By Ben Solis
Gongwer News Service
Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday announced the closure of the investigation into Michigan State University and how convicted predator Larry Nassar was able to abuse hundreds of young women during his tenure as a doctor without the university taking action.
The announcement also came with a wag of the finger from Nessel to MSU, with the attorney general saying there was no reason the university should have withheld more than 6,000 documents for years under attorney-client privilege.
Nassar abused hundreds of women and girls under the guise of medical treatment while a physician at the university.
The documents were provided to the department in the spring of 2024 after MSU initially held them back, citing attorney-client privilege issues. For years this created a significant and public back and forth between the Department of Attorney General and the university over transparency and the need to close the loop on Nassar.
Nessel said today there is no good answer for why Nassar was able to perpetuate abuse for so long without MSU putting a stop to it.
“Sadly, there simply is no fulfilling answer to the question of how Nasser was able to perpetuate his abuse on so many for so long without MSU or anyone else putting stop to it,” Nessel said in a press conference. “To say that I am disappointed at this outcome is really an understatement. While we begin each investigation in pursuit of the truth and facts, first and foremost, and take criminal or civil charges as a secondary consideration, it is my belief that by withholding the remaining 6,000 documents, MSU unnecessarily prolonged the hope that the questions survivors had would be answered, and denied them closure that they were entitled to many years ago.”
In a statement, former Attorney General Bill Schuette, who first began the investigation during his tenure, said survivors had been denied justice by the MSU board’s “refusal to let sunshine in and release all documents pertaining to Nassar.”
“Six years have passed since I opened an investigation to determine what Michigan State University knew and when the institution – the Board of Trustees and those in positions of responsibility – knew of the criminal actions occurring on campus,” Schuette said. “As attorney general, I actively sought documents, messages and any other communications between university officials around Nassar’s actions. Letters, subpoenas, court appearances and other actions were taken by my team, only to be held back by lawyers and judges ruling in favor of what we now know to be a potential abuse of attorney-client privilege.”
Schuette said the years-long delay “caused the survivors to continue to wonder what they, and law enforcement, did not know.”
“The reality for many survivors has been the inability to fully move on because these documents and the knowledge held within them was still out there – a lingering sense of anxiety surrounding a part of their lives that many would like to put into the past,” he said. “The continued revictimization of the survivors due to the long standing delay tactics is wholly unfair and simply wrong. My sincere hope is that through the release of these documents, the survivors and their families will be able to continue the process of healing.”
Schuette also said he planned to review the documents himself.
“I hope many others review the documents as well,” he said. “Although time has passed, we all must know the whole truth about what happened at Michigan State University and the monster named Larry Nassar.”
Rachel Denhollander, one of the most prominent survivors who was subject to Nassar’s abuse and has worked over the years to advocate for justice, said the close of the investigation with no further indictments “comes as no surprise to those of us who work in this field.”
Denhollander said she was deeply grateful for Nessel and her team’s efforts, adding that “the criminal justice process is important and necessary, but it’s not and never has been sufficient.”
“Most breakdowns that facilitate or enable abuse are outside the reach of the indictment process – this has always been the case,” she said. “Whether through gaps in the law, archaic statute of limitations, or behavior that, while deeply unethical, simply isn’t criminal, the dynamics which enable abuse are really within reach of indictment. … What today demonstrates is precisely why this indictment review process is critical, and an excellent question is why MSU steadfastly refuses to undertake it.”
In a news release, Nessel’s office shared that it completed its review, issued a report on its findings and said that there was no new or relevant information in the matter. The report questioned why the documents were withheld under attorney-client privilege because they did not offer any new revelations, nor did they contain any clear privileged information.
