Rachael Denhollander Profile picture
Jul 14, 2021 20 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Processing this DOJ report that finally tells what we all already knew. What I strongly suspected was taking place before I even came forward. The dynamics that *prompted me* to come forward so publicly and openly.

So many emotions... ImageImage
The depth of betrayal - survivors get asked "why didn't you report?" and those who did hear "if it was true they would have done something."

Let it be said clearly today - this is why survivors don't report. Because the very people tasked with protection so often don't.
I will never forget wrapping myself up in a blanket to read the IndyStar story that had my name and face and details videod and catalogued for the world, and for the first time seeing USAG allege that they had reported Larry more than a year and a half earlier. . .
I thought I might throw up. For a moment I wondered if I had just upended the lives of my family, parents, children, myself, for nothing. Then I looked at the date and realized what that meant.
I remembered sitting at MSU PD, talking with Andrea. Larry was still a doctor. Getting the email from her the next day that he was still treating little girls every day and denied everything. That meant he was still abusing. I called Andrea immediately - how was this possible?
"It's not adding up Rachael. The documentation doesn't add up." At that moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything I had been afraid was taking place - botched investigations, outright coverup, really had been.
I had expected to find it, and we did. Almost immediately. Every interview I did and the 60 Minutes team I spent hours with on background, told me the same thing "the FBI's story doesn't add up. Something is rotten."

So much betrayal.
For six years the facts have trickled out. The level of failure, corruption, collusion. The absolute lack of value for the athletes who reported and the little girls suffering at Larry's hands every single day. We have waited for six years for someone to admit what we knew.
For the past six years the FBI has continued to lie about what they did. The DOJ took six years to investigate. It took immense public pressure for this report to be released.

And what is the result?
What happens to these agents who lied? Who never bothered to even document the reports? Who never so much as opened an official investigation? What happens to the supervisor who wined and dined with Penny and got a job offer instead of stopping a pedophile?

Nothing.
Nothing happens to them. Over 100 little girls were sexually abused by Larry because of these agents. Lives were upended because the only way to stop Larry was to come forward so publicly. Athletes who reported were essentially told they didn't matter.

And nothing happens now.
There is no accountability. No criminal charges. No justice. No restitution for the damage they caused. No punitive actions.

This report lays bare the corruption, but it's conclusion says "doesn't matter". Because nothing happens now.
The rest of us are left with the lifelong consequences, and already bore the cost of pushing for the truth. And these agents retire on government pensions while survivors fight to stay alive.

Nothing happens now.

Here's what you need to ask:
Ask what you don't see.

If this could be done to Olympians, and it took six years of massive public pressure and hundreds of victims pushing for the truth, to even uncover it, what do you NOT see?

What about the survivors that don't have that voice, support, and ability?
Ask why the Indianapolis PD hasn't been investigated. Ask how Steve Penny could know that he could pick up the phone, call the head of the child sex abuse division, and get that detective's help trying to quash the IndyStar story. Ask how Penny knew he could do that.
Ask why the IN AG has refused to investigation the IMPD for inserting itself into the Nassar investigation and attempting to stop the story.

Ask why that detective got a promotion instead of a reprimand.

Ask what we don't see yet.

Ask what is happening to other survivors.
Ask what needs to change to hold corrupt and bad-acting law enforcement accountable.

There's a reason I expected to find these dynamics. There is a reason we did find them.

Ask what we have to change for there to be accountability and justice with bad actors who are LEO's.
Ask if maybe what we see here is why out of every 300 rapes reported to police, only approximately 6 result in criminal charges. Non-rape sexual assault statistics are even worse.

It doesn't work like Law and Order SVU.
Ask what has to be done to stop this.

There is a reason I expected to find gross negligence and outright corruption.

There is a reason we DID find it.

Ask what has to change so this doesn't happen again.
Read the full report here. Ask what we still don't see.

documentcloud.org/documents/2099…

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More from @R_Denhollander

Jan 14
On Larry Nassar and Paul Pressler, Michigan State University, USAG and the SBC, and all the ways they are different…

There are so many unsung heroes in my case. . .people that lent their voices, provided pieces of the puzzle, helped put away a predator, that no one knows about.
But they meant everything to me back then, and they still do.

1 – An MSU employee for the medical clinic who reached out to say “I don’t know Rachael. But I can tell you he’s not following the chaperone policies. None of us even knew he was supposed to be chaperoned.”
It didn’t prove I was telling the truth, but it showed that he was pushing the rules and boundaries. That he was disregarding the warnings he was given in 2014 about sexual assault. That he wasn’t following accepted practices regarding privacy and appropriate contact.
Read 31 tweets
Oct 31, 2023
Correct - notice in the photo her father is in uniform, with the dept being one of the parties in the brief.

So what is a "non-offending third party?" Does it mean a party who is innocent?
No, it doesn't mean "innocent" or "didn't do anything wrong". It means people or entities who didn't personally commit the crime, but includes those who may have:

1. Violated mandatory reporting.
2. Knew and did nothing.
3. Intentionally hid it.

And more.

So for example:
Catholic Priest John Geoghan, who raped at least 130 boys, is the perpetrator.

The Catholic Church who systematically hid the knowledge of his rape of children and put him in new parishes, allowing him to keep raping children, is the "non-offending third party".
Read 15 tweets
Jul 10, 2023
Justice is conformity to what is right. It should be pursued and fought for.

Forgiveness is releasing personal vengeance and desiring for the offender to find true repentance and peace.

I am holding both especially today.

freep.com/story/news/loc…
I still mean these words I spoke years ago:

"Larry, I want you to understand why I made this choice knowing full well what it was going to cost to get here and with very little hope of ever succeeding. I did it because it was right. No matter the cost, it was right..."
And the farthest I can run from what you have become is to daily choose what is right instead of what I want.

You have become a man ruled by selfish and perverted desires, a man defined by his daily choices repeatedly to feed that selfishness and perversion...
Read 11 tweets
Jun 5, 2023
If you have not watched “Shiny Happy People” on Amazon, do. If you are in the evangelical circles, please, you really should. Most importantly, we need to consider the breadth of IBLP’s influence and teachings, and ask how this affects what we see happening today...
Much has (rightly) been made of Josh Duggar’s abuse, how it was minimized and glossed over. How the girls were pressured into acting like it was ok. How the focus was immediately on forgiveness, and not on caring for survivors or assessing real change in an abuser...
How everyone defended the Duggar’s handling of it and ignored the dangers of failing to get Josh and his sisters help. But did you know that the Duggar’s pastor when the story first broke and all of that was happening, was eventual SBC Executive Committee President Ronnie Floyd?
Read 12 tweets
Apr 21, 2023
No, MSU, you are not sorry. You are choosing over and over to refuse transparency and truth to the 100's of children you allowed to be assaulted by your doctor.

There are multiple ways we could set this up to get answers in a trauma-informed, truthful way.

You simply refuse.
Stop telling us that you are sorry in the same breath that you refuse to tell the truth, 6 yrs later.

You are not paying the price. We are. It's an insult to pretend an apology as you literally refuse the steps for healing and the truth.
Institutional transformation, crisis response and legally-sound strategies for achieving both objectives is one of my professional fields of expertise. I've offered to help set this up.

Your response is silence, dishonesty and feigned sorrow.

Stop with excuses. I know better.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 27, 2023
They knew. In 2004. They did nothing, and there were more victims.

How exactly did an SBC mega church respond to disclosures of sexual abuse by well- known leader Paul Pressler? Much like Penn State. See the screenshots in the thread...
Screenshots of the victim's testimony in 2004. He reported Pressler requiring him to perform massages with Pressler in his underwear, making him remove his clothes and sit nude with Pressler, and then forcefully removing his swim trunks and touching his buttocks. ImageImage
How did the church respond? See the deposition in the current civil suit:

Pressler's behavior was classified just like "pantsing" and said to be "not uncommon". Image
Read 7 tweets

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