'The worst human being': John Geddert accuser Sarah Klein says she doesn't feel closure - NBC News
When former gymnast Sarah Klein first learned that the former Olympics coach John Geddert had been charged with human trafficking and sexual assault, she felt relieved.But a short time later, when Geddert killed himself, Klein felt gutted.Klein, 41, who says she was sexually assaulted by Nassar, said she had been waiting for Geddert to face justice “for a long time.†She said she believes Nassar and Geddert enabled each other for many years.“There would not be a Larry Nassar without John Geddert, and there would not have been a John Geddert without Larry Nassar,†said Klein, a Philadelphia-based attorney who represents survivors of sexual abuse.In the absence of a criminal trial for Geddert, Klein said she hopes that USA Gymnastics, the national governing body of gymnastics, and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), are both “held to account.â€.In a statement after Geddert’s death, USA Gymnastics said: “We had hoped that news of the criminal charges being brought against John Geddert would lead to justice through the legal process.Geddert’s suicide also robbed investigators of a potential source of information into Nasser’s other enablers, said Dmitriy Shakhnevich, a New York City-based lawyer and professor of Constitutional law at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.Shakhnevich said that the gymnasts' laser-like focus on becoming the best is what made them “perfect victims for the folks who are in power in that world.â€â€œIf I had a choice, I would choose the 17 years of almost daily sexual abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar than spending one more day with John Geddert“In my view, and I believe in the view of many of Geddert’s gymnasts, what he did to us was far worse and far more traumatizing than having a grown man digitally penetrate you almost daily,†Klein said