for his own protection,” his former lawyer wrote in court papers.

He transferred to FCI Tucson in August 2022 after making a deal to simultaneously serve all of his punishment for Floyd’s murder in federal prison — a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights, which was later reduced by seven months, and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.

Chauvin’s sentencing judge, empathizing with him over his isolation in state prison, expressed optimism that he would fare better with fewer restrictions as a federal inmate.

“While for security reasons and for your protection these conditions may have been necessary, I still feel for you and the difficult days you’ve gone through,” U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson told Chauvin at his July 2022 federal sentencing. “Hopefully, the Bureau of Prisons will be able to improve these conditions substantially.”

Rather than solitary confinement or protective custody, the Bureau of Prisons placed Chauvin in the “dropout yard” — a housing unit for former police officers, ex-gang members, sexual abusers and other high-risk prisoners.

Though generally thought to be safer for such inmates than the general prison population, those units still see occasional flashes of violence, like Nassar’s stabbing in a “dropout yard” unit at the U.S. Penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.

Nassar, who was also convicted of possessing images of child sexual abuse, was attacked in his cell after he purportedly made a lewd comment while watching a Wimbledon women’s tennis match on TV. An inmate, identified in prison records as Shane McMillan, stabbed him repeatedly before four other inmates pulled him away.

McMillan was previously convicted of assaulting a federal prison officer in Louisiana in 2006 and attempting to stab another inmate to death at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, in 2011. He remains locked up in Florida and has yet to be charged with attacking Nassar, who was moved to a federal penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Court records did not list a lawyer for him.

In May 2018, Nassar’s lawyers said, he was attacked within hours of being placed in general population at the Arizona federal penitentiary next to Chauvin’s prison. Nassar’s lawyers, who have not shared details of that assault, blamed it on the notoriety of his case and his seven-day televised sentencing.

In contrast, Chauvin’s move to federal prison appeared to start off well. In a brief glimpse of his life as a federal inmate, he appeared by video from FCI Tucson in March — wearing a prison-issued short-sleeve blue button-down shirt — to plead guilty in a Minnesota tax evasion case.

Last month, Chauvin mailed court papers from the prison — complete with his handwritten name and inmate number on the envelope — in a longshot bid to overturn his federal guilty plea. In them, he complained that his ex-lawyer had ignored supposed new evidence of his innocence, but said nothing about how he was being treated behind bars.

Prior to Chauvin’s stabbing, there were no public reports of violence toward him — but he was still at risk.

John Turscak, the former Mexican Mafia gang leader and one-time FBI informant accused of attacking Chauvin, told investigators he thought about stabbing him for a month before seeing an opportunity to strike in the law library around 12:30 p.m. local time on Nov. 24, federal prosecutors said.

Turscak stabbed Chauvin 22 times with an improvised knife, only stopping when correctional officers reached him and used pepper spray to subdue him, prosecutors said. FCI Tucson has struggled with low staffing in the past, but the Bureau of Prisons said nearly every correctional officer position is now filled and staffing wasn’t an issue the day Chauvin was attacked.

Two employees were working voluntary overtime, but none were on mandatory overtime, nor was the prison using augmentation — a practice in which nurses, teachers, cooks and other staff are pulled from other duties to guard inmates, the agency said.

Chauvin’s lawyer said he confirmed to his family that allegations in Turscak’s charging document were accurate, adding that the assailant ambushed him from behind.

Turscak told the FBI that he attacked Chauvin because he is a high-profile inmate for killing Floyd, prosecutors said. Turscak said he chose Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, as a symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and the Mexican Mafia’s “Black Hand” symbol, prosecutors said.

Turscak, 52, led a faction of the Mexican Mafia in the Los Angeles area in the late 1990s and was due to be released from federal prison in 2026 after serving more than 30 years for racketeering and conspiring to kill a gang rival. Court records did not list a lawyer for him.

Now, after Turscak’s arrest and Chauvin’s return to FCI Tucson, Erickson said he and his client����ap family have more questions — and concerns. They are continuing to push for answers on additional measures, if any, that are being taken to protect Chauvin, and will pursue “any avenues available under the law to ensure his continued safety,” Erickson said.

