Dr Larry Nassar will die in jail. These are the stories of his victims.

Larry Nassar, 54, has been sentenced to 175 years, or 2100 months, in prison for molesting US gymnasts under the guise of giving ‘treatment’. After his sentencing, the judge declared: “I just signed your death warrant.”

The former USA Gymnastics physician pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in November, and is also serving a 60 year prison sentence for child pornography.

Today’s sentencing marks the end of a remarkable seven-day hearing, in which scores of Nassar’s victims were able to face their abuser and tell him the damage he caused. In total, 156 victims sat under the harsh courtroom lighting and read their victim impact statements. In many cases, the abuse started when the girls were 12 or 13, and continued for several years.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said Nassar’s assaults were “precise, calculated, manipulative, devious, despicable,” AAP reports.

“It is my honour and privilege to sentence you. 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,” Aquilina said.

When the hearing ended, the courtroom broke into applause.

She was abused as her mother sat in the same room.

Former elite US gymnast Isabell Hutchins faced the courtroom on the sixth day of the hearing, saying Nassar overlooked what turned out to be a broken leg while he molested her in the basement of his home.

Hutchins practised for weeks at a Lansing-area gymnastics club and even competed at national events despite acute leg pain as a teen in 2011, AAP reports.

She said Nassar did nothing to encourage her to get help and instead molested her during late-night appointments at his home.

"You were never a real doctor. You did not heal me. You only hurt me," Hutchins told Nassar, who was seated only metres away.

"You convinced my parents I was a liar."

Kyle Stephens was the first person to read her victim impact statement to the court, and is the only non-athlete to come forward.

She told the judge she was six when she was first molested by the man facing sitting in front of her. That Nassar - a friend of her family - would keep lotion in his basement where he would masturbate in front of her. That he would rub his erect penis between her feet. The he would penetrate her with his fingers.

She also said that when she told her parents six years later, aged 12, they didn't believe her.

Instead, they invited Nassar over the house where he sat her down on the couch and explained how "no one should ever do that and if they do, you should tell someone".

"You convinced my parents that I was a liar," Stephens said, according to Oxygen. "Little girls don’t stay little forever. They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world."

Later, when her father discovered his daughter hadn't been lying, that the abuse had been ongoing for years, he couldn't live with the guilt and suicided, Huffington Post reports. During the hearing, Stephens blamed Nassar for her father's death, as well.

She told the judge: "Had he not had to bear the shame and self-loathing that stemmed from his defense of Larry Nassar, he would have had a fighting chance."

"Started the process of my daughter's self-destruction."

The mother of former gymnast Chelsea Markham addressed the court, saying Nassar's abuse was what started her daughter on a path of self-destruction that eventually led to her suicide in her early twenties.

"She said that: 'everyone will know, and everyone will judge me, and the judges will know as I compete'," Donna Markham told the court, saying her daughter quit gymnastics after the abuse. And carried a shame within her because of the pain Nassar inflicted.

Speaking to journalists outside the courtroom, Donna told USA Today: "He doesn't understand, or he does understand and he doesn't care, what he has done to these girls. When you're 10 or 11, or even younger, and someone's sexually assaulting you and you don't even know what it's about. It's sad. It's very very sad "

LISTEN: The moment Jelena Dokic picked up a racket, her life changed forever. Post continues below.

Nassar's thinking

When he issued his plea in November, Nassar admitted to the court to putting his finger in girls' vaginas during 'treatment'. He said this behaviour had been going back as far as 1998, and included incidences with girls under 13.

However, mid-way through listening to the victim statements this week, Nassar gave Judge Aquilina a letter saying he couldn't bear to hear anything more, NBC reports. He accused her of turning the case into a media circus and using it as a platform to advance her own reputation.

She wouldn't hear it: "Spending four or five days listening to them is significantly minor considering the hours of pleasure you had at their expense and ruining their lives," Judge Aquilina told him in open court the next day. "I don't want even one victim to lose their voice."

In the same letter, Nassar denied any wrongdoing and said the women coming forward are angry and brainwashed: "I was a good doctor because my treatments worked, and those patients that are now speaking out are the same ones that praised and came back over and over," Nassar wrote, CNN reports. "The media convinced them that everything I did was wrong and bad. They feel I broke their trust. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

This proves, Judge Aquilina, he "still doesn't get it".

After the sentence was handed down today, Nassar turned to the courtroom gallery to make a brief statement, saying that the accounts of more than 150 victims had "shaken me to my core". And that "no words" can describe how sorry he is for his crimes.

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

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