Kamerin Moore
date of testimony: January 22th 2018
location of testimony: Lansing, Michigan
age of abuse: 11
May I speak to the defendant?
Larry, initially I wasn’t going to come here and say anything to you. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I didn’t want this child I’m carrying to be in the same room as a child molester. Even unborn life shouldn’t be subjected to that. That’s how deeply I hate you for what you did to me.
I was a gymnast at Twistars for 12 years and I was notorious in my gym for always being injured. I had my first major injury when I was 10 and that marked the beginning of our very long, very close relationship.
Every year it was something new, a torn hamstring, a fractured back, and surgery after surgery after surgery. Every time I thought my gymnastics career was over, you were there to nurse me back to health any place and any time. You allowed me to come to your house late at night or had me sneak in the back door at MSU for treatment.
I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that the great Larry Nassar was always at my disposal. You called me your guinea pig because you’d always try out your new techniques or treatment tools on me and we always joked about how big my file was. By the time I graduated I had three or four files, I think, to hold all the paperwork from all the times you had treated me, all the times you had worked to gain my trust, and eventually all the times you abused that trust in order to abuse me.
When my dad passed away when I was 12 you became the only adult male figure in my life that I trusted. That was also the year that I made the U.S. National Team as well as the year that you and I became much closer.
You would talk trash about my coaches because you knew how much I hated them. You would have snacks for me at the national team training camps because you knew we were on a highly restricted diet. You even cried to me one day alone in your home as you told me one of your deepest secrets about your family. You weren’t just a doctor to me, you were my buddy.
But it wasn’t long after our friendship developed that you decided I needed what we now call your special treatment. I vividly remember the first time. I remember you telling me that I had to wear either my leotard or shorts for the treatment. I remember how absolutely mortified I was when you asked me if I had started my period yet because you couldn’t due the treatment if I had a tampon in. And I remember becoming more and more uncomfortable and tense as your hand slowly massaged its way closer to my genitals, and then you put your finger inside me all the while talking to me as if what you were doing was perfectly normal. It wasn’t.
You abused the trust that I had and so many others put in you for your own sexual gratification. For that alone I can’t imagine a punishment great enough for you. However, in my eyes you did something to me which is even more unforgiveable, you molested a little girl who had just lost her father.
You knew my personal life all too well, and I can’t help but believe you used my father’s death as yet another opportunity to manipulate the trust I put in you. Was I not suffering enough, or did my suffering making it that much more pleasurable for you? I don’t want to know the answer to that.
I’m mad at myself when I think about every time you put your fingers inside me and I continued to trust you, no matter how disgusted and embarrassed I was, no matter how hard I shut my eyes, and no matter how many times I lied to you and told you that I felt so much better just so it would end.
Even when we were alone in your treatment room at MSU and you had the audacity to ask me if you could videotape yourself doing the treatment on me, you told me that it was so you could teach other doctors how to do the same. What a great educator you are. I thank the little girl I was every day that she had the common sense to say no while you were setting up that video camera. You had never met a little girl with a voice of her own before, had you?
I want to thank my mom right now for raising me to know that even as a little girl I had the power to say no to a grown man. I doubt she ever thought I would have to use that power against someone she considered a friend. She did consider you a friend. She trusted you, and now she feels that she’s failed me as a mother because she couldn’t see what a psychopath you are. Her and I both have to live with that every day.
It’s hard to imagine that, even after all of that, you had me so wrapped around your finger and I still trusted you so much. Even when I was a sophomore in college and you were the only person I called to help me make the decision to end my gymnastics career due to my injuries. After 18 years of gymnastics, you were the only person I called. Not even my own mother. And do you remember what you told me? You said, Kami, you suffered more than anyone in order to do this sport and nobody should have to suffer that much. It’s time to be done. So I guess in some weird way you did care if I suffered. You just didn’t care when it pleasured you.
When I found out what you had really been doing to me I understood so many things about why I am the way I am now. Why I hate when anyone touches me unless I initiate it, even my own boyfriend at the time. Why expressing any type of emotion to anyone is an extremely calculated move for me. And if anyone ever makes me feel like I need them, I get so angry and I immediately cut them off from my life.
Sometimes I feel like the only emotion I’m capable of feeling is anger.
Almost every friend I’ve ever had has told me that they don’t understand me, they don’t understand why I want to live alone. I don’t like being around other people when I’m vulnerable. They don’t understand why sometimes I’m the life of the party and then all of a sudden I seclude myself in a corner and shut down completely. At this point they’ve learned to just leave me alone because they have no idea what to do.
I could go on for days about all the ways that what you did changed me, but that would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it, because you don’t care.
You’re too concerned about your own mental health and pretending to be some sort of victim in that enormous disaster that you created.
You’ve heard from so many young women about how confused they are trying to process what you’ve done to them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there for my teammates while they were struggling to deal with that, but I was there for one person, and I had to watch them process their confusion, my own brother. Imagine that. He’s now a gymnast at the University of Michigan, and when he realized what a monster you are, I watched him frantically search the internet trying to find some proof that the Chi in his shoulder is somehow connected to his genitals, because after he had surgery on his shoulders you treated him in your basement. You pulled his pants slightly down to expose him in front of one of your other female victims, actually, who was in that basement as well, and you put acupuncture needles right next to his genitals. I’m not sure how my brother’s shoulder is connected to his balls but I guess Chi works in weird ways.
My whole family was fooled by you, but I know now who you really are, a child molester and a master manipulator, and I don’t blame myself anymore for being the innocent child that I was. I will very soon, with the help of my family and my friends and my psychologist, be free of this pain that you’ve caused me. You, on the other hand, will learn a whole new meaning for the word friend in prison. You have no family, and freedom to you will soon become any moment when you’re not in fear or when you forget for even one second that your victims are living wonderful lives as survivors while you rot in your cage.
It took too long to get to this place where you will finally have to suffer those consequences alone and afraid, but that, to me, is still a great victory. You will never mean anything to anyone for the rest of your entire life. Never.
I’m done. Thank you.
THE COURT: Thank you. You are extraordinarily strong, and this is a great step in your healing. I can see the relief pouring out of you, and I’m really proud of you.
I’m so sorry you lost your father. I’m sure he’s here with you and also praising you. I know that because you’re so strong. You’re going to raise a strong child. I understand how you felt about coming here —
MS. MOORE: Thank you.
THE COURT: — having your child with you facing him, but have no fear, your voice is a pillar of strength for your child and all other children, which is so important, and your words have stopped the suffering of others and will stop those who think they don’t have a voice, because you proved here that despite your fear, you can overcome it, have that voice, face your predator, be strong, continue to be strong and successful as he weakens.
You are extraordinary. You are strong. You are the face of a sister survivor warrior, and I want you to continue on in that way with your sister survivors. Thank you so much for making the journey here and for your words. I’m proud of you.
MS. MOORE: Thank you so much.
