East Lansing – Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees will not waive attorney-client privilege over nearly 6,000 documents withheld from the university’s investigation into sexual assault allegations by Larry Nassar.
Officials have withheld the documents for more than six years from the investigation launched by the Prosecutor General’s Office. A district judge ruled that the documents should not be disclosed because of the attorney-client privilege.
Trustee Rema Vassar, the board’s chairwoman, said the board’s general counsel will send a letter to Attorney General Dana Nessel denying his latest request to release the unredacted documents. Vassar apologized to the survivors but defended the decision to reporters on Friday.
“Everything that’s real is FOIA right now, except for attorney-client privilege documents,” Vassar said. “… We are still in litigation to see if the litigation affects the client privilege. We are not prepared to waive the attorney-client privilege at this time.”
He said he’s not sure if that decision will change once the university’s insurance case is resolved.
Their decision not to release the documents was criticized by victim advocates at a board meeting on Friday.
Valerie von Frank, of the parent-survivors organization Engage, said she hoped the board would congratulate Nassar on the remaining 6,000 documents, but instead congratulated Nessel for once again pressing for his release.
“This university is still protecting a pedophile” seven years after news broke that Nassar molested dozens of girls and women as a sports medicine physician at MSU, he said.
Sue Moore, whose daughter is among the MSU survivors, became emotional as she spoke about the continuing impact of withholding the documents on her daughter.
“He’s been in a lot of physical pain and a lot of mental pain, and hopefully some of that mental pain will be alleviated,” he said, clearing another hurdle to healing.
There was pressure on the board to voluntarily release the documents, and Nessel repeatedly called on the board to release the records. Nessel reiterated that request a week ago, noting that new board members and new board leadership could lead to another vote on the matter. He asked the board to submit the records by April 28, hoping for a change among the new board members.
On Friday, Nessel said he was “disappointed” with the board’s decision.
“We have made a sincere request to every iteration of this board, and we will continue this fight for transparency at every opportunity,” Nessel said. “But the university that protected Larry Nassar from justice, and this new board that refused to take a vote today, still has something to say to the people of Michigan, the current students they are supposed to protect, and the victims of Nassar who failed to go to school. to prove it. decades.”
Nessel last week also demanded that the university share records of any internal investigations, records for former employees who worked with Nassar and all Nassar-related emails shared by various MSU administrators, trustees and employees.
Nessel also promised to cooperate with the department through the completion of the investigation, including responding within three days to new questions and correspondence that may arise after seeing the documents.
“Furthermore, no member of the university’s board, administration, or any of its employees, past or present, will contact anyone who is a victim of Nassar through any form of communication,” Nessel said.
The board elected trustee Rema Vassar as chair this year — the first black woman to lead the board and one of the few trustees to live outside of Lansing.
Nessel officially closed the MSU investigation in March 2021 after the board refused to release documents for more than three years.
Nassar, a former MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor, is serving an effective life sentence after being convicted of 10 counts of sexual assault in Ingham and Eaton counties for assaulting young women and girls over a period of more than two decades under the guise of medical care. . as well as federal child pornography charges. After his conviction, MSU reached an unprecedented $500 million settlement with more than 500 reported victims.
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