“It remains a mystery how the perpetrator was able to obtain and possess dangerous materials” to fashion a makeshift knife, “and how a guard was unable to reach and apprehend the perpetrator until Derek had been stabbed 22 times,” Erickson said.

“Why was Derek allowed into the law library without a guard in close enough proximity to stop a possible attack? the lawyer said. “His family continues to wonder.”

__

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The attack happened Sunday at United States Penitentiary Coleman, and Nassar was in stable condition on Monday, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

One of the people said Nassar had been stabbed in the back and in the chest. The two officers guarding the unit where Nassar was held were working mandated overtime shifts because of staffing shortages, one of the people said.

The people were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the attack or the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

Nassar is serving decades in prison for convictions in state and federal courts. He admitted sexually assaulting athletes when he worked at Michigan State University and at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians. Nassar also pleaded guilty in a separate case to possessing images of child sexual abuse.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has experienced significant staffing shortages in the last few years, an issue thrust into the spotlight in 2019 when the convicted financier Jeffrey Epstein took his own life at a federal jail in New York.

An Associated Press investigation in 2021 revealed nearly one third of federal correctional officer positions were vacant nationwide, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates. The staffing shortages have hampered the response to emergencies at other prisons, including suicides.

Other AP investigations have revealed sexual abuse and criminal conduct, among other problems, at the Bureau of Prisons — the Justice Department����ap largest agency, with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

The bureau’s new leader, Colette Peters, was brought in last year to reform the crisis-plagued agency. She has vowed to reform archaic hiring practices and bring new transparency. But problems have persisted, as shown by the the recent suicide of Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber,″ at a federal lockup in North Carolina.

On Sunday, one of the officers in Nassar’s unit was working a third straight day of overtime, each of them a 16-hour shift, one of the people familiar with the matter said. The other officer was on a second straight day of mandated overtime, the person said.

Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar, tweeted Monday that none of the women she spoke with are rejoicing that Nassar was attacked. “We’re grieving the reality that protecting others from him came with the near-certainty we would wake up to this someday.”

Another victim, Sarah Klein, said the stabbing forces her and others to relive their abuse and trauma “at the hands of Nassar and the institutions, including law enforcement, that protected him and allowed him to prey on children.”

“I want him to face the severe prison sentence he received because of the voices of survivors. I absolutely do not support violence because it����ap morally wrong and death would be an easy out for Nassar,” Klein said an emailed statement.

More than 150 women and girls testified during the 2018 sentencing of Nassar, who molested athletes under the guise of medical treatment. Some of them testified that — over the course of more than two decades of sexual abuse — they had told adults, including coaches and athletic trainers, what was happening but that it went unreported.

More than 100 women, including Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, collectively are seeking more than $1 billion from the federal government for the FBI’s failure to stop Nassar after agents became aware of allegations against him in 2015. He was arrested by Michigan State University police in 2016, more than a year later.

The Justice Department����ap inspector general said in July 2021 that the FBI made “fundamental” errors in investigating the sexual abuse allegations against Nassar and did not treat the case with the “utmost seriousness.” More athletes said they were molested before the the FBI swung into action.

USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation, and the organization’s then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis. But it took months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

The FBI acknowledged conduct that was “inexcusable and a discredit” to America’s premier law enforcement agency.

Michigan State, which was accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted by him. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.

In June 2022, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a final appeal from Nassar. Attorneys for Nassar said he was treated unfairly in 2018 and deserved a new hearing, based on vengeful remarks by Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who called him a “monster” who would “wither” in prison like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz.”

The state Supreme Court said that Nassar’s appeal was a “close question” and that it had “concerns” over the judge’s conduct. But the court also noted that Aquilina, despite her provocative comments, stuck to the sentencing agreement worked out by lawyers in the case.

Sisak reported from New York.

The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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The legal wrangling between USA Gymnastics and the hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by former national team doctor Larry Nassar, among others, is over after a $380 million settlement was reached.

