LANSING, MI — Michigan State Police say Larry Nassar was never removed from the state’s public sex offender registry, pushing back on a claim made by an Eaton County prosecutor’s office after a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling affected thousands of older cases.
The state police said the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor was not visible in the database because he was serving a federal prison sentence outside Michigan. Their statement came after the Eaton County office said Nassar had been among more than 20,000 people removed from the registry.
The dispute centers on how the state’s sex offender registration rules apply to people who are not living, working or incarcerated in Michigan. It also shows how quickly a major court decision can lead to confusion when offices try to explain its impact to victims and the public.
Supreme Court ruling led to mass registry removals
On Sept. 9, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act cannot be applied retroactively to offenses committed before the law’s relevant date. After that decision, state police removed more than 20,000 people whose offenses occurred before July 1, 2011, from the agency’s online database.
The ruling did not erase convictions, but it changed who had to remain on the public registry under the law. State police said the people affected were those whose offenses fell before the cutoff date established by the court.
That legal shift prompted a wave of scrutiny across Michigan, especially because the registry is meant to alert the public to offenders who are required to register. The ruling became the backdrop for the mistaken claim that Nassar had also been taken off the list.
Eaton County office posted a screenshot showing zero results
The Eaton County prosecuting attorney’s office, which helped prosecute Nassar, said he had been removed from the Michigan registry. The office, led by Republican Michigan state attorney general candidate Doug Lloyd, posted a screenshot showing a search for Nassar’s name that returned no results.
The office also issued a statement saying the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate Sora requirements for those offenders was “deeply concerning.” It added that the community and victims had expected the registry to provide “a measure of protection and awareness” that the ruling had taken away.
That message circulated widely in news coverage, helping fuel the impression that one of the state’s most notorious sex offenders had disappeared from the system because of the court decision. State police later said that interpretation was wrong.
State police say Nassar was absent because he was imprisoned in Pennsylvania
Michigan State Police said information suggesting Nassar was removed because of the Smith decision was incorrect. Bureau of Prisons records show he is being held at the Lewisburg federal correctional institute in Pennsylvania.
According to the state police, people who are not domiciled in Michigan, are not temporarily residing there, do not work there, are not incarcerated there and are not attending school there do not have a duty to register in Michigan under Sora. Because of that, they would not appear on the state’s public sex offender registry.
The agency added that if such a person later moved back, worked in Michigan, lived there temporarily or became incarcerated in the state, registration requirements could apply again if Sora still required it at that time. State police said Nassar’s absence from the database reflected his out-of-state custody, not removal tied to the Supreme Court ruling.
Prosecutors corrected their earlier statement and apologized
On Friday, the Eaton County prosecuting attorney’s office also walked back its earlier claim. In a new statement, the office said it needed to correct its social media post about removal of convicted sex offenders from the registry.
The office said it never intended to suggest that Nassar, “one of the most notorious sex offenders in the history of the state,” had not been registered despite a legal requirement to do so. It noted that the offenses for which he was convicted in Eaton County and nearby Ingham County carried 2009 and 1998 dates, which fell within the time frame addressed by the Supreme Court order.
The office said that when Nassar was sentenced in 2018 he was incarcerated in Michigan and would have had to register until he was transferred to federal custody outside the state. It apologized for the confusion while saying prosecutors still have a duty to provide information to victims and survivors of sexual assault.
Nassar remains imprisoned until at least 2068
Nassar was sentenced in 2018 to as many as 175 years in state and federal prison after being convicted of sexually abusing women and girls for decades while working at Michigan State University and as a doctor for Team USA Gymnastics. His projected earliest release date is 2068, when he would be 104.
More than 150 women and girls have accused him of assault. His accusers include Olympic gold medal-winning gymnasts Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas.
He pleaded guilty in November 2017 to multiple counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Nassar later survived a stabbing attack in prison in July 2023, and victims gave emotional impact statements at his sentencing describing the trauma and shame they said his abuse caused.
What the court decision could mean going forward
Michigan lawmakers cannot overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on their own, but the legislature could pass new legislation that would return affected offenders to the database. State police have already said the ruling forced them to remove the more than 20,000 older cases from the online registry.
For now, the Nassar dispute underscores the difference between a person being excluded from the public registry and a person no longer being required to register because of the legal status of their residence or custody. In Nassar’s case, state police said the key fact was his incarceration in Pennsylvania.
The confusion also highlights the sensitivity of registry reporting in cases involving sexual abuse survivors. Prosecutors and state police both said they wanted to correct the record, but they reached that correction through different explanations of how Michigan’s system applies.