No new ‘incriminating’ evidence against Michigan State in Larry Nassar case

DETROIT — 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.

“I was surprised we didn’t find anything incriminating,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a news conference.

“It seems pretty unlikely to us, right?” she said. “This is a large university, there are obviously a lot of employees. I think the expectation would be that we would find a little bit more than we did.”

Nassar, who also worked for USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, is serving decades in prison for sexual abuse under the guise of treatment and other crimes. Michigan State in 2018 agreed to a $500 million settlement with hundreds of people, mostly women, who said he abused them with his hands.

For years, Nessel and her predecessor clashed with Michigan State’s attorneys and the elected administration over the release of documents. While more than 100,000 documents were initially turned over to investigators, another batch of 6,000 documents were withheld under attorney-client privilege until this year.

Since the Nassar scandal broke in 2016, Michigan State has repeatedly said no one at the school covered up its actions. Former gymnastics coach Kathie Klages was found guilty of lying to investigators about allegations she was told in the 1990s, but the state appeals court threw out the conviction.

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

After reviewing the documents, Nessel said the university improperly invoked her client’s privilege of confidentiality regarding all documents, even though a judge in 2019 agreed with the school’s position.

The attorney general accused Michigan State of giving victims a “false sense of hope” that the data would be revealing after they eventually gave it up. Nessel plans to make it public.

An email seeking comment from Michigan State was not immediately returned.

“Simply put, there is no satisfying answer as to how this abuse could continue for so long and against so many people without MSU or anyone else putting a stop to it,” Nessel said.

Ripples from the Nassar saga have spread widely. In April, the U.S. Justice Department 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 window of time that allowed Nassar to continue exploiting victims before his arrest.

USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees reached a $380 million settlement over alleged negligence.

An internal Justice Department monitor recently reported that the FBI failed to report some allegations of child sexual abuse to local police or social services, even after its mishandling of the Nassar allegations led to changes.