By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said Thursday the FBI failed to properly investigate some suspected child sexual abuse cases and did not report some allegations to state or social services agencies.
A July 2021 report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz uncovered widespread and dire errors by the FBI that allowed onetime USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to continue to abuse at least 70 more victims before he was finally arrested.
Horowitz said Thursday his office had conducted a new audit of 327 child sexual assault allegations reported to the FBI between October 2021 and February 2023 and flagged 42 — or 13% of incidents reviewed — to FBI headquarters because auditors believed that they required “immediate attention” including some where there was a lack of investigative activity.
OIG said of those 42 incidents, the FBI said it would take further action in 43% and add documentation in 40%.
“We identified numerous incidents where the FBI didn’t appropriately respond” to allegations against children, Horowitz said. The OIG made 11 recommendations to the FBI for improvements and the FBI said it agreed with all of them.
The FBI said in the “handful” of cases where it found a need for additional investigative steps or reporting to other agencies it worked to complete those following the OIG referral.
Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin said the panel will hold a hearing this year on the report. Senator Richard Blumenthal criticized the “FBI’s ongoing, systematic mishandling of sexual assault and abuse cases against children. Based on this report’s stunning findings, there may be hundreds of sexual abuse cases that have been mishandled by the FBI requiring immediate intervention.”
The FBI said in a statement Thursday it is “committed to maintaining the public’s trust by implementing the necessary improvements.”
OIG said in one example, the FBI received an allegation of abuse by a registered sex offender but “didn’t take appropriate investigative action for over a year.”
OIG said during that period the suspect “allegedly victimized at least one additional minor.” After OIG raised the incident, the FBI “took appropriate action and the subject was indicted.”
The report raised questions about the FBI’s handling of another incident.
OIG said after the FBI received an allegation a two-year-old was being sexually abused that there was “no documentation that the FBI had taken efforts to safeguard the victim” in the 25 months before an arrest of the child’s grandfather was made.
OIG found “substantial noncompliance” with mandatory requirements that suspected child abuse cases be reported to appropriate state or social service agencies with FBI employees reporting only about 50% of required incidents reviewed by OIG.
OIG found 40% of active child sexual abuse allegations did not include evidence the FBI responded within 24 hours and 36% of victims did not appear to have received appropriate services or updates.
The FBI said it is using “mandatory supervisor case file reviews and technical system enhancements to put checks in place to ensure our reforms effectively improve the handling of serious allegations of abuse.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Nick Zieminski)
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