“MSU has repeatedly justified withholding the documents because they contained information that was allegedly protected by the attorney-client privilege. Our review has revealed that this justification was not always appropriate,” the report said. “A significant number, if not a majority, of the documents did not appear to us to be covered by the privilege. Accordingly, there was no justifiable reason to withhold those documents for any period of time, let alone an extended period. Further, the documents that contained, or at least arguably contained, privileged information did not offer any new insight into MSU’s handling of Nassar’s abuse or who knew what about it and when. Indeed, most of the privileged information was not even related to those issues, but instead to tangential issues such as public relations, insurance, and funding.”
Nessel during the press conference said that her office believes they are now in possession of all the existing documents on the Nassar matter, but, based on the remaining documents it just received, not all of the university’s communications were preserved. That said, it was clear to the office that the university wrongly applied attorney-client privilege to many, if not most, of the documents the university recently provided.
Although the investigation bore no new fruit or closure for survivors, Nessel commended them all for their bravery and “coming forward and sharing your stories and for never giving up on in the pursuit of justice and transparency.”
“This is not where this story ends. Never in our collective many years as prosecutors have we seen a group of survivors come together and create the sisterhood as you have and impacted systemic changes, not just here in Michigan but nationwide, to ensure that schools are better prepared to prevent, investigate and stop abuse,” Nessel said. “And to ensure that survivors are believed, are treated better in the judicial system, and to change the culture and how sexual assault is seen by the public at large.”
Nessel said the efforts of survivors to seek justice also resulted in several amendments to state law in Michigan in response to their “tenacious advocacy.”
“Athletic trainers and physical therapists are now mandatory reporters. There is increased education in schools surrounding the prevention of sexual violence. Michigan has codified consequences for medical professionals who use their positions of authority to abuse others or prevent schools from reporting abuse,” Nessel said. “Criminal sexual conduct in the second and third degree, their statute of limitations have changed considerably from where they were before, and they’re up now from 10 years to 15 years. And the statute of limitations was revised for the civil suits that were related to this abuse. So culturally, you have certainly had a profound impact.”
Nessel added that, because of their work, the nation now more readily recognizes those who have been subjected to abuse as survivors.
“As survivors, not as victims. You’ve changed how survivors are treated when they come forward, and you’ve changed our culture to one that leads with believing survivors,” she said. “And you’ve allowed prosecutors across the nation to reform court testimony and allow non-charged victims to testify during sentencing proceedings.”
Reporters asked what the attorney general expected from the remaining documents, since they were steadfastly withheld, later released and then provided no smoking gun for the department.
Nessel said anything was possible, in this case, and that’s why the documents warranted a hard look from the state’s top law enforcement agency.
“The way that MSU and the Board of Trustees, over the course of many incarnations of the Board of Trustees, the way they were so tenacious in withholding these particular documents, of course, it would lead a normal person to think, ‘well, what is in those documents that they don’t want us to see?’” Nessel said. “So of course, it would lead us to believe that perhaps there was incriminating information that we would find. So yeah, it was surprising to me that we did not find anything that was imminent.”
Nessel said they found things that were “embarrassing to the university, but we didn’t find anything that was incriminating.”
When pressed on what embarrassing items were discovered, Nessel pointed reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for the documents, even though it has a plan to release them at a later date.
That said, Nessel added that the documents included things that were related to the investigation but not really anything that would have assisted her department in moving forward.
“Some of them had to do with public relations strategy or preparations for a United States Senate hearing, media responses, responses to university donors, criticism of the pending investigation,” she said. “Business emails that were sent from personal email accounts instead of official MSU accounts and criticism of the former AGs team and former Ingham County prosecutor’s. So many of the documents … they were inconsistent in their redactions, or they applied the attorney client privilege to the entirety of the document, instead of redacting just portions that were regarded to be privileged, so that that was our finding.”
The department and its Cold Case Sexual Assault and Domestic Abuse Unit met with victims and their families to share the findings and examples of the withheld documents, the office said in a news release. The department is also in the process of creating a digital, publicly available folder of all of the documents, but due to the volume of the documents, thousands of redactions, and accessibility standards, the process could take more than a year, the department said.
