“Embarrassing” but not “incriminating”: Attorney General closes Nassar investigation without new charges

Attorney General Dana Nessel closed her investigation into Larry Nassar, arguing that the last documents Michigan State University provided to her office related to the handling of the disgraced former MSU doctor’s abuse allegations contained “no new relevant information.”

Nessel said at a press conference this morning that the documents contained “incidental” information related to “public relations, insurance and financing” that was at times “embarrassing” for MSU but not “incriminating.”

This embarrassing information included messages in which university officials criticized prosecutors in the case, discussed a strategy plan for a U.S. Senate hearing on the scandal, and corresponded about how to present the situation to donors and media representatives.

MSU wrongfully withheld the documents for years, Nessel argued. The university falsely cited attorney-client privilege as a reason not to release the documents, which “unnecessarily prolonged the hopes” of Nassar survivors who had been counting on the release of further accountability.

The MSU had “so stubbornly withheld” these documents that Nessel was “surprised” that the documents did not contain more incriminating information.

“We can’t fix the lives of people who were destroyed not only by Larry Nassar but by the failures of Michigan State University,” Nessel said. “But I can tell you that we did our best to do as much as we could with the information we had.”

Nessel also said the documents showed that former MSU President Lou Anna Simon routinely deleted text messages relevant to the university’s dealings with Nassar before she was advised not to do so by the general counsel in 2018.

Nessel praised survivors of Nassar’s abuse for their activism, saying they have sparked a broader cultural conversation about how sexual abuse should be addressed and understood.

“These survivors will be admired by many for years and decades to come,” she said. “We will remember what happened here not only for the horrific accounts of Larry Nassar and others, but for the way the survivors pulled together and made significant changes across the country.”

Dispute over the publication of documents

Nessel closed her investigation into MSU’s handling of Nassar in 2021 due to a lack of cooperation from the university.

But in 2023, with the election of new board members who supported the release of the documents, Nessel resumed her investigation into “how and why the university failed for so long to protect students from Nassar’s abuse.”

At the time, the university defended its withholding of the documents by arguing that it was not allowed to release the documents because of legal differences with the university’s insurance company over a $500 million compensation payment to the relatives of those killed in the Nassar case.

According to court documents, the insurers claimed that the university violated its own policies by failing to respond to reports of Nassar’s abuse and was therefore responsible for paying compensation.

Trustee Renee Knake Jefferson also argued in 2020 that release was unnecessary because the documents contained no new information about the government’s dealings with Nassar. Jefferson was the only board member who had read the documents.

In December 2023, after all of these legal disagreements had been resolved, the MSU Board of Trustees unanimously voted to send these documents to Nessel’s office.

The university’s decision to release the documents followed years of advocacy by the Sister Survivors, a group of survivors of Nassar’s abuse. The Sister Survivors filed a lawsuit in July 2023 arguing that the panel’s discussions about withholding the documents were closed to the public and therefore violated the state’s Open Meetings Act. But they dropped the lawsuit when the panel voted to release the documents.

The documents include email and text messages from and to 20 MSU executives and employees, records of internal complaints and investigations related to Nassar, and personnel files of those who worked with or reported to Nassar during his time at MSU.