Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused hundreds of girls and young women, is no longer listed on Michigan’s sex offender registry. He is one of more than 20,000 convicted sex offenders Michigan State Police removed from the public database after a ruling by the state’s highest court.
The Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office, which helped put Nassar away, revealed his removal in a social media post that included a screenshot of the registry search. Type his name into the state’s system now and nothing comes up.
The removals trace back to a unanimous Michigan Supreme Court decision on September 9. The court ruled that Michigan’s 2021 Sex Offender Registration Act cannot be applied to people whose crimes were committed before July 1, 2011. Under both the U.S. and Michigan constitutions, the government cannot add new punishment to a crime after it has already been committed. Lawyers call that an ex post facto law. The justices found that forcing older offenders to follow registry rules that did not exist when they offended crossed that line.
Miriam Aukerman, director of strategic litigation for the ACLU of Michigan, said the state essentially changed the rules of the game when it applied the requirements retroactively.
Roughly 43,000 people were registered or required to register in Michigan before the ruling. That number has now been cut nearly in half.
Larry Nassar was not sentenced until 2018, years after the cutoff, so how did he qualify? The ruling is based on when the crime happened, not when the conviction came down. Nassar worked as a team doctor for USA Gymnastics from 1996 to 2014 and at Michigan State University until 2016, and much of his abuse took place before July 2011. That timing put him on the removal list.
None of this gets Larry Nassar out of prison. He pleaded guilty to seven counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County and three in Eaton County, and received a 40 to 175 year sentence in Ingham. He also pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges and got an additional 60 years. His sentences run consecutively, and he will not be released.
More than 330 women and girls accused Larry Nassar of abuse, including Olympic gold medalists Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Jordyn Wieber. Biles later testified before the U.S. Senate in 2021, demanding accountability from the FBI and the institutions that failed athletes.
Nassar is not the only name raising alarms. Former doctor Kassem Hallak, who was convicted in 2013 of sexually assaulting multiple patients, was also removed from the registry. Unlike Nassar, Hallak is out on parole.
That is what has prosecutors worried. The Eaton County office called the court’s decision “deeply concerning” and said victims and the community expected the registry to give them protection and awareness, assurances the ruling has now taken away. The office also argued the justices could have read the law differently and kept certain offenders on the list, and warned that more people convicted of older crimes will walk out of prison with no public registry listing at all.
People whose offenses happened on or after July 1, 2011 are not affected by the ruling and must still register under current law.
