The Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission has “admonished” but not disciplined Kristine Moore, the in-house counsel at Michigan State University who in 2014 led a “deficient” investigation that wrongly cleared sports doctor Larry Nassar after a student’s sex abuse complaint.

Official disciplinary actions are made public by the commission, which is the investigative and prosecutorial arm of the Michigan Supreme Court for allegations of attorney misconduct. Because Moore’s admonishment does not constitute official discipline under the commission’s rules, her reprimand remains confidential but was filed in her permanent record.

A copy of the commission’s March 21 admonishment letter, marked personal and confidential, was obtained this week by reporter Megan Banta of the Lansing State Journal, who shared it Friday with Corporate Counsel.

The admonishment letter went to Moore and her attorney, Thomas Cranmer, who co-leads the litigation and dispute resolution group at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in Troy, Michigan.

Moore and Cranmer did not return messages Friday seeking comment. A Michigan State spokesperson declined comment. Moore was allowed 21 days to appeal the decision, but she did not.

The letter said Moore’s failings “were not without consequences because Nassar was permitted to return to work, and it has been reported that approximately 20 more women and girls were sexually assaulted by Nassar after [her] report and until he was finally terminated in September 2016.” Nassar has since been convicted of his crimes and was sentenced to what is effectively the rest of his life in prison.

In early 2014 Moore was an attorney and assistant director of the university’s office of inclusion, which investigated Title IX complaints. She was promoted to assistant general counsel at the end of her investigation of Nassar.

The commission said Moore’s probe was “deficient” in several areas and the failings violated federal regulations, including Title IX and the Clery Act. Its findings basically echoed the conclusions of a December 2018 report by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office that Moore’s failures “substantially influenced your incorrect conclusion that Nassar did not violate the sexual misconduct policy.”

The commission’s letter said Moore failed to:

• Consult neutral and objective medical experts with no ties to Nassar or the Michigan State College of Osteopathic Medicine.
• Accurately convey the details of the allegations to the three medical experts who were interviewed. The experts later said had they known the details, they would have answered Moore’s questions differently.
• Interview the female resident physician who was initially in the room with the patient until Nassar told her to leave.
• Provide the same version of her report to both the university and the complainant. The version given to her superiors raised a question about the continued risk of bad perceptions around Nassar’s actions.
• Provide a written notice of the appeals process to the complainant.

Moore’s investigatory report incorrectly concluded that Nassar’s treatment was an appropriate medical technique and not sexual in nature.

However, the commission concluded: “Nassar’s acts of telling the female resident physician to leave the room, massaging [the patient’s] breast under her shirt, massaging her vaginal area without gloves, failing to heed her request to stop, failing to stop until she physically removed his hands from her body, and becoming sexually aroused cannot seriously be considered an appropriate medical technique and not sexual in nature, especially in consideration” that the patient was seeking treatment for pain in her hip joint.

Moore remains in her job at the university. Meanwhile, since February 2018 two former Michigan State general counsel and a deputy general counsel promoted to acting general counsel were either ousted or departed under pressure because of the Nassar scandal and its political fallout.