The fight for substantive change within the sport’s national governing body is just beginning.

A federal bankruptcy court in Indianapolis on Monday approved the agreement between USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the more than 500 victims, ending one aspect of the fallout of the largest sexual abuse scandal in the history of the U.S. Olympic movement.

Over 90% of the victims voted in favor of the tentative settlement reached in September. That agreement called for $425 million in damages, but a modified settlement of $380 million was conditionally approved by the court. More than 300 victims were abused by Nassar, with the remaining victims abused by individuals affiliated with USA Gymnastics in some capacity.

The financial reckoning is just one part of the equation. A series of nonmonetary provisions will make the victims stakeholders at USA Gymnastics going forward. The provisions include a dedicated seat on the organization’s Safe Sport Committee, Athlete Health and Wellness Council and board of directors, as well as a thorough look at the culture and practices within USA Gymnastics that allowed abusers like Nassar to run unchecked for years.

“Individually and collectively, survivors have stepped forward with bravery to advocate for enduring change in this sport,” USA Gymnastics president Li Li Leung said in a statement after the settlement was approved. “We are committed to working with them, and with the entire gymnastics community, to ensure that we continue to prioritize the safety, health and wellness of our athletes and community above all else.”

Hundreds of girls and women have said Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, and a Michigan gym that’s a USA Gymnastics member.

He pleaded guilty in federal court to child pornography crimes before pleading guilty in state court to sexually assaulting female gymnasts. He was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison.

Rachael Denhollander, who in the fall of 2016 was the first woman to come forward to detail sexual abuse at the hands of Nassar, said the provisions were a pivotal part of the mediation process.

“It’s not about money, it’s about change,” Denhollander told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “It’s about an accurate assessment of what went wrong so that it is safer for the next generation.”

Denhollander has been one of the most outspoken Nassar victims from the outset of the scandal. She said it was important to move past the legal proceedings so women can move forward with their lives and get the help they need.

“The frank reality is the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is for survivors,” she said. “So many of these women, they can’t access medical care without a settlement. We had to balance that reality with the length of time it was taking. We felt it was in the best interest of everyone to accept this settlement … so that survivors would receive some semblance of justice.”

Denhollander pointed out some of the medical care required is not covered by certain types of insurance. The settlement will ease part of the financial burden.

The settlement comes nearly four years after an emotional sentencing hearing in Michigan in which hundreds of women detailed their experiences with Nassar and the toll it took on their lives.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland said the organization — which is paying $34 million of its own money and $73 million more from insurers toward the settlement — recognizes its role in “failing to protect these athletes, and we are sorry for the profound hurt they have endured.”

Denhollander described the five-plus years from when she first approached reporters at The Indianapolis Star to Monday as “hellish.”

“It’s been hellish for all of us,” she said. “To have to push for so long for the right things to take place, to have to push for so long to have justice happen … it should have never taken five years.”

USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy in December 2018 in an effort to consolidate the various lawsuits filed against it. The move also forced the USOPC to halt the decertification process it began against USA Gymnastics.

The organization has undergone a massive leadership overhaul in the interim and revamped its health and safety policies. The settlement will allow it to continue as the sport’s national governing body, though Denhollander stressed that USA Gymnastics has not gone far enough, which is why the involvement of the victims going forward is so significant.

“We need to see for ourselves what reform is taking place,” she said. “The ability to do that provides a level of accountability that hasn’t been in place up until now.”

___

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In what both sides view as a major breakthrough in the nearly three-year bankruptcy case, USA Gymnastics and the survivors’ agreement on the proposed $400,659,129 settlement as part of a reorganization plan follows a week of increasingly acrimonious discussions between USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee over the USOPC’s financial responsibilities in the case.

Recent discussions in the case have revealed an unlikely alliance between USA Gymnastics, the sport����ap Indianapolis-based national governing body, and the survivors’ committee on one side, and the USOPC on the other.

