Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney was just a teenager in 2015, when she was interviewed by the FBI about allegations that then-USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar sexually abused her. I thought I was going to die that night because there was no way he was going to let me go, Maroney recalled during a Senate hearing last month .

Two Indianapolis FBI agents were assigned to the case: W. Jay Abbott, then the special agent in charge of the citys FBI office, and Michael Langeman, at the time a supervisory special agent.

Instead of receiving help, Maroney along with fellow gymnasts Aly Raisman, Simone Biles and Maggie Nichols were ignored. Their accusations of serial child sexual abuse were dismissed. Abbott and Langeman not only failed to interview all of the victims who initially came forward, they conducted very limited follow-up interviews with key witnesses and never notified other law enforcement agencies of potential crimes in their jurisdictions. In fact, Abbott and Langeman never formally opened an investigation into Nassar.

Over the eight months that followed, Abbott and Langeman did nothing. At one point, Abbott, the more senior of the two agents, met with then-USA Gymnastics President Steve Penny, but only to discuss a potential job opportunity with the U.S. Olympic Committee. During this time, Nassar abused at least 70 more girls and women, according to a Department of Justice report .

When the two agents were confronted with their misconduct in 2017 after Nassar was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing hundreds of young athletes they blamed others. They made false statements and omitted integral information about their initial investigation. The two agents later lied to investigators from the inspector generals office in order to minimize errors made by the Indianapolis Field Office, according to the DOJ report, which came out in July and brought renewed attention to the botched investigation.

Langeman was fired from the bureau just weeks before an October Senate hearing discussing the DOJs findings on the FBI investigation. Abbott retired in 2018. Despite their misconduct, the DOJ initially announced it would not pursue charges against them. On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Justice Department is reviewing that decision.

Two former FBI agents told HuffPost the bureaus misogynist and patriarchal culture are to blame for the blatant misconduct in the Nassar case. Jane Turner and Mike German, veterans with a combined record of more than 40 years of service in the bureau, described a culture of mismanagement fueled by toxic competition in an old boys club that only rewards the people who look like them.

I was not surprised by the way the FBI handled Nassar, Turner said. Thats the FBIs culture.