Head football coach Mel Tucker misled the Title IX investigator MSU hired for his sexual misconduct case, according to a USA Today article published yesterday.
Tucker wrote a seven-page account about the April 28, 2022 phone call with Brenda Tracy and presented the papers to Rebecca Leitman Veidlinger, the Title IX investigator, on March 22, 2023. In this account, he claimed to have called Tracy while he was at his home in East Lansing.
However, this statement does not align with the work trip he took during this time. From April 27 to 29, Tucker was in Naples, Florida to attend a golf fundraiser, a trip which MSU sponsored.
The phone call taking place during Tucker’s university-sponsored work trip factored into MSU deciding it had jurisdiction to investigate, the investigation report shows.
Investigative reports caught Tucker in another falsehood. Three days before an in-person training presentation set for July 25, where Tracy would have taught MSU’s student athletes and coaches how to prevent sexual violence, Tucker canceled. He claimed he only postponed the training to January 2024, but his assistant — a key case witness — claims that Tucker told him to cancel the training and never mentioned rescheduling.
In the interview with Veidlinger, Tucker cited an anonymous source when claiming that Tracy had given information about his marriage to her late best friend, Ahlan Alvarado; Alvarado had denied this claim before her death in June. Tucker said this discovery “devastated” him, making him delay the training session, but he didn’t reveal the informant’s identity to Tracy over the phone or to Veidlinger in the interview.
He also said he lost further trust in Tracy when he learned of ESPN investigative reporter Paula Lavigne digging into Tracy’s background as a rape survivor, possibly shining the former case in a new light. USA Today reached Lavigne, who wrote that Tucker naming her in this case “perplexed her.” No such investigation into Tracy’s past existed, according to Lavigne.
Veidlinger claimed to have finished her investigation in late July and set the case hearing for Aug. 22 and 23, the week before school started. However, Tucker and his attorney, Jennifer Belveal, delayed the hearing to Oct. 5 and 6.
Neither MSU spokesperson Dan Olsen nor Vice President for Media and Publication Emily Guerrant responded to calls from The State News by the time of publication.
