Regulatory agency finds FBI failed in child sexual abuse allegations

A watchdog report released Thursday found that the FBI did not adequately respond to reports of child sex crimes, despite the agency taking corrective action following the Larry Nassar scandal.

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General conducted the review to follow up on a 2021 report that concluded the agency had mishandled sexual abuse allegations against Nassar, a former USA Gymnastics doctor who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing minors.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Illinois) announced that the panel will hold a hearing later this year on the FBI's handling of child sexual abuse. He said, “It is shameful that the FBI continues to fail victims.”

“Today's report shows that the FBI's new guidelines to address these glaring failures are effectively being ignored, leading to similar abuses as those seen in the Nassar investigation,” Durbin said.

The agency reviewed 327 cases involving child sex crimes, but found no evidence in 47 percent of cases that FBI agents had complied with reporting requirements to state and local law enforcement agencies.

The watchdog also flagged 42 incidents for further FBI review because it believed these incidents “may require immediate attention.” Concerns included failure to report to appropriate authorities, improperly pursued leads, and lack of logical investigative steps or recent investigative activity.

In one example, the report cited a case in which a registered sex offender was accused of physical abuse. But the FBI failed to take “appropriate investigative steps” for more than a year and did not refer the alleged abuse to an appropriate state or local law enforcement agency, the report said.

“During this time, the individual is alleged to have abused at least one other minor over a period of approximately 15 months. After we brought this incident to the FBI's attention, the FBI took appropriate action and the individual was charged with federal offenses,” the report said.

In a video statement released alongside the report, Attorney General Michael Horowitz said the FBI has updated its policies, conducted training and changed the system to better handle allegations related to crimes against children. But he said they found numerous cases “in which the FBI did not respond appropriately to such allegations.”

“It is critical that the FBI appropriately handle all allegations of child sex crimes because failure to do so can result in children continuing to be abused and perpetrators abusing more children,” Horowitz said.

The FBI said in a response accompanying the report that the agency recognizes “that further action is necessary to ensure that our corrective actions have the intended effect and improve the FBI's handling of allegations of sexual offenses.”

The Justice Department announced settlement agreements in April to resolve 139 lawsuits totaling $138.7 million related to Nassar. At the time, Durbin said the mishandling of sexual assault allegations against Nassar in 2015 and 2016 was unacceptable.

The 2021 watchdog report found that senior officials at the FBI's Indianapolis field office failed to respond to the allegations against Nassar “with due seriousness and urgency” and “made numerous and fundamental errors in responding to them.”

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the report that same year, at which the U.S. gymnasts also testified. This resulted in a bill that supporters say will improve the FBI's handling of child victim witnesses.