Michigan state documents reveal no new information about Nassar’s abuse scandal

DETROIT (AP) — Thousands of documents turned over by Michigan State University reveal nothing new about what the school may have known about years of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, the campus doctor who assaulted female athletes, the state’s attorney general said Wednesday. the state.

“It was surprising to me that we didn’t find anything that was incriminating,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a news conference.

“Sounds a bit unlikely to us, doesn’t it?” she said. “This is a major university, obviously a large number of staff working there. I think the expectation is that we’re going to find a little bit more than we found.”

Nassar, who also worked for USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, is serving decades in prison for sexual assault committed under the guise of treatment, as well as other crimes. The state of Michigan agreed in 2018 to a $500 million settlement with hundreds of people, mostly women, who said he abused their hands.

For years, Nessel and her predecessor clashed with Michigan state attorneys general and its elected board over releasing the records. While more than 100,000 documents were initially turned over to investigators, another batch of 6,000 was withheld until this year under attorney-client privilege.

Since the Nassar scandal broke in 2016, Michigan State has repeatedly said that no one at the school has hidden their actions. Former gymnastics coach Kathie Klages was found guilty of lying to investigators about allegations she was told in the 1990s, but an appeals court overturned the conviction.

Former Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon also was accused of misleading investigators during a 2018 interview, but that case was dismissed before a trial.

After seeing the records, Nessel believes the university was wrong to assert attorney-client privilege over all the documents, although a judge in 2019 agreed with the school’s position.

The attorney general accused the state of Michigan of giving victims “a sense of false hope” that the records will be revealed after they eventually give them up. Nessel plans to make them available to the public.

“Simply put, there is no satisfactory answer to the question of how this abuse of so many could have been perpetuated for so long without MSU or anyone else putting an end to it,” Nessel said.

Michigan State spokeswoman Emily Gerkin Guerrant said the university has taken significant steps to improve safety and campus culture since 2016.

Ripples from the Nassar saga spread widely. In April, the US Department of Justice announced a $138 million settlement with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of mishandling allegations against the doctor in 2015 and 2016, a critical time frame that allowed him Nassar to continue preying on victims before his arrest.

USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee settled for $380 million over its alleged negligence.

An internal Justice Department watchdog recently said the FBI failed to report some allegations of child sexual abuse to local police or social service agencies, even after its mishandling of the Nassar allegations led to changes.

TOPICS
Michigan