GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Lou Anna Simon, the former Michigan State University president awaiting trial in the Larry Nassar scandal, will be deposed in a fired football staffer’s lawsuit against Simon, coach Mark Dantonio, and others.
Curtis Blackwell, a former MSU recruiting director, is suing Dantonio, Simon and ex-athletic director Mark Hollis for wrongful termination. He is suing two MSU police detectives for wrongful arrest.
Simon will be deposed early next week, Blackwell’s attorney, Thomas Warnicke, said Thursday, Nov. 21, in a hearing in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. Dantonio is to be deposed after the end of the football season.
The court fight has been contentious.
Warnicke said in court that MSU has unlimited resources to fight the case. He has sought to include evidence linked to Nassar, the disgraced MSU doctor and serial child molester, and Auston Robertson, a prized Dantonio recruit who came to college with a concerning background and is now in prison for raping an MSU student.
Blackwell, who acted as a mentor, says he was made a scapegoat after he talked to three players accused of sexual assault and he later refused to talk to campus police detectives. He was arrested for allegedly interfering with the investigation but no charges were filed.
Thomas Kienbaum, representing Dantonio, Simon and Hollis, said those issues have nothing to do with the lawsuit but are included in court filings to get media attention and embarrass the university.
In a recent filing on the court’s electronic PACER system, which allows public access to court records, he took issue with Warnicke’s request to open Hollis’ sealed deposition: “Like a carnival barker using the PACER public filing system as his megaphone, Plaintiff’s counsel uses bold typeface and exclamation points to falsely suggest that the sealed testimony somehow contradicts unidentified prior public statements made by Dantonio … .”
He was responding to a filing by Blackwell’s attorneys:
“The answers Defendant Hollis provided with respect to nonparty Auston Robertson’s recruitment and admission into MSU are vital information the general public needs to know considering Defendant Dantonio has made multiple public statements about the admission and subsequent dismissal of nonparty Auston Robertson from MSU. The general public has the right to know the ‘real’ truth surrounding Defendant Dantonio’s involvement in the recruitment and admission of nonparty Auston Robertson into MSU. Defendant Hollis’ sealed deposition testimony provides that truth!”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Berens, a federal prosecutor before she took the bench earlier this month, said the case has been “exceedingly contentious” which is “uncharacteristic for this district.”
She told attorneys to communicate “voice to voice,” rather than by voicemail and email.
Her predecessor, Magistrate Judge Ellen Carmody, issued a $10,000 sanction to one of Blackwell’s attorneys for filing part of a deposition that by stipulation was not to be made public.
Berens granted a request by Blackwell that Robertson, serving 43 months to 10 years in prison, answer written questions while he’s held in an Upper Peninsula prison.
She also granted a motion by the police detectives, Chad Davis and Sam Miller, to compel Blackwell to answer questions provided to him. Their attorneys say the requests have been ignored.
The defendants contend there are two issues: Was Blackwell fired because he invoked Fifth Amendment rights, and did police violate his Fourth Amendment rights in his arrest?
Blackwell, meanwhile, wants documents from an outside investigation commissioned by MSU, known as the Jones Day Report.
The report cleared Dantonio of wrongdoing in his handling of Roberton and the other players accused of sexual assault.
Blackwell’s attorney says he wants to review evidence that led to conclusions in the report. The defendants say records have attorney/client privilege.
The judge said she will issue a written opinion.