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The MSU board of directors meets after the resignation of President Lou Anna Simon to announce the appointment of an interim president.
Robert Killips | Lansing State Journal
In a recent lawsuit against Michigan State University, a former field hockey player said Larry Nassar had drugged and raped her at a medical appointment in 1992.(Photo: Matthew Dae Smith | Lansing State Journal)
BIG RAPIDS – A woman recently said that Larry Nassar had drugged her and raped her at a medical appointment in 1992, while she was a field hockey player at Michigan State University.
Erika Davis told her coach what had happened, including the fact that the assault was videotaped, according to the lawsuit in Grand Rapids federal court and including her name. Her coach, Martha Ludwig, confronted Nassar about what happened and asked for and received a copy of the recording, according to the lawsuit.
George Pearls, who resigned as sports director in 1992 and is currently a director of the University of Michigan, later stepped in and the suit was dropped, according to the lawsuit. Pearls forced Ludwig to return the video, resign and sign a confidentiality agreement, according to the lawsuit.
Davis states in the lawsuit that she became pregnant, that Nassar is the only person who could have been the father and that she later miscarried.
MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant issued a statement on the lawsuit.
"We are deeply sorry for the abuses committed by Larry Nassar and for the trauma suffered by all victims of sexual assault," she said. "Sexual abuse, assault and relationship violence are not tolerated in our university community.
"Although the protocols and procedures mentioned in this lawsuit do not reflect the way sexual assault allegations are handled at the MSU, we take the allegations very seriously and look into the situation."
In October 1992, Davis and two friends went to the police department of the MSU to file a report, according to the trial.
"The police told them that since she was an athlete, she had to report it to the sports department," her lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. "The detective explicitly told them that he was powerless to investigate everything that was going on at the sports department and go to the sports department.
"The plaintiff Erika explained that the sports department had already dismissed him and the sergeant replied that George Pearls was a" mighty man "and that he should simply drop him."
Davis later had his field hockey purse withdrawn, according to the lawsuit.
"This proves that not only did the accused Michigan State University know that the accused Nassar had sexually abused and sexually abused minors, but that it would also go a long way to conceal this conduct," Davis's lawyers wrote. .
"Defendant Michigan State University could have stopped the accused Nassar's conduct in 1992, but she did not do it."
The lawsuit is named after MSU, the board of directors, Nassar, USA Gymnastics and others as defendants.
The messages were left to ask for comments from Perles and Davis' lawyers.
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The current MSU police chief, Jim Dunlap, who said he was not aware of the lawsuit or received a report, said the department would have refused to investigate because Pearl or the sports department was involved.
"It does not happen," he said. "We just do not do it that way."
Dunlap was not the chief of police in 1992.
The MSU Police Department conducted the criminal investigation of Nassar in 2014 and 2016. The 2014 investigation ended when Ingham County attorneys refused to lay charges. The 2016 survey was completed on convictions by the state and the federal government and hundreds of women and girls said Nassar had assaulted them.
Nassar was a student at MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1992, although in 1986 he began working as a track and field coach at USA Gymnastics. USU hired him in 1997, after working with the US Women's Gymnastics Team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
MSU returned him in September 2016, in a growing number of cases of sexual assault dating back several years.
Nassar, 55, formerly of Holt, is serving a 60-year federal prison sentence for child pornography convictions.
He was also sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting nine girls, including one abused outside of a medical setting.
Nassar appealed his sentences. All these calls have been refused so far.
Check back for updates.
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Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.
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