Meet Rachael Denhollander.
This former gymnast turned coach and lawyer was both the first and the LAST victim to speak out against disgraced Olympic doctor, Larry Nassar.
Now, the 33-year-old is being hailed a courtroom hero for her bold move to break the silence and deliver the most powerful testimony presiding Judge Aquilina has ever seen.
“You made this happen,” said the judge. “You are the bravest person I’ve ever had in my courtroom.”
Nassar has been sentenced to 40 to 175 years for his sexual abuse crimes, but arguably none of this would have been made possible without Rachael’s bravery.
In 2016, she read an article in The Star regarding USA Gymnastics inappropriately handling sexual abuse allegations. At the time, not a single girl who had been abused by Nassar during his reign as their team doctor had come forward.
Shortly after, The Star published a piece about Nassar with the sexual-abuse reports of two former gymnasts—one who chose to stay anonymous, and one who attached her name to the allegations: Rachael Denhollander. All alone. With no one to back her… yet.
But it was her voice that eventually gave over 150 girls the courage to come forth, detailing the traumatic effects Nassar’s abuse guised as “therapy” has had on their lives.
Over the course of seven days, 156 people gave victim impact statements—but none could quite compare to the unshakeable testimony of Rachael Denhollander.
Judge Aquilina called her the “five-star general for an army of abuse survivors.”
Her 36-minute testimony threaded with Godly wisdom and spoken in equal parts love, truth, and justice is nothing short of inspiring and downright incredible.
Read a poignant excerpt from Rachael’s testimony below and see the full transcript at CNN:
“The cost, emotional and physical, to see this through has been greater than many would ever know. And Larry, I don’t need to tell you what the cost of your abuse has been to me because you got to read my journals, every word of them. Because those had to go into evidence to make this happen.
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. You chose to pursue your wickedness no matter what it cost others and the opposite of what you have done is for me to choose to love sacrificially, no matter what it costs me.
In our early hearings. you brought your Bible into the courtroom and you have spoken of praying for forgiveness. And so it is on that basis that I appeal to you. If you have read the Bible you carry, you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God himself loving so sacrificially that he gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin he did not commit. By his grace, I, too, choose to love this way.
You spoke of praying for forgiveness. But Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes from repentance which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation, without excuse, without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen this courtroom today.