Two F.B.I. agents initially assigned to the case no longer work for the agency. Michael Langeman, a supervisory special agent in the F.B.I.’s Indianapolis office, was fired in the days leading up to Wednesday’s hearing, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. Those people did not want their names published because they do not have the authority to speak about the case. The Washington Post was the first to publish news of Langeman’s firing.
Langeman, who was not immediately available for comment, was not named in the inspector general report, but his actions as the special supervisory agent, and his multiple crucial missteps, were described in detail. The report said Langeman should have known that Nassar’s abuse was probably widespread, yet he did not investigate the case with any urgency.
Langeman interviewed just one of the three elite gymnasts who gave U.S.A. Gymnastics details of Nassar’s abuse and did not properly document that interview or open an investigation. In an interview report Langeman filed with the F.B.I. 17 months after he spoke to that gymnast — the Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney, who was not named in the report — he included statements she did not make, according to the report.
Like other agents initially involved in the case, Langeman also did not alert local or state officials of Nassar’s alleged abuse, violating F.B.I. policy that states that crimes against children “invariably require a broad, multijurisdictional, and multidisciplinary approach.”
Langeman later said he had filed an initial report about Nassar, asking for the case to be transferred to the Lansing office because that’s where Nassar was based at Michigan State. But the paperwork wasn’t found in the F.B.I. database, the inspector general’s report said.