Charges Against Former Michigan State President Are Dismissed

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/michigan-state-university-president-charges.html

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A judge on Wednesday dismissed a criminal case against Lou Anna K. Simon, the former Michigan State University president who was charged with lying to investigators about her knowledge of sexual abuse committed by Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar.

Judge John D. Maurer of the Circuit Court in Eaton County, Mich., said that prosecutors had not successfully proved that Dr. Simon knew of a 2014 sex abuse complaint against Dr. Nassar, and that a lower court had “abused its discretion” in allowing the case against her to continue.

Dr. Simon told investigators that she knew of a “sports medicine doc who was subject to review,” but that she did not know it was Dr. Nassar or the nature of the complaint, according to court documents. She said she learned about the sex abuse allegations against Dr. Nassar from news reports in 2016.

Dr. Simon was charged in November 2018 with two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts, and faced up to four years in prison on each of the felony charges. Court documents show that detectives believed she lied during their interview with her and that they believed she did know about the allegations against Dr. Nassar.

“From the preliminary examination transcripts, there is no evidence that Dr. Simon knew the information,” Judge Maurer wrote in a 25-page opinion. He added, “The fact that they didn’t ask her how she was told, the specifics of what she was told or when she was told would certainly imply to a reasonable person that the information was not material.”

Judge Maurer reviewed transcripts from the district court and heard oral arguments from prosecutors and Dr. Simon’s lawyers before making his decision.

A lawyer for Dr. Simon, Lee Silver, said his client had been “fully vindicated.”

“The judge’s opinion is consistent with what we have been saying since Day 1, which is that there is not a shred of evidence to support these charges,” Mr. Silver said in an interview.

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that it planned to take the case to the state’s Court of Appeals with a goal of having the charges against Dr. Simon reinstated.

Dr. Nassar, a former Michigan State faculty member and the former doctor for the university and United States gymnastics teams, is serving 40 to 175 years in prison for several sex crimes. Hundreds of girls, mostly gymnasts, accused him of sexually abusing them when they saw him for help with their injuries. At Dr. Nassar’s weeklong sentencing hearing in 2018, 150 women confronted him publicly about the abuse.

In 2018, Dr. Simon resigned under pressure over her handling of the scandal. Michigan State announced last year that it would pay her more than $2.4 million as part of a retirement deal.

In February, Kathie Klages, a former Michigan State gymnastics coach, was convicted of lying to investigators about her knowledge Dr. Nassar’s abuse.

Ms. Klages also told the authorities that she was unaware of the accusations against Dr. Nassar before 2016, but prosecutors said that she had known of the abuse for more than 20 years.