Attorneys for the USOPC proposed a $340 million settlement last week and then upped that to $360 million over the weekend

“This is a last ditch effort by the survivor’s committee to and reach a fair and just settlement,” said John Manley, an attorney for more than 100 survivors. “USA Gymnastics supports this and has acknowledged its responsibility.

“But if the USOPC can’t see its way clear to agree to a fair and just settlement than all this has been a waste of time. And I don’t expect them to. The USOPC under its leadership and its board has enabled people like Larry Nassar. The USOPC has repeatedly said it has no duty to protect athletes from predators like Larry Nassar. To put a fine point on it they maintain they had no duty to protect Simone Biles from Larry Nassar.

“That����ap something I would expect from Catholic bishops not the premier athletic organization in the United States.”

Under the terms of the proposed agreement former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny, former U.S. Olympic and national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi, former USA Gymnastics vice president Rhonda Faehn and the organization’s former board chairman Paul Parilla, an Orange County attorney, would be released from further litigation related to the Nassar case.

The agreement does not release for U.S. Olympic head coach Don Peters, SCATS, the Huntington Beach gymnastics club Peters helped make world famous, or former Olympic and national team coaches Steve and Beth Rybacki, or their Southern California club Charter Oaks.

The settlement has yet to be fully funded according to court documents. Insurance carriers for USA Gymnastics, the USOPC and the Karolyis have so far committed to fund $292,332,331.

“This report mischaracterizes the status of the mediation and violates the mediation process by disclosing information the court has ordered be kept confidential,”  the USOPC said in a statement to the Southern California News Group Thursday night. “Since March of 2019, the USOPC has participated actively and consistently in the efforts to reach a resolution that compensates the survivors of Nassar’s abuse. Contrary to this report, we have offered to contribute substantial funds to such a resolution. This breach of the court order will not deter our efforts to reach fair settlement for all survivors.”

The USOPC reported $63.2 million in revenue in 2020 with $245.3 million in assets, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service and other financial documents.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland received $882,434 in compensation in 2020 plus an additional $36,419 from related organizations. The USOPC paid $4.02 million last year in salaries to officers, executives and other key employees, according to IRS filings and financial records. Three USOPC employees were paid more than $500,000 in 2020, ten more than $300,000. The organization also paid $40.2 million in employee salaries plus $6.3 million in pension contributions and other benefits.

The USOPC also spent $6.3 million on legal fees in 2020, according to the documents.

The filing also comes as the U.S. Senate considers a under the provisions of a new federal oversight law.

Congress as early as November 1 could dissolve the USOPC board under the landmark Empowering Olympians and Paralympians and Amateur Athlete Act of 2020. The act places greater legal liability on the USOPC and the national governing bodies under its umbrella for sexual abuses by coaches, officials and employees in addition to providing Congress with mechanisms to dissolve the USOPC’s board of directors and decertify NGBs.

USA Gymnastics, facing hundreds of civil lawsuits from survivors who were sexually abused by Nassar as well as women who allege they were sexually abused by former Olympic team head coaches Peters and John Geddert, and being stripped of its national governing body status by the USOPC, filed for Chapter 11 proceedings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in December 2018.

The case, because of federal bankruptcy guidelines, placed a stay on legal proceedings against USA Gymnastics and steps by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to decertify the national governing body.

USA Gymnastics proposed a $217 million settlement with survivors as part of a reorganization plan filed with the bankruptcy court in early 2020. A disclosure statement filed with the court outlined a tiered pay-out plan where USA Gymnastics would pay $1.25 million to former Olympic and World Championships team members who were abused by Nassar but $82,550 to others.

Attorneys for 512 of the 546 survivors who said they were sexually abused by Nassar and other USOPC and USA Gymnastics national team coaches and officials told SCNG in March 2020 that . The rejection was not just about the proposed financial settlement. Survivors, like Congress, are demanding USA Gymnastics and the USOPC turn over documents that will provide a fuller, if not complete, picture of who was aware, who enabled and who ignored and covered up abuse by Nassar and others such as former Olympic team coaches Peters and Geddert.

USA Gymnastics and the survivors committee filed a reorganization plan with the bankruptcy court in August that who allege they were sexually abused by Nassar, Peters, Geddert and others.

