WARNING: THIS IS A LONG POST
If you Google The Huge Show (WBBL) podcast from yesterday, Feb 23 and listen to the 5:00pm segment (the last hour), he is interviewing Todd Heywood, the journalist from the Lansing City Pulse that released the article entitled "Izzo Fully Informed".
The writer has been an investigative reporter and has looked into MSU sexual assault issues and spartan athletes crimes dating back to 2008. He was also the first to publicly report about the alleged rape that occurred on Aug 29, 2010, which involved Appling and Payne and that sparked the ESPN OTL investigation and the investigation by the Federal Office of Civil Liberties (OCL).
The gist of the article is the following. [Warning: This is a long read but provides some background to the radio conversation.] It shows how Izzo, the campus police, the athletic department and Stuart Dunnings III, the then-Ingham County Prosecutor moved almost unbelievably quickly to get this resolved.
1) The "investigation" began the next day (Aug 30) when a search warrant for the dorm room was issued and was conducted by the MSU Campus Police.
2) Within hours after the search warrant was issued, and at Hollis' direction, Izzo had a meeting with Alan Haller (the Associate AD and previously an ex-spartan football player and ex-MSU campus policeman), Appling and Payne and Mike Garland, an asst BBall coach. According to an MSU spokesman, they met to "explain what the potential charges were, and how the criminal justice process worked, and to instruct the players to refrain from attending any social gatherings and to have no contact with the complainant".
3) The players were immediately removed from Wonders Hall, their residence hall, without a hearing which violated standard MSU protocol at that time. Paul RInella, the director of Wonders Hall, was directed by his boss, Eduardo Olivo, that he should follow the sexual assault protocol "to the letter". In an email response to his boss four days later, Rinella wrote, "nothing about this case has been 'to the letter'".
4) The campus police concluded their investigation but only questioned Payne whose testimony seemed to suggest that Appling continued the alleged assault after the victim asked him to stop. THE CAMPUS POLICE NEVER QUESTIONED APPLING (incredibly). As a result of the Payne interview, the campus police suggested to the County Prosecutor that the players be charged with 3rd degree criminal sexual conduct.
5)The process was completed on September 2, when the Stuart Dunnings III, the Ingham County Prosecutor, since disbarred and jailed for charges outside of this case, declined to issue a warrant
6) While not discussed in this article, the alleged victim, Carolyn Schaner, claimed that the Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor aggressively "interviewed" her for hours causing her to cry and encouraged her to drop the case. The Asst Prosecutor denies these claims by Schaner but now works in the MSU Title iX department.
7) Despite Dunnings' decision not to bring charges, according to the article, MSU "still had to struggle with whether to bring housing contract hearings and judicial hearings against the players for violating the university's sexual harassment policies. Pursuing either process would have required the alleged victim, Carolyn Schaner, to, pursue actions, forcing her to testify and give statements twice". She declined to do so. MSU has since changed its policy on this issue and allows for "investigations into sexual assault and harassment claims independently and without victim participation".
8) MSU hired an outside investigator who determined "by a preponderance of the evidence" that the university's sexual assault policies were not violated and that the evidence could not determine whether the alleged assault was consensual.
What was more interesting to me was the conversation on the Huge Show about this article between Bill Simonson, the host of the show, and Todd Heywood who comes across (my opinion) as very critical and seemingly distrustful of the MSU approaches to investigating sexual assaults in general, including those involving student athletes.
Three comments on the radio show were particularly interesting:
1) The "investigation" into the Appling/Payne alleged sexual assault took a TOTAL of four days. Bill Simonson said that he had independently asked a judge (without giving the context of this case) how long should it take to investigate a case of sexual assault before rendering a decision to dismiss. The judge said that these types of investigations TAKE MONTHS to conclude.
2) Todd Heywood said that the MSU campus police dept destroyed all of the evidence within a couple of months. Some of the tests on the condoms etc took up to a year to finalize but they too were destroyed immediately thereafter. He said that the Ingham County Prosecutor's office was unusual in that it had no policy in place (at that time) with a required timetable for the retention of evidence.
3) When asked, Heywood indicated that he kept track of allegations of crimes by MSU athletes since 2008. MSU had 121 allegations of crimes by athletes since 2008. While they were ALLEGATIONS of crimes, that is still more than one dozen per year.
Despite the apparent issues related to the investigation and outcome of this case, there is NO current formal investigation (other than ESPN and/or the Lansing City Pulse by way of obtaining documents via the Freedom of Information Act) to look into the irregularities of the Appling/Payne alleged assault. Bill Schuette, the Attorney General running for Governor, strong MSU supporter and good friend of Mark Dantonio, has restricted his non-independent ("independent" [his words]) investigator to solely look into Nassar. The Office of Civil Liberties seems to have concluded their review of the Payne/Appling incident and are reviewing broader Title IX issues at MSU around sexual assaults. The NCAA is looking into Nassar solely at this point. Apparently, Engler's hiring of Jim Blanchard to lobby Congress worked because the House is apparently no longer forming a committee to look into the MSU issues.
