USA Gymnastics has filed a court brief seeking dismissal of USAG from lawsuits involving sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, a sports medicine doctor who was a longtime USAG volunteer.

While USAG "deplores" Nassar's crimes, USAG is not legally liable for his actions, the brief argues.

"Nassar's conduct is disgusting," said the brief, which was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. "But Nassar, not USAG, is liable for Nassar's criminal actions. A majority of the claims in these consolidated cases are time-barred, and all of plaintiffs' claims against USAG fail as a matter of law. This Court should dismiss the claims against USAG."

There are 252 individuals who say they were abused by Nassar and have filed lawsuits, and 149 have named USAG as a co-defendant, saying the agency failed to protect athletes who were abused by him.

Almost all the Nassar plaintiffs are also suing Michigan State University, who was Nassar's long-time employer. MSU already filed its own brief seeking dismissal of the suits.

MSU seeks dismissal of Nassar lawsuits

Nassar started volunteering with USAG in the mid-1980s as a trainer. In 1995, soon after graduating from MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine, he was named USAG's medical CEO and team doctor for the U.S. national teams.

Nassar was the team doctor for U.S. gymnasts at four Olympic games, in addition to other international competitions. He also treated top athletes at USAG's monthly training camp in Texas.

More than half-dozen elite gymnasts have said they were abused by Nassar, who has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting patients under the guise of medical treatment. Nassar is currently serving a 60-year sentence in a federal child pornography case; if he outlives that sentence, he faces up to 175 years in the sexual assault cases.

More than 250 women say they were abused by Nassar, starting in the early 1990s and continuing until he was fired by MSU in September 2016.

Numerous victims have said they complained about Nassar's behavior over the years, only to have their concerns dismissed. That includes complaints made in the late 1990s to MSU's athletic staff and John Geddert, owner of Twistars, a USAG-affiliated training facility in metro Lansing.

Geddert, who is a named defendant in many of the Nassar lawsuits, was also coach of the 2012 U.S. gymnastics team. Four of the five girls on that team -- Jordyn Wieber, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney -- say they were abused by Nassar.

Raisman has said that Geddert was present during a 2011 conversation when a gymnast described Larry Nassar's intravaginal treatment in "graphic detail."

A Twistars gymnast also has alleged that Geddert saw Nassar doing an intravaginal treatment on an athlete in 2010.

In June 2015, another USAG coach overheard a conversation between Raisman and another gymnast about Nassar, and reported it to USAG. The USAG quietly dropped Nassar as a volunteer and notified the FBI. But neither the FBI nor USAG contacted Michigan State, where Nassar continued to see patients for another 15 months.

Nassar was finally fired after Rachel Denhollander, a former gymnast from Kalamazoo, and Jamie Dantzscher, a 2000 Olympic medalist, went public with allegations that Nassar was sexually abusing patients.

Dantzscher and other members of the U.S. national team say the USAG allowed Nassar to treat teenage athletes without a chaperone, violating the organization's policies.

In their 47-page court brief, USAG attorneys argue that USAG is protected from lawsuits by Michigan's statue of limitations, which requires personal injury suits to be filed within three years for adults and within three years of an individual's 19th birthday in the case of events that occurred to children.

Of 149 women suing the USAG, the brief says 101 claims should be fully or partially barred because of the statue of the limitations.

However, many of the plaintiffs say that they did not complain about Nassar at the time the ause occurred because they assumed his intravaginal treatment were a legitimate medical treatment, and in the case of members of the U.S. national team, they were required to be treated by Nassar. They also point out that when women did complain about Nassar, those concerns were dismissed until 2016, when the first charges were filed.

Even beyond the statute of limitations issue, the USAG says it wasn't negligent in regards to Nassar.

"When USAG first learned of an athlete's concern about Nassar in the summer of 2015, it discontinued Nassar's assignments and reported him to the FBI," the brief said. "Michigan law did not require USAG to report unproven allegations about Nassar to MSU, to Twistars, to plaintiffs, or to others."

On the issue of what Geddert did or did not know, USAG argues that even if Geddert knew or suspected that Nassar was abusing athletes, that does not make the USAG liable. In the 2010 instance, they say, Geddert was not working as an agent of the USAG, and in the 2011 case, the conversation itself wasn't enough to generate a formal investigation.

"USAG strongly condemns the actions of Nassar, and Nassar should be held accountable for his actions," the brief concludes. "Nassar has already been held criminally accountable, and he should be held civilly accountable. But while Nassar is liable to plaintiffs, USAG is not. All of the complaints against USAG should be dismissed."