While that plan had been approved by a survivors’ committee, only four of eight insurance providers have agreed to the proposal leaving at least half of the settlement unfunded as currently presented, according to the filing.

The 133-page proposal appeared to be designed to apply pressure on the USOPC to fund at least part of the settlement. SCNG has previously reported that the USOPC has maintained in a series of court filings that it has no legal obligation to protect Olympic athletes from sexual or physical abuse.

USA Gymnastics had a longstanding policy prior to the Nassar scandal of not warning member gyms or parents of athletes of sexual misconduct allegations against coaches or other individuals, a longtime top aide to the organization’s former CEO acknowledged in a previously undisclosed sworn in June.

Renee Jamison, the administrative assistant to former USA Gymnastics CEO Penny from 2005 to 2011 and later the organization’s director of administration and Olympic relations, also revealed in the deposition that employees were instructed by USA Gymnastics not to report sexual misconduct complaints to law enforcement or Child Protective Services – even though they were informed by the organization that they were mandated reporters.

Instead, USA Gymnastics employees prior to 2015 were told to forward sexual misconduct complaints to attorneys representing the organization – first Jack Swarbrick, and later Scott Himsel, Jamison said. Swarbrick is currently the University of Notre Dame athletic director.

The policy, Jamison said, was one of the reasons why Penny and USA Gymnastics did not notify Michigan State University officials about sexual assault allegations against Nassar when they were first brought to Penny’s attention in June 2015. Michigan State officials said they did not become aware of allegations that Nassar had sexually assaulted Team USA members under the guise of medical treatment until the allegations were made public in September 2016.

Top USOPC officials were aware of allegations that Nassar had sexually abused Nichols and other U.S. national team members in the summer of 2015 but took no action to report the abuse to law enforcement or discipline Nassar and continued to be briefed on efforts by Penny to conceal the allegations from the public and potential future victims.

Nassar continued to sexually abuse new victims at Michigan State, where he was on the sports medicine staff, in the 16 months between when USA Gymnastics, the USOPC and the FBI were told of the allegations against him and when Nassar’s abuse became public in September 2016.

USOPC officials were also briefed on discussions between Penny and W. Jay Abbott, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis office, about Abbott receiving a top level security position with the USOPC.

The Justice Department����ap Office of Inspector General recently determined that Abbott lied to DOJ investigators about applying for the USOPC post. The OIG investigation found that Abbott also lied to investigators about the initial steps he took in the days and weeks after he learned of allegations against Nassar in July 2015.

Abbott retired from the FBI in January 2018.

In a letter to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Olympic champions Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman and World champion Maggie Nichols called on Congress to pass a joint resolution Nov. 1 to dissolve the USOPC board under the landmark Empowering Olympians and Paralympians and Amateur Athlete Act of 2020.

Blumenthal and Moran were co-authors of the legislation, which places greater legal liability on the USOPC and the national governing bodies under its umbrella for sexual abuses by coaches, officials and employees. It also provides Congress with mechanisms to dissolve the USOPC’s board of directors and decertify NGBs.

“We believe it is time for Congress to exercise its authority over the organization it created by replacing the entire USOPC board with leadership willing and able to do what should have been done long ago: Responsibly investigate the systemic problem of sexual abuse within Olympic organizations — including the USOPC – and all efforts to conceal it,” the four women, all survivors of former USOPC and USA Gymnastics team physician Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse, wrote in the letter to Blumenthal and Moran.

The letter comes in anticipation of action in the Senate to place the USOPC board under greater scrutiny and even move to dissolve the board entirely.

“We’re grateful to these athletes for their continued demand for justice and accountability – a goal we share,” Blumenthal and Moran said in a joint statement. “We look forward to continuing our work together to ensure that USOPC is held responsible for past failures.

“Our bill gave Congress the power to dissolve USOPC and individual sports’ governing bodies in response to clear evidence that these institutions were not always capable of holding themselves accountable. This oversight mechanism requires that Congress develop procedures to appoint a new board before dissolving the old one, and must be approved by the House and Senate before being signed by the President.”

