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Nearly 90 women who allege they were sexually assaulted by a former USA Gymnastics doctor plan to speak about the abuse during a four-day sentencing hearing that started Tuesday.

Larry Nassar is accused of sexually abusing more than 140 women and girls as the doctor for Team USA and Michigan State University.

He has pleaded guilty in Ingham County, Mich., to seven first-degree sexual assault charges. Before ordering a sentence, the judge in the case is allowing all of his accusers to speak, if they want to.

The first accuser to speak was not a patient of Nassar's, but a family friend. In an emotional speech that left several people in the courtroom weeping, Kyle Stephens recounted the trauma of the first time she said she was molested at Nassar's house and the deep family rift it caused when she told her parents of the abuse and they didn't believe her.

. Be advised: It contains graphic details of sexual assault.

On Monday, Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles 

 of Nassar's victims, which also includes gymnastics champions McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Gabby Douglas.

Moments after Biles' post went up, Raisman, her former teammate, posted a photograph of the two Olympians holding hands.

 she will not attend the sentencing hearing "because it is too traumatic." But and impact letter she wrote will be read in court, she said.

 to sexually assaulting minors. He has already been sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography in a federal case.

 to digitally penetrating a total of 10 girls between 1998 and 2015. In many cases he convinced his victims it was part of a "special" treatment. Nassar's admission was part of a plea deal in two Michigan counties, before two different judges.

After pleading guilty, the Lansing State Journal 

, Nassar expressed remorse over his actions.

"I think this is important, what I've done today to help move the community forward and away from the hurting, let the healing start," Nassar said.

"For all those involved, I'm so horribly sorry that this was like a match that turned into a forest fire out of control," he said.

The Michigan attorney general's office is seeking 40 to 125 years in prison for Nassar. The Associated Press says the maximum represents a year for each of the 125 girls and women who filed reports of abuse with Michigan State University campus police.

Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina is expected to issue a sentence Friday.

Crime, Law and Justice

Sports

Vanessa Romo

Author

Women began speaking in court on Tuesday about the devastating impact of abuse at the hands of sports doctor and admitted sexual assaulter Larry Nassar. The list of accusers is growing longer.

Gymnastics doctor's victims speak, as Simone Biles says she was also abused

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