Former MSU employee Larry Nassar was permitted to hand-pick at least one physician who participated in MSU’s 2014 investigation into his alleged sexual abuse of patients, according to the Lansing State Journal.
Title IX investigator Kristine Moore chose to interview Dr. Brooke Lemmen based on Nassar’s recommendation. Lansing State Journal reported that Lemmen, a “very good friend” of Nassar’s, was interviewed as an expert, not a witness.
Other experts interviewed for the investigation also had close ties to Nassar, according to LSJ.
Lemmen resigned from her position in MSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic in January after she removed some of Nassar’s patient files after the sexual abuse allegations against him became public knowledge in September 2016.
Records obtained by the Lansing State Journal seem to show that MSU's Title IX office produced two separate reports after investigating Nassar in 2014.
Moore emailed dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine William Strampel that she had sent Nassar a copy of the investigatory report, and that the copy she sent to the claimant did not include "the substantive text in the conclusion section."
Title IX explicitly requires that both a respondent and a claimant have equal notification of the status and outcome of an investigation.
In 2015, a Department of Education investigation found that MSU had mishandled cases of sexual assault and sexual harassment. The 2014 allegations against Nassar fall within this timeframe.
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