The letter also follows gripping testimony by the four women last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“In sacrificing my childhood for the chance to compete for the United States, I am haunted by the fact that even after I reported my abuse, so many women and girls had to suffer at the hands of Larry Nassar,” Nichols testified during the hearing that focused on the FBI’s handling and cover-up of multiple allegations that Nassar for years sexually abused U.S. Olympic and national team gymnasts under the guise of medical treatment.

USOPC was also heavily criticized by the athletes and Senate members during the hearing.

Nichols in June 2015 became the first U.S. national team member to report allegations of abuse against Nassar to USA Gymnastics. Top USOPC officials, including then-CEO Scott Blackmun, were made aware of the allegations shortly thereafter but did not take action. The USOPC board did not call for an investigation of the Nassar matter until February 2018.

“Since being aware of Nassar’s abuse, the USOPC’s top priority has been to hide culpability and avoid accountability,” the women wrote in the letter.

“We believe the Board’s past actions demonstrate an unwillingness to confront the endemic problems with abuse that athletes like us have faced and a continued refusal to pursue true and necessary reform of the broken Olympic system,” the letter said.

In a statement the USOPC said it “has deep respect and empathy for the survivors of abuse. The letter addressed to Congress underscores their concern, and we recognize the bravery of the athlete survivors who continue to bring these issues forward. The letter references issues that USOPC has been addressing for more than two years – and the work we continue to do every day.”

Biles told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “enough is enough” as she and three other U.S. gymnasts spoke in stark emotional terms about the lasting toll Nassar’s crimes have taken on their lives. In response, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “deeply and profoundly sorry” for delays in Nassar’s prosecution and the pain it caused.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion — widely considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time — said that she “can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you.” She declared herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

“I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse,” Biles said through tears. In addition to failures of the FBI, she said USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee “knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge.”

Biles said a message needs to be sent: “If you allow a predator to harm children, the consequences will be swift and severe. Enough is enough.”

The hearing is part of a congressional effort to hold the FBI accountable after multiple missteps in investigating the case, including the delays that allowed the now-imprisoned Nassar to abuse other young gymnasts. At least 40 girls and women said they were molested after the FBI had been made aware of allegations against Nassar in 2015.

An internal investigation by the Justice Department released in July said that the FBI made fundamental errors in the probe and did not treat the case with the “utmost seriousness” after USA Gymnastics first reported the allegations to the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis in 2015. The FBI has acknowledged its own conduct was inexcusable.

Wray blasted his own agents who failed to appropriately respond to the complaints and made a promise to the victims that he was committed to “make damn sure everybody at the FBI remembers what happened here” and that it never happens again.

A supervisory FBI agent who had failed to properly investigate the Nassar case, and later lied about it, has been fired by the agency, Wray said.

McKayla Maroney, a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in 2012, recounted to senators a night when, at age 15, she found the doctor on top of her while she was naked — one of many times she was abused. She said she thought she was going to die that evening. But she said that when she recalled those memories in a call with FBI agents, crying, there was “dead silence.”

Maroney said the FBI “minimized and disregarded” her and the other gymnasts as they delayed the probe.

“I think for so long all of us questioned, just because someone else wasn’t fully validating us, that we doubted what happened to us,” Maroney said. “And I think that makes the healing process take longer.”

Biles and Maroney were joined by Aly Raisman, who won gold medals alongside them on the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, and gymnast Maggie Nichols. Raisman told the senators that it “disgusts” her that they are still looking for answers six years after the original allegations against Nassar were reported.

Raisman noted the traumatic effect the abuse has had on all of them.

“Being here today is taking everything I have,” she said. “My main concern is I hope I have the energy to just walk out of here. I don’t think people realize how much it affects us.”

Biles acknowledged in January 2018 that she was among the hundreds of athletes who were abused by Nassar. She is the only one of the witnesses who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — held this year after a one-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic — where she removed herself from the team finals to focus on her mental health.