Gongwer News Service
Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday announced the closure of the investigation into Michigan State University and how convicted predator Larry Nassar was able to abuse hundreds of young women during his tenure as a doctor without the university taking action.
The announcement also came with a wag of the finger from Nessel to MSU, with the attorney general saying there was no reason the university should have withheld more than 6,000 documents for years under attorney-client privilege.
Nassar abused hundreds of women and girls under the guise of medical treatment while a physician at the university.
The documents were provided to the department in the spring of 2024 after MSU initially held them back, citing attorney-client privilege issues. For years this created a significant and public back and forth between the Department of Attorney General and the university over transparency and the need to close the loop on Nassar.
Nessel said today there is no good answer for why Nassar was able to perpetuate abuse for so long without MSU putting a stop to it.
“Sadly, there simply is no fulfilling answer to the question of how Nasser was able to perpetuate his abuse on so many for so long without MSU or anyone else putting stop to it,” Nessel said in a press conference. “To say that I am disappointed at this outcome is really an understatement. While we begin each investigation in pursuit of the truth and facts, first and foremost, and take criminal or civil charges as a secondary consideration, it is my belief that by withholding the remaining 6,000 documents, MSU unnecessarily prolonged the hope that the questions survivors had would be answered, and denied them closure that they were entitled to many years ago.”
In a statement, former Attorney General Bill Schuette, who first began the investigation during his tenure, said survivors had been denied justice by the MSU board’s “refusal to let sunshine in and release all documents pertaining to Nassar.”
“Six years have passed since I opened an investigation to determine what Michigan State University knew and when the institution – the Board of Trustees and those in positions of responsibility – knew of the criminal actions occurring on campus,” Schuette said. “As attorney general, I actively sought documents, messages and any other communications between university officials around Nassar’s actions. Letters, subpoenas, court appearances and other actions were taken by my team, only to be held back by lawyers and judges ruling in favor of what we now know to be a potential abuse of attorney-client privilege.”
Schuette said the years-long delay “caused the survivors to continue to wonder what they, and law enforcement, did not know.”
“The reality for many survivors has been the inability to fully move on because these documents and the knowledge held within them was still out there – a lingering sense of anxiety surrounding a part of their lives that many would like to put into the past,” he said. “The continued revictimization of the survivors due to the long standing delay tactics is wholly unfair and simply wrong. My sincere hope is that through the release of these documents, the survivors and their families will be able to continue the process of healing.”
Schuette also said he planned to review the documents himself.
“I hope many others review the documents as well,” he said. “Although time has passed, we all must know the whole truth about what happened at Michigan State University and the monster named Larry Nassar.”
Rachel Denhollander, one of the most prominent survivors who was subject to Nassar’s abuse and has worked over the years to advocate for justice, said the close of the investigation with no further indictments “comes as no surprise to those of us who work in this field.”
Denhollander said she was deeply grateful for Nessel and her team’s efforts, adding that “the criminal justice process is important and necessary, but it’s not and never has been sufficient.”
“Most breakdowns that facilitate or enable abuse are outside the reach of the indictment process – this has always been the case,” she said. “Whether through gaps in the law, archaic statute of limitations, or behavior that, while deeply unethical, simply isn’t criminal, the dynamics which enable abuse are really within reach of indictment. … What today demonstrates is precisely why this indictment review process is critical, and an excellent question is why MSU steadfastly refuses to undertake it.”
In a news release, Nessel’s office shared that it completed its review, issued a report on its findings and said that there was no new or relevant information in the matter. The report questioned why the documents were withheld under attorney-client privilege because they did not offer any new revelations, nor did they contain any clear privileged information.
