Crime & Safety

Larry Nassar Molested McKayla Maroney 'Hundreds' Of Times

"He said that nobody would understand this and the sacrifice that it takes to get to the Olympics. So you can't tell people this."

LANSING, MI — Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney says Larry Nassar, the former doctor convicted of molesting young women and girls while a working for Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, abused her hundreds of times. Maroney told NBC News that Nassar molested her when she first visited Karolyi ranch in Texas at the age of 13. He then continued abusing her hundreds of times over the next half-decade, she said.

"He told me he was going to do a checkup on me and that was the first day I was abused," she told the outlet.

Maroney also says: "He said that nobody would understand this and the sacrifice that it takes to get to the Olympics. So you can't tell people this."

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Maroney thought it made it sense not to tell anyone. She thought no one would understand her.

The program, which will run for one hour, will also feature an interview with famed gymnastics coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi. Neither have spoken publicly since the abuse revelations broke more than a year and a half ago. NBC says new details — including an alleged cover-up attempt —will also be brought to light.

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Karolyi ranch near New Waverly, Texas, is owned and operated by the Karolyis. It became the national training center for USA Gymnastics and the home to intense training for national and international events. The ranch has faced intense scrutiny after Nassar was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing nearly a hundred female athletes, most of them minors.

The NBC interview is part of a special investigative edition of "Dateline" and will air at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday.

Olympian Aly Raisman and the mother of former world champion gymnast Maggie Nichols will also talk during the program, NBC said.

Nassar admitted in court he used his bare fingers to abuse his patients and told them it was medically necessary.

Maroney says Nassar molested her "every time" he saw her.

During Nassar's sentencing hearing in January, Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said she was signing his "death warrant."

"It is my honor and privilege to sentence you," she said. "You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again. You have done nothing to control those urges and anywhere you walk, destruction will occur to those most vulnerable."

What he did to those women and girls were not medical treatments, she said.

"You did this for your pleasure and your control...I wouldn't send my dogs to you," said Aquilina.

Nassar has apologized to his victims, saying their testimony had "shaken" him to his core.

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Photo credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

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