She returned to earn a bronze medal on beam but told the committee the lingering trauma from her abuse at the hands of Nassar played a factor in her decision to opt out of several competitions. At the hearing, she said she had wanted her presence in Tokyo “to help maintain a connection” between the failures of officials and the Olympic competition, but that “has proven to be an exceptionally difficult burden for me to carry.”

Democratic and Republican senators expressed disgust over the case and said they would continue to investigate. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said it was among the most compelling and heartbreaking testimony he had ever heard.

“We have a job to do and we know it,” Durbin said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Congress must “demand real change, and real accountability, and we will not be satisfied by platitudes and vague promises about improved performance” from federal law enforcement. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, called Nassar a “monster” and wondered how many other abusers have escaped justice, considering that even world-class athletes were ignored in this case.

The internal probe by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who testified alongside Wray, was spurred by allegations that the FBI failed to promptly address complaints made in 2015 against Nassar. USA Gymnastics had conducted its own internal investigation and the organization’s then-president, Stephen Penny, reported the allegations to the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis. But it was months before the bureau opened a formal investigation.

The watchdog investigation found that when the FBI’s Indianapolis field office’s handling of the matter came under scrutiny, officials there did not take any responsibility for the missteps and gave incomplete and inaccurate information to internal FBI inquiries to make it look like they had been diligent in their investigation.

The report also detailed that while the FBI was investigating the Nassar allegations, the head of the FBI’s field office in Indianapolis, W. Jay Abbott, was talking to Penny about getting a job with the Olympic Committee. He applied for the job but didn’t get it and later retired from the FBI, the report said.

Nassar was ultimately charged in 2016 with federal child pornography offenses and sexual abuse charges in Michigan. He is now serving decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment when he worked for Michigan State and Indiana-based USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians.

Litigation over the abuse may soon be coming to an end after USA Gymnastics and hundreds of Nassar’s victims filed a joint $425 million settlement proposal in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis last month.

Graves reported from Pittsburgh.

John Geddert was supposed to appear in an Eaton County court, near Lansing. His body was found at a rest area along Interstate 96, according to state police. No other details were immediately released.

“This is a tragic end to a tragic story for everyone involved,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

Nessel earlier announced that Geddert was charged with two dozen crimes, including sexual assault, human trafficking and running a criminal enterprise. The charges were the latest fallout from the sexual abuse scandal involving Nassar, a former Michigan State University sports doctor now in prison.

Geddert, 63, was head coach of the 2012 U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team, which won a gold medal. He was long associated with Nassar, who was the Olympic team’s doctor and also treated injured gymnasts at Twistars, Geddert����ap Lansing-area gym.

Among the charges, Geddert was accused of lying to investigators in 2016 when he denied ever hearing complaints about Nassar. But the bulk of the case against him involved his gym in Dimondale and how he treated the young athletes whose families paid to have them train under him.

The charges against Geddert had “very little to do” with Nassar, said Assistant Attorney General Danielle Hagaman-Clark.

Geddert was charged with using his strong reputation in gymnastics to commit a form of human trafficking by making money through the forced labor of young athletes.

“The victims suffer from disordered eating,” Nessel said, “including bulimia and anorexia, suicide attempts and attempts at self harm, excessive physical conditioning, repeatedly being forced to perform even when injured, extreme emotional abuse and physical abuse, including sexual assault.

“Many of these victims still carry these scars from this behavior to this day,” the attorney general said.

Nessel acknowledged that the case might not fit the common understanding of human trafficking.

“We think of it predominantly as affecting people of color or those without means to protect themselves … but honestly it can happen to anyone, anywhere,” she said. “Young impressionable women may at times be vulnerable and open to trafficking crimes, regardless of their stature in the community or the financial well-being of their families.”

Geddert was suspended by Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics during the Nassar scandal. He told families in 2018 that he was retiring.

On his LinkedIn page, Geddert described himself as the “most decorated women’s gymnastics coach in Michigan gymnastics history.” He said his Twistars teams won 130 club championships.

But Geddert was often portrayed in unflattering ways when Nassar’s victims spoke during court hearings in 2018.