“MSU has repeatedly justified withholding the documents because they contained information that was allegedly protected by the attorney-client privilege. Our review has revealed that this justification was not always appropriate,” the report said. “A significant number, if not a majority, of the documents did not appear to us to be covered by the privilege. Accordingly, there was no justifiable reason to withhold those documents for any period of time, let alone an extended period. Further, the documents that contained, or at least arguably contained, privileged information did not offer any new insight into MSU’s handling of Nassar’s abuse or who knew what about it and when. Indeed, most of the privileged information was not even related to those issues, but instead to tangential issues such as public relations, insurance, and funding.”
Nessel during the press conference said that her office believes they are now in possession of all the existing documents on the Nassar matter, but, based on the remaining documents it just received, not all of the university’s communications were preserved. That said, it was clear to the office that the university wrongly applied attorney-client privilege to many, if not most, of the documents the university recently provided.
Although the investigation bore no new fruit or closure for survivors, Nessel commended them all for their bravery and “coming forward and sharing your stories and for never giving up on in the pursuit of justice and transparency.”
“This is not where this story ends. Never in our collective many years as prosecutors have we seen a group of survivors come together and create the sisterhood as you have and impacted systemic changes, not just here in Michigan but nationwide, to ensure that schools are better prepared to prevent, investigate and stop abuse,” Nessel said. “And to ensure that survivors are believed, are treated better in the judicial system, and to change the culture and how sexual assault is seen by the public at large.”
Nessel said the efforts of survivors to seek justice also resulted in several amendments to state law in Michigan in response to their “tenacious advocacy.”
“Athletic trainers and physical therapists are now mandatory reporters. There is increased education in schools surrounding the prevention of sexual violence. Michigan has codified consequences for medical professionals who use their positions of authority to abuse others or prevent schools from reporting abuse,” Nessel said. “Criminal sexual conduct in the second and third degree, their statute of limitations have changed considerably from where they were before, and they’re up now from 10 years to 15 years. And the statute of limitations was revised for the civil suits that were related to this abuse. So culturally, you have certainly had a profound impact.”
Nessel added that, because of their work, the nation now more readily recognizes those who have been subjected to abuse as survivors.
“As survivors, not as victims. You’ve changed how survivors are treated when they come forward, and you’ve changed our culture to one that leads with believing survivors,” she said. “And you’ve allowed prosecutors across the nation to reform court testimony and allow non-charged victims to testify during sentencing proceedings.”
Reporters asked what the attorney general expected from the remaining documents, since they were steadfastly withheld, later released and then provided no smoking gun for the department.
Nessel said anything was possible, in this case, and that’s why the documents warranted a hard look from the state’s top law enforcement agency.
“The way that MSU and the Board of Trustees, over the course of many incarnations of the Board of Trustees, the way they were so tenacious in withholding these particular documents, of course, it would lead a normal person to think, ‘well, what is in those documents that they don’t want us to see?’” Nessel said. “So of course, it would lead us to believe that perhaps there was incriminating information that we would find. So yeah, it was surprising to me that we did not find anything that was imminent.”
Nessel said they found things that were “embarrassing to the university, but we didn’t find anything that was incriminating.”
When pressed on what embarrassing items were discovered, Nessel pointed reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for the documents, even though it has a plan to release them at a later date.
That said, Nessel added that the documents included things that were related to the investigation but not really anything that would have assisted her department in moving forward.
“Some of them had to do with public relations strategy or preparations for a United States Senate hearing, media responses, responses to university donors, criticism of the pending investigation,” she said. “Business emails that were sent from personal email accounts instead of official MSU accounts and criticism of the former AGs team and former Ingham County prosecutor’s. So many of the documents … they were inconsistent in their redactions, or they applied the attorney client privilege to the entirety of the document, instead of redacting just portions that were regarded to be privileged, so that that was our finding.”
The department and its Cold Case Sexual Assault and Domestic Abuse Unit met with victims and their families to share the findings and examples of the withheld documents, the office said in a news release. The department is also in the process of creating a digital, publicly available folder of all of the documents, but due to the volume of the documents, thousands of redactions, and accessibility standards, the process could take more than a year, the department said.
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