Larry Nassar was removed from the Michigan Sex Offender Registry along with more than 20,000 convicted sex offenders after a Michigan Supreme Court ruling. The change affects people whose crimes occurred before July 1, 2021, after the court said the 2011 Sex Offender Registration Act amendments cannot be used retroactively to extend registration requirements.
Nassar is serving decades in prison on convictions in state and federal courts. He admitted sexually assaulting athletes when he worked at Michigan State University and at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics, and he also pleaded guilty in a separate case to possessing images of child sexual abuse.
Michigan Supreme Court ruling
The ruling turned on the reach of the 2011 Sex Offender Registration Act amendments. By limiting retroactive use of those changes, the court opened the door for the removal of people whose offenses fell before July 1, 2021, including Nassar and thousands of others on the registry.
The Eaton County Prosecutors Office said in a post that Nassar was one of the people removed from the registry. Doug Lloyd, the Republican candidate for Michigan Attorney General, was also identified in the available facts, but the removal itself was tied to the court decision, not to a new filing or separate order from his campaign.
Eaton County Prosecutors Office post
The Eaton County Prosecutor's Office said, “The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate SORA requirements for these offenders is deeply concerning.” That statement shows the dispute now sits over the effect of the ruling, not over whether the registry change took place.
For people covered by the decision, the practical effect is immediate: the registry entry tied to the pre-July 1, 2021 offense is no longer being kept under the same rules. The court ruling left the state with a large class of removals, and Nassar’s name became the most widely recognized one in that group.
More than 20,000 removals
The scale matters because this was not a single-person correction. More than 20,000 convicted sex offenders were removed from the Michigan Sex Offender Registry under the ruling, making the change statewide in reach rather than limited to one high-profile case.
Which specific offenders will remain on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry after the ruling, if any, is the open question left by the case. The record here shows who was removed, why the removal happened, and the size of the group affected.
