What a surprise...a MSU employee can't remember anything. The cover up never ends.
Central witness in Lou Anna Simon case doesn’t recall details of key meeting
By Julie Mack | jmack1@mlive.com
A criminal case against Lou Anna Simon, former president of Michigan State University, hinges on May 2014 meeting with a MSU vice president who apparently briefed Simon on an allegation that Dr. Larry Nassar sexually molested a patient.
But in a court hearing Tuesday, April 9, Paulette Granberry Russell said she has no “independent recollection” of the meeting and can’t remember what was said.
In several heated exchanges, Assistant Attorney General Scott Teter suggested that Russell was trying to protect MSU, where Russell heads the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. But Simon’s attorneys said that Russell’s testimony underscored weaknesses in the prosecution’s case.
Russell, director of MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, testified in the third day of a preliminary hearing before Eaton County District Court Judge Julie Reincke. The hearing, which will continue April 16, will determine if there is enough evidence to send Simon to circuit court for trial.
The 2014 interaction with Russell is at the heart of a criminal charges against Simon, who faces two felony and two misdemeanor counts of lying to a peace officer about her knowledge of Nassar, particularly in regards to a 2014 Title IX investigation.
The victim in that Title IX complaint, Amanda Thomashow, testified on Feb. 5, the first day of the preliminary exam. Thomashow said that during an appointment at MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic, Nassar massaged her breast and her vaginal area in an “intimate manner."
An investigation by MSU’s Title IX office ultimately cleared Nassar, concluding that Thomashow failed to understand the “nuanced difference” between a medical exam and a sexual assault. Nassar continued seeing patients for two more years, and went on to assault dozens more patients before he was fired in September 2016.
However, state police found notes from Russell that suggest Simon was briefed by Russell about the case, and the two discussed it at a May 2014 meeting.
In his questioning of Russell and Kristine Moore, the Title IX investigator, Teter established that at the time Thomashow made her allegation, MSU was under scrutiny from the federal Office of Civil Rights about the university’s handling of sexual misconduct cases.
After Moore heard the details of Thomashow’s allegations in a May 15 evening phone call, she called Russell -- her boss -- the next morning, as well as MSU police and MSU’s legal counsel.
Russell, in turn, immediately send an email to Simon, saying: “We have an incident involving a sports medicine doc.”
Under questioning Tuesday, Russell could only recall one other time before May 2014 that she talked with Simon about a Title IX sexual misconduct case, and that was a 2010 case that involved two basketball players and eventually spurred an investigation by the federal Office of Civil Rights.
Asked by Teter why she was so quick to inform Simon in this case, Russell said: ““Because it involved a doctor. We were in the middle of an OCR investigation. ... It involved allegations of assault against a patient."
Central witness in Lou Anna Simon case doesn’t recall details of key meeting
By Julie Mack | jmack1@mlive.com
A criminal case against Lou Anna Simon, former president of Michigan State University, hinges on May 2014 meeting with a MSU vice president who apparently briefed Simon on an allegation that Dr. Larry Nassar sexually molested a patient.
But in a court hearing Tuesday, April 9, Paulette Granberry Russell said she has no “independent recollection” of the meeting and can’t remember what was said.
In several heated exchanges, Assistant Attorney General Scott Teter suggested that Russell was trying to protect MSU, where Russell heads the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. But Simon’s attorneys said that Russell’s testimony underscored weaknesses in the prosecution’s case.
Russell, director of MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, testified in the third day of a preliminary hearing before Eaton County District Court Judge Julie Reincke. The hearing, which will continue April 16, will determine if there is enough evidence to send Simon to circuit court for trial.
The 2014 interaction with Russell is at the heart of a criminal charges against Simon, who faces two felony and two misdemeanor counts of lying to a peace officer about her knowledge of Nassar, particularly in regards to a 2014 Title IX investigation.
The victim in that Title IX complaint, Amanda Thomashow, testified on Feb. 5, the first day of the preliminary exam. Thomashow said that during an appointment at MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic, Nassar massaged her breast and her vaginal area in an “intimate manner."
An investigation by MSU’s Title IX office ultimately cleared Nassar, concluding that Thomashow failed to understand the “nuanced difference” between a medical exam and a sexual assault. Nassar continued seeing patients for two more years, and went on to assault dozens more patients before he was fired in September 2016.
However, state police found notes from Russell that suggest Simon was briefed by Russell about the case, and the two discussed it at a May 2014 meeting.
In his questioning of Russell and Kristine Moore, the Title IX investigator, Teter established that at the time Thomashow made her allegation, MSU was under scrutiny from the federal Office of Civil Rights about the university’s handling of sexual misconduct cases.
After Moore heard the details of Thomashow’s allegations in a May 15 evening phone call, she called Russell -- her boss -- the next morning, as well as MSU police and MSU’s legal counsel.
Russell, in turn, immediately send an email to Simon, saying: “We have an incident involving a sports medicine doc.”
Under questioning Tuesday, Russell could only recall one other time before May 2014 that she talked with Simon about a Title IX sexual misconduct case, and that was a 2010 case that involved two basketball players and eventually spurred an investigation by the federal Office of Civil Rights.
Asked by Teter why she was so quick to inform Simon in this case, Russell said: ““Because it involved a doctor. We were in the middle of an OCR investigation. ... It involved allegations of assault against a patient."
