Who Is Kathie Klages? New Details On Larry Nassar's Former Colleague In "At The Heart Of Gold" Documentary On HBO
Kathie Klages played an important role in the Larry Nassar case.
Instagram She was recently featured on the HBO At The Heart Of Gold documentary on Larry Nassar, yet her role in the entire scandal remains a bit nebulous. Who is Kathie Klages?
According to USA Today, the Larry Nassar case is far from over. Even though Nassar was sentenced to the rest of his natural life behind bars, former Michigan State University gymnastics coach Kathie Klages is about to stand trial for her role in his ongoing abuse. Court records show that some of Larry Nassar’s victims told Klages about his abuse as far back as 1997, but Klages failed to report his abuse of his charges to the authorities.
Let’s look at what else we know about this controversial figure.
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1. How much did she know about the abuse?
According to Oxygen, there’s a bit of a question as to how much Kathie Klages really knew about the abuse that Larry Nassar was inflicting upon his charges. In the HBO documentary, At the Heart of the Gold (which premiered on May 3rd), filmmaker Erin Lee Carr claims that everyone around Larry Nassar at the University of Michigan knew about Nassar’s systemic abuse, but did nothing to stop him or, otherwise, slow him down.
The attorney general’s office claims that Klages is one of the key figures in the trial because she refused to come forward.
“While investigating how Larry Nassar was able to get away with sexually assaulting hundreds of individuals on and off Michigan State’s campus, Klages denied to Michigan State Police detectives having been told prior to 2016 of Nassar's sexual misconduct,” they said in a statement. “Witnesses have said that they reported Nassar's sexual abuse to Klages dating back more than 20 years.”
2. Kathie Klages claims she’s innocent of the charges.
According to CNN, when she was arrested and brought before a Michigan judge to answer for her alleged crimes, Klages pleaded “not guilty.” CNN reports that Klages was charged with one felony, and one misdemeanor, count in relation to her role in the Larry Nassar situation.
However, her attorney, Mary Chartier, has said that she is confident that her client will be “cleared of all charges.”
3. Could she have stopped the abuse earlier?
According to Bustle, the allegations at the center of the documentary At the Heart of the Gold are nothing if not explosive. Larissa Boyce, one of Nassar’s victims, is featured prominently in the documentary and said that she first told Klages about the abuse she’d suffered back in the late 1990s.
“This could have stopped in 1997. But instead of notifying authorities or even my parents, we were interrogated. We were led to believe we were misunderstanding a medical technique … I told somebody. I told an adult. I told Michigan State University,” Larissa said.
But, she said, Klages “interrogated” both her and another girl (who was 14 years old at the time of the abuse, and who remains anonymous to this day) and warned her against going public with the allegations.
4. Kathie Klages is getting a lot more leeway than Larry Nassar did.
In news that is, undoubtedly, distressing for the victims, Kathie Klages is getting a lot of leeways that Larry Nassar did not get.
According to WILX-TV, Kathie Klages recently got a judge to side with her request to release the names of all the victims who made accusations against her.
“Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Joyce Draganchuk ruled in favor of Klages, saying the restrictions the state was asking for are too broad. "It goes too far in practically every other respect, there just has been no justification offered for the level of restriction that has been proposed," said Draganchuk, according to the outlet.
While Kathie Klages is currently facing serious charges, no trial date has been set as of yet. We will keep you posted on all the updates.
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, and photographer whose work has appeared in People, Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and more. She is also the author of The Uprising series. Find her online at www.bernadettegiacomazzo.com and www.longlivetheuprising.com.