Lawyer claims Márta Károlyi misspoke about Larry Nassar timeline

Márta Károlyi, who, along with her husband Béla, was a former USA Gymnastics national team coordinator and owner of the USA Gymnastics National Team Training Center at Károlyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas, is under more criticism this week.

She and her husband were heavily criticized recently as a result of the fact that Larry Nassar, the disgraced former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University physician, was allowed unfettered access to gymnasts on their ranch, which he used to sexually assault these gymnasts.

Nassar, 54, has been accused of sexually assaulting over 265 people, many of whom female gymnasts and many of whom trained at the Károlyi Ranch. He is currently serving the first of three length prison sentences that he was issued in this past December, January and February.

He is set to be locked up for life given the lengths (60 years, 40 to 175 years and 40 to 125 years, respectively) of each of these three prison sentences.

In the Dateline NBC Special "Silent No More", the documentary about the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal that aired on Sunday, April 22, the couple claimed to have had no knowledge of what Nassar was doing to gymnasts at the ranch.

This prompted even more criticism against them because of the fact that, as referenced above, they did give him unfettered access to the gymnasts at the ranch, even at night when they were alone in their cabins.

Last week, information surfaced that Márta Károlyi's testimony in a 2017 deposition contradicts what she and her husband claimed in the lawsuit that they filed against USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee last month in regard to when they learned about Nassar's predatory behavior.

In the 2017 testimony, she claimed that she was aware of his predatory behavior in June of 2015. However, in the husband that she and her husband filed, they claim they were only made aware of it in 2016.

Márta Károlyi's lawyer Gary Jewell tried to explain why this was the case. Here is what he had to say about the matter, according to Chron.

"[Márta Károlyi] merely misspoke when answering the question in her deposition. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Márta is now taking the opportunity to correct that misunderstanding and make clear that, although she did receive a phone call from (USA Gymnastics CEO) Steve Penny during the summer of 2015 regarding Larry Nassar leaving the USAG program, she had no knowledge of allegations of sexual misconduct by Larry Nassar until the summer of 2016."

You can read Jewell's full statement here.

The couple were already facing tons of criticism, and that criticism was made worse when the fact that Márta Károlyi's testimony contradicted the lawsuit filed by her and her husband emerged. It may get even worse now that her lawyer has come forward with what many people will sarcastically perceive as a "likely story".