Vennie Gore, Vice President for Auxiliary Enterprises, left, and Robert Noto, General Counsel and Vice President for Legal Affairs talk before the MSU Board of Trustees meet on Sept. 8, 2017 at Hannah Administration Building.
As Larry Nassar’s abuse thrust Michigan State University into the limelight, university officials worried about what other skeletons the media might find in its closet.
Throughout the scandal, university lawyers and communications staff often briefed leaders on potential crises they feared would leak — wide-ranging lists that included everything from high-profile sexual misconduct allegations to a controversial maple syrup vendor.
Thousands of long-secret documents released by Michigan’s attorney general earlier this month show that MSU was often successful in keeping these stories from getting out.
MSU faculty members, athletes accused of misconduct
MSU officials were seemingly worried they would be required to send files on former MSU psychologist Gary Stollak to the Department of Education. Stollak surrendered his license in 2018 after failing to report Nassar’s suspected abuse.
Detailed within those files was Stollak's own history of sexual misconduct, according to the records.
A child psychologist who studied under Stollak in the 1970s wrote to MSU officials that in a private meeting during her first year of graduate school, Stollak had abruptly asked her, "Do you masturbate?"
Decades later, she reported the incident to David Mittleman, an attorney representing several Nassar survivors. Mittleman told her that a dozen other former students had also told him about "far far worse" experiences they had with Stollak.
The former student’s email to MSU triggered an OIE case in November 2017, but it quickly ended because the department "didn’t have enough information to go forward with an investigation," according to a memo.
Then-Assistant General Counsel Shannon Torres asked her colleagues whether they should include the OIE files on Stollak in a batch of Nassar-related records being sent to the Department of Education.
"This is ready to include in the production of OIE reports Monday as it relates to misconduct by Nassar, but the subject of the OIE complaint is actually Stollak, so if you or others prefer to withhold, we would have a basis for doing so," Torres wrote in February 2018.
After consulting with outside legal counsel, Torres decided the files would be included, records show.
Stollak didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In February 2018, there were "several ongoing sexual harassment investigations involving prominent or nationally known faculty members," then-General Counsel Robert Noto wrote in an email at the time. Noto and his colleagues were preparing for a meeting to brief the then-president, John Engler, on "any crisis that we can foresee and with which he may have to deal within the next month."
Noto listed three names; the only name not redacted was that of William Strampel, the former College of Osteopathic Medicine dean who briefly went to jail for his role in the Nassar scandal. An MSU spokesperson declined to name the other two faculty members.
Vincent Cipolla, a former faculty member in the college of osteopathic medicine, had also been interviewed in September 2016 "in connection with Nassar," according to emails between university staff.
A patient of Cipolla had accused him of "spending an inordinate amount of time" manipulating the muscles between her breasts, making rude comments and placing her hand on his buttocks, according to investigatory files shared with The State News.
The incidents happened in 2007. Former MSU Title IX investigator Elizabeth Abdnour, who worked on the case, said the patient came forward in 2016 because she feared Cipolla was a serial predator like Nassar. The result of the investigation is unclear.
Abdnour forwarded an email exchange she had with Cipolla's attorney to university counsel at the time, writing, "FYI in case this becomes a you-know-what storm while I'm on vacation."
Cipolla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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Another unnamed MSU physician was being investigated for sexual assault in March 2018, records show. He was temporarily suspended during the investigation. It’s unclear what its findings were.
In a lengthy email preparing for a meeting with then-president Lou Anna Simon in October 2017, then-spokesperson Jason Cody detailed several possible media crises.
One potential crisis was in relation to Anthony Ogden, MSU’s former executive director of Education Abroad. Ogden was reassigned then resigned in 2017 after violating the university’s Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Policy, Cody wrote.
The investigation "related to sexual harassment complaints from male employees, as well as other verbal abuse/management concerns voiced by others," Cody wrote.
Ogden was reassigned in May 2017 to a position where he’d work on special projects for the dean "outside of the office," but resigned seven months later.
Ogden did not respond to a request for comment.
James Rhodes, then-president of Local 1585, the union that represents MSU’s service workers, was terminated in January 2017 for sexual harassment, Cody wrote.
The story was picked up by local media when he was reelected president a few weeks later.
But documents reveal that multiple women made allegations against Rhodes, not just the one reported by the Lansing State Journal. In addition, "several people within the union hierarchy" were briefly suspended for retaliating against the women who reported the misconduct.
Cody was also worried that a former dining hall manager’s "checkered history" could harm the university’s reputation.
In 2017, as he was already in prison, Tunc Uraz offered to pay an undercover cop to kill his girlfriend, according to police. His potential trial — at which two Residential and Hospitality Services workers were slated to testify — "could paint MSU in a negative light," Cody wrote.
Uraz’s "past transgressions" at the university included "sexual misconduct, accosting employees off-hours via a cab serviced he ran" and attempting "to get one of his employees to get him a gun (he had a PPO filed against him by the former student-employee and thus couldn't get a gun legally)," Cody wrote.
Uraz left the university in April 2016 after the gun incident.
MSU’s athletics programs were another source of concern for university lawyers and communications staff.
Campus police and OIE were investigating a walk-on men’s basketball player for sexual assault in October 2017, Cody wrote in his briefing. The player was not named.
Controversial maple syrup vendor
Other times, MSU made decisions to avoid bad press altogether.
In one briefing, alongside reports of violent crime and sexual misconduct, MSU officials expressed concern that the media would catch wind of a potentially controversial university decision regarding a maple syrup vendor.
In 2017, East Lansing removed family-owned farm Country Mills from the city’s farmers market because the Dewitt-based vendor opposed gay marriage. In turn, Country Mills successfully sued the city for violating the owner’s freedom of speech and religion — a move that attracted considerable press.
Media coverage of the situation caught MSU’s attention, since the university used Country Mills maple syrup in its dining halls, Cody wrote in 2017.
MSU decided it would stop doing business with the vendor.
"No media attention on us yet," Cody wrote.
Liz Abdnour is representing The State News in its FOIA lawsuit against MSU.
Senior Reporter Alex Walters and Administration Reporter Owen McCarthy contributed reporting.