If you Google The Huge Show (WBBL) podcast from yesterday, Feb 23 and listen to the 5:00pm segment (the last hour), he is interviewing Todd Heywood, the journalist from the Lansing City Pulse that released the article entitled "Izzo Fully Informed".
The writer has been an investigative reporter and has looked into MSU sexual assault issues and spartan athletes crimes dating back to 2008. He was also the first to publicly report about the alleged rape that occurred on Aug 29, 2010, which involved Appling and Payne and that sparked the ESPN OTL investigation and the investigation by the Federal Office of Civil Liberties (OCL).
The gist of the article is the following. [Warning: This is a long read but provides some background to the radio conversation.] It shows how Izzo, the campus police, the athletic department and Stuart Dunnings III, the then-Ingham County Prosecutor moved almost unbelievably quickly to get this resolved.
1) The "investigation" began the next day (Aug 30) when a search warrant for the dorm room was issued and was conducted by the MSU Campus Police.
2) Within hours after the search warrant was issued, and at Hollis' direction, Izzo had a meeting with Alan Haller (the Associate AD and previously an ex-spartan football player and ex-MSU campus policeman), Appling and Payne and Mike Garland, an asst BBall coach. According to an MSU spokesman, they met to "explain what the potential charges were, and how the criminal justice process worked, and to instruct the players to refrain from attending any social gatherings and to have no contact with the complainant".
3) The players were immediately removed from Wonders Hall, their residence hall, without a hearing which violated standard MSU protocol at that time. Paul RInella, the director of Wonders Hall, was directed by his boss, Eduardo Olivo, that he should follow the sexual assault protocol "to the letter". In an email response to his boss four days later, Rinella wrote, "nothing about this case has been 'to the letter'".
4) The campus police concluded their investigation but only questioned Payne whose testimony seemed to suggest that Appling continued the alleged assault after the victim asked him to stop. THE CAMPUS POLICE NEVER QUESTIONED APPLING (incredibly). As a result of the Payne interview, the campus police suggested to the County Prosecutor that the players be charged with 3rd degree criminal sexual conduct.
5)The process was completed on September 2, when the Stuart Dunnings III, the Ingham County Prosecutor, since disbarred and jailed for charges outside of this case, declined to issue a warrant
6) While not discussed in this article, the alleged victim, Carolyn Schaner, claimed that the Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor aggressively "interviewed" her for hours causing her to cry and encouraged her to drop the case. The Asst Prosecutor denies these claims by Schaner but now works in the MSU Title iX department.
7) Despite Dunnings' decision not to bring charges, according to the article, MSU "still had to struggle with whether to bring housing contract hearings and judicial hearings against the players for violating the university's sexual harassment policies. Pursuing either process would have required the alleged victim, Carolyn Schaner, to, pursue actions, forcing her to testify and give statements twice". She declined to do so. MSU has since changed its policy on this issue and allows for "investigations into sexual assault and harassment claims independently and without victim participation".
8) MSU hired an outside investigator who determined "by a preponderance of the evidence" that the university's sexual assault policies were not violated and that the evidence could not determine whether the alleged assault was consensual.
What was more interesting to me was the conversation on the Huge Show about this article between Bill Simonson, the host of the show, and Todd Heywood who comes across (my opinion) as very critical and seemingly distrustful of the MSU approaches to investigating sexual assaults in general, including those involving student athletes.
Three comments on the radio show were particularly interesting:
1) The "investigation" into the Appling/Payne alleged sexual assault took a TOTAL of four days. Bill Simonson said that he had independently asked a judge (without giving the context of this case) how long should it take to investigate a case of sexual assault before rendering a decision to dismiss. The judge said that these types of investigations TAKE MONTHS to conclude.
2) Todd Heywood said that the MSU campus police dept destroyed all of the evidence within a couple of months. Some of the tests on the condoms etc took up to a year to finalize but they too were destroyed immediately thereafter. He said that the Ingham County Prosecutor's office was unusual in that it had no policy in place (at that time) with a required timetable for the retention of evidence.
3) When asked, Heywood indicated that he kept track of allegations of crimes by MSU athletes since 2008. MSU had 121 allegations of crimes by athletes since 2008. While they were ALLEGATIONS of crimes, that is still more than one dozen per year.
Despite the apparent issues related to the investigation and outcome of this case, there is NO current formal investigation (other than ESPN and/or the Lansing City Pulse by way of obtaining documents via the Freedom of Information Act) to look into the irregularities of the Appling/Payne alleged assault. Bill Schuette, the Attorney General running for Governor, strong MSU supporter and good friend of Mark Dantonio, has restricted his non-independent ("independent" [his words]) investigator to solely look into Nassar. The Office of Civil Liberties seems to have concluded their review of the Payne/Appling incident and are reviewing broader Title IX issues at MSU around sexual assaults. The NCAA is looking into Nassar solely at this point. Apparently, Engler's hiring of Jim Blanchard to lobby Congress worked because the House is apparently no longer forming a committee to look into the MSU issues.
