It is very, very difficult to watch Michigan dad Randall Margraves address Judge Janice Cunningham at the second Larry Nassar sexual abuse sentencing (this one in Eaton County, Michigan, last week’s was in Ingham County) in the video below. Three, yes, THREE of his daughters were Nassar’s victims, and he this “distraught” (as he called himself) had just listened to two of them give victim impact statements in court.
The grief and pain on his face as he talked about Larry Nassar is haunting. When the judge gave him permission to speak, Margraves asked her “to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon.” When the judge said of course she could not, he asked for one minute. Again denied, Margraves lost it, and made a run at the disgraced doctor.
I am guessing the law enforcement officials that restrained Margraves before he managed to get to Larry Nassar were kind of bummed out about having to be professional that day. I am sure there’s not a person in the courtroom who didn’t believe Nassar had that coming.
But of course, that’s not the way the justice system works. ESPN reports that after the disruption, court resumed about thirty minutes later with more victim impact statements. Judge Janice Cunningham said,
“…To have watched the pain and suffering that loved ones have gone through is unimaginable. If it is hard and difficult for me to hear what his daughters have to say, I can’t imagine what it is like for a parent. No one is making any excuses for what the defendant did in this case. However, these are legal proceedings, and the criminal justice system is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
While most of Larry Nassar’s 150-plus victims, included a bevy of Olympic gymnasts, spoke at last week’s sentencing for seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County, several others spoke at today’s sentencing in Eaton County to decide his sentence for three other counts of criminal sexual conduct.
