MSU lawyer tells Bill Schuette officials didn't know about Nassar until 2016
Justin A. Hinkley
LANSING – Former Michigan State University doctor and admitted sexual predator Larry Nassar "fooled everyone around him" and no one at the university was aware of his crimes until news articles published in 2016, a university lawyer told Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
Early this week, Schuette asked MSU to provide the findings of an internal review run by former federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. The university responded on Wednesday and Schuette on Friday made public what a spokeswoman said was "all correspondence" on the matter.
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Schuette's office still is reviewing the letter and determining next steps, spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said Friday. Schuette on Wednesday refused to say whether he would independently investigate MSU.
The disclosure of Fitzgerald's letter came as a growing number of people called for an independent investigation into MSU's handling of allegations against Nassar, including Gretchen Whitmer, a former lawmaker and prosecutor who could face Schuette in next year's race for Michigan governor.
Nassar, 54, was sentenced on Thursday to 60 years in prison on federal child pornography charges. He faces up to life in prison when he's sentenced next month on sex assault charges in Ingham and Eaton counties.
At least seven women or girls say they raised concerns about Nassar's actions to coaches, trainers, police or university officials between 1997 and 2015, the State Journal reported this summer. More than 140 women or girls have accused Nassar of assaulting them, according to federal lawsuits.
(A portion of the letter:)
LSJ investigation:Larry Nassar and a career filled with 'silenced' voices
However, "Nassar fooled everyone around him — patients, friends, colleagues, and fellow doctors at MSU," Fitzgerald, who is on MSU's defense team in the federal lawsuits, told Schuette. "While many in the community today wish that they had identified Nassar as a predator, we believe the evidence in this case will show that no one else at MSU knew that Nassar engaged in criminal behavior."
If MSU had information that any of its employees "knowingly assisted or concealed" Nassar's crimes, "we would have reported such evidence to law enforcement promptly," Fitzgerald told Schuette.
He did not provide Schuette's office with any investigative report because he said none existed.
Fitzgerald offered to brief Schuette's office and other law enforcement agencies on their internal review "pursuant to a procedure which does not waive any applicable privileges in civil litigation."
(Portion of the letter - read the entire letter at the bottom:)
The university has said that MSU police and the FBI reviewed whether any MSU employees broke laws related to Nassar and turned findings over to the U.S. Attorney's Office. On Thursday, Andrew Birge, acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, refused to answer reporters' questions about that report.
That's not good enough, Whitmer told reporters in a conference call on Friday. She said it's "an inherent conflict of interest" for an agency to investigate itself. MSU Police Chief Jim Dunlap reports directly to MSU President Lou Anna Simon.
"Until the State Police conducts an independent investigation on all of the state laws that are implicated … I don't believe any of the victims will have confidence that we've got all the facts, much less that the appropriate action has been taken," Whitmer said.
"To our knowledge, we have not been asked to do any such investigation," State Police spokeswoman Lori Dougovito told the State Journal on Friday. If the Attorney General's Office or a prosecutor made such a request, "then certainly we would have that conversation and investigate if that's where the conversation led."
Asked if the State Police could launch its own investigation, Dougovito said the agency typically doesn't unilaterally launch investigations where other police agencies have jurisdiction.
Whitmer, a former lawmaker from Ingham County who has said publicly she is a survivor of sexual assault, served six months as Ingham County's prosecutor after longtime prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was charged with prostitution-related crimes.
As prosecutor, she worked to approve search warrants related to the Nassar investigation but was otherwise not involved. Schuette's office had jurisdiction because Nassar's crimes crossed county and state boundaries, she said. She told reporters she didn't call for an investigation of MSU while in the prosecutor's office because they were trying to nab Nassar, but "now we're beyond the criminal charges."
Whitmer is running for governor as a Democrat. Schuette is running as a Republican and also said this week he'd not asked MSU for information earlier because prosecuting Nassar was "a mammoth task."
Whitmer said she'd met this week with some of Nassar's accusers.
Several of those women at Thursday news conferences repeated calls for an independent investigation of MSU.
In his Wednesday letter to Schuette, Fitzgerald accused the attorneys representing those women of using "baseless allegations of criminal conduct and a cover-up to mount a campaign to force MSU to divulge information publicly so that they can continue to try their case in the press."
Other people have called for more accountability in the Nassar case. Pat Miles, the former U.S. attorney running as a Democrat to replace Schuette in the Attorney General's Office, said in a Thursday news release that "the Attorney General must ensure that all responsible for this crime are brought to justice so the survivors and their families can begin to heal."
Read the full letter here: