Michigan State Gives Low-Key Response to Latest Nassar Rape, Cover-Up Charge
A lawsuit filed earlier this week alleges that MSU did not fulfill its duties under Title IX to report a sexual assault allegedly committed by Nassar in the 1990s.
September 14, 2018 at 04:27 PM
4 minute read
Michigan State University general counsel Robert Young Jr. says the school has filed a Title IX report and has asked the university police department to look into new allegations by a former field hockey player that she was drugged and raped by MSU sports doctor Larry Nassar in early 1992, and that school officials covered it up.
The claim, made in a lawsuit filed earlier this week, includes allegations that MSU officials—including current trustee George Perles—were made aware of the rape but did not follow Title IX protocol to report it. The suit also claims the field hockey coach who reported it to Perles was told to resign, and the victim was stripped of her scholarship.
“The university is responding to that litigation in the normal course,” Young told Corporate Counsel. “As you are aware, Michigan's attorney general has an open Nassar investigation that our board invited him to undertake. I assume that the AG will investigate these 26-year-old allegations as a part of that investigation.”
The office of Attorney General William Schuette did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Perles, 84, also has not commented. He has been an MSU trustee since 2007, but he was the athletic director and head football coach in 1992. The university said Friday it has hired defense attorney Patrick Hickey, founding partner at Hickey Huack Bishoff & Jeffers in Troy, Michigan, to represent Perles. Hickey did not immediately return messages Friday.
The trustee's son, Pat Perles, told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday that his father “doesn't remember any of this because it never happened. There was no meeting with the field hockey coach. It certainly didn't include this subject. It's a fabrication.”
According to the suit, the victim, Erika Davis, told two friends and field hockey coach Martha Ludwig that under the pretense of examining her, Nassar drugged and raped her and videotaped the assault. Ludwig, the suit says, confronted Nassar and demanded the videotape, which she took to Perles, who was her boss as athletic director then.
“[Ludwig] was forced to return the video, resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement,” the suit states. “Upon information and belief, Coach Martha [Ludwig] made and retained a copy of the videotape.”
Corporate Counsel was not able to locate contact information for Ludwig, or to find any other reported comments from her.
The school released this statement in response to the allegations: “We are deeply sorry for the abuses Larry Nassar has committed, and for the trauma experienced by all sexual assault survivors. Sexual abuse, assault and relationship violence are not tolerated in our campus community. While the protocols and procedures mentioned in this lawsuit do not reflect how sexual assault claims are handled at MSU, we are taking the allegations very seriously and looking into the situation.”
The rape case was one of about a dozen Nassar-related sexual abuse suits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan on Monday, the deadline under a statute of limitations.
In May the university reached a $500 million settlement with more than 330 other Nassar sexual abuse victims. The terms of the deal included setting aside $75 million in a trust fund for future claimants who filed by Sept. 10. Nassar is serving 40 to 175 years in prison for his crimes.
The rape lawsuit names as defendants Michigan State, its board of trustees, and seven current or former MSU employees who worked with Nassar. It does not name Perles individually.
Plaintiff's lawyers are Brian McKeen and Steven Hurbis of the Detroit law firm McKeen & Associates. They were not available for comment Friday.
Michigan State and its board of trustees are represented by Patrick Fitzgerald of the Chicago office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Scott Eldridge of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in Lansing.
What MSU has not hired is an independent investigator with no ties to Michigan State. Penn State University hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to investigate the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal; The Ohio State University hired Mary Jo White, former U.S. attorney in Manhattan and former chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to investigate a scandal involving an assistant football coach there.
In contrast, MSU from the beginning has left its internal investigation up to the Michigan Attorney General's Office, which appointed a special counsel.
The special counsel's report has been delayed by a court fight over how attorney-client privilege applies to some MSU documents.
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