“What a great best friend John was to Larry for giving him an entire world where he was able to abuse so easily,” said gymnast Lindsey Lemke. “You two sure do have a funny meaning of friendship. You, John Geddert, also deserve to sit behind bars right next to Larry.”

Rachael Denhollander, the first gymnast to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual abuse in 2016, said she was proud of the women who stepped forward against Geddert.

“So much pain and grief for everyone,” she said on Twitter after Geddert’s death. “To the survivors, you have been heard and believed, and we stand with you.”

White reported from Detroit.

Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Kathie Klages, 65, was found guilty by a jury in February of a felony and a misdemeanor for denying she knew of Nassar’s abuse prior to 2016 when survivors started to come forward publicly. She also was sentenced to 18 months of probation.

Klages testified at trial, and in a tearful statement Tuesday, that she did not remember being told about abuse. She said she had been seeing a therapist to try to remember the conversations and apologized to victims if they occurred.

“Even when I don’t express it to others, I struggle with what I’ve been accused of and what my role in this tragedy may have been,” she said in court.

Two women testified in November 2018 that in 1997 they told Klages that Nassar had sexually abused them and spoke Tuesday in court ahead of the sentencing. One of the women, Larissa Boyce, testified that Klages held up a piece of paper in front of the then-16-year-old and said if she filed a report there could be serious consequences for Boyce.

“I am standing here representing my 16-year-old self who was silenced and humiliated 23 years ago and unfortunately, all of the hundreds of girls that were abused after me,” Boyce said.

If the case had not involved Nassar, her lawyer has said, Klages would never have been found guilty. Nearly 200 letters were submitted to the judge on Klages’ behalf, her lawyer, Mary Chartier, said in a court filing ahead of the hearing. She noted that Klages sent her granddaughter, daughter and son to Nassar for health care.

“Mrs. Klages was one of thousands of people, including the police and the parents who were present in the room during treatments, who were fooled by a master manipulator with a singular design,” Chartier said.

It����ap “shameful” to say that Klages could have prevented the scandal, Chartier said.

“Numerous people were told about the procedure — nurses, athletic trainers at other schools, psychologists, doctors and a high school counselor — and they did nothing,” Chartier said, quoting investigation reports. “Most notably, police and prosecutors were aware of the procedures, and they did nothing. To ignore this and claim that Mrs. Klages could have stopped the devastation wrought by Mr. Nassar is just plain false.”

Nassar was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison for decades of sexual abuse to hundreds of athletes.

Klages is the second person other than Nassar to be convicted of charges related to his serial molestation of young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment. The misdemeanor carried up to a 2-year prison sentence, while the felony carried up to a 4-year prison sentence.

Nassar’s boss at Michigan State, ex-College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean William Strampel, was sentenced to jail for crimes including neglecting a duty to enforce protocols on Nassar after a patient complained about sexual contact in 2014.

Anna Liz Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Kathie Klages, 65, was found guilty by a jury in February of a felony and a misdemeanor for denying she knew of Nassar’s abuse prior to 2016 when survivors started to come forward publicly.

The misdemeanor carries up to a 2-year prison sentence or a fine of up to $5,000. The felony carries up to a 4-year prison sentence or a fine of up to $5,000.

Water was cut off Wednesday to the courthouse where Klages was scheduled to be sentenced. Repairs were expected to take several hours. No new date was immediately scheduled.

Two women testified in November 2018 that in 1997 they told Klages that Nassar had sexually abused them. One of the women, Larissa Boyce, testified that Klages held up a piece of paper in front of the then-16-year-old and said if she filed a report there could be serious consequences for Boyce.

Nassar was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison for decades of sexual abuse to hundreds of athletes.

Klages is the second person other than Nassar to be convicted of charges related to his serial molestation of young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment.

Nassar’s boss at Michigan State, ex-College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean William Strampel, was sentenced to jail for crimes including neglecting a duty to enforce protocols on Nassar after a patient complained about sexual contact in 2014.

Anna Liz Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.