According to court documents filed last week in Walker County, Texas, evidence tampering charges against former USA Gymnastics president and CEO StevePenny have been dismissed.
The criminal case in which survivors of disgraced Team USA doctor Larry Nassar's sexual abuse had hoped to gain a greater degree of accountability from the people they consider to be among Nassar's many enablers was dismissed.
There is now insufficient evidence to prosecute according to current law and facts present in the case, according to a dismissal letter filed by the Walker County Texas District Attorney.
It is a clear picture of why survivors don't report abuse and why abuse is allowed, according to an attorney who first reported Nassar's crimes.
Every time survivors see something like this, it retraumatizes them. Denhollander said it was a slap in the face for survivors everywhere.
The USAG CEO,Penny, resigned in March of last year. He was indicted for tampering with evidence in Texas. According to the indictment, in November 2016 he ordered USA Gymnastics employees at the ranch to remove any documents related to the Nassar investigation.
Amy White, a former USAG national team travel manager, told attorneys investigating the case on behalf of the United States Olympic Committee that she was ordered to refuse investigators access to the ranch when they first showed up on November 8, 2016 without a search warrant.
White told investigators that she was told to go to a local department store and buy a suitcase large enough to hold all of Nassar's belongings, and that she should bring it with her to the USA Gymnastics headquarters in Indianapolis. White told investigators she flew to Indianapolis with the evidence before the police showed up the next day.
Tom Bean, a detective with the Walker County, Texas, sheriff's office, said that when he and a member of the Texas Rangers showed up at the ranch with a search warrant in hand, the few documents they were able to retrieve appeared incomplete.
I knew the documentation we were getting was not what we were looking for.
Penny took the files. Penny did not cooperate. Denhollander said that he did not give evidence.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Walker County District Attorney Will Durham, an Irvine, California, attorney representing more than 200 Nassar survivors wrote, "Mr. Penny knowingly obstructed a police investigation of the worst pedophile in American history and now you and Walker County are."
According to the attorney forPenny, he only intended to protect evidence and never saw the documents that he was ordered to bring to Indianapolis.
There is not a single living soul who will say that StevePenny ever saw those documents.
In the summer of 2015, a member of the women's national team raised concerns about Nassar, and that's whenPenny learned about it. After more than five weeks,Penny reported those concerns to law enforcement.
The father of a gymnast who spoke up about Nassar said that he misled them from the beginning.
After reporting Nassar to the FBI,Penny struck up a relationship with a former Indianapolis-based FBI special agent. Abbott was recommended byPenny for a soon-to-be-vacant security job with the USOC.
A Department of Justice inspector general's report cited a meeting betweenPenny and Abbott as an example of poor judgement for a law enforcement officer.
The FBI investigated complaints about Nassar for more than a year before Denhollander reported him to police. At least 70 girls and young women were abused during that time, according to the inspector general.
13 survivors who say they were abused by Nassar took the first steps towards suing the FBI for negligently handling their reports. According to a report published last summer, the FBI mishandled the Nassar investigation.
The Department of Justice initially declined to charge any FBI agents with a crime. The FBI's handling of the case was called a "horrible institutional failure" by the U.S. Attorney General in a Senate hearing Tuesday.
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