Former Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Eaton County, Michigan on Monday. Court is scheduled to run from 9:00 a.m. to 12:0 p.m. This continues the hearing that first began on February 5. Simon and prosecutors are fighting over whether there is enough evidence to put her on trial for allegedly lying to cops about previously not knowing that disgraced school doctor Larry Nassar committed sexual abuse.
“I was aware that in 2014 there was a sports medicine doc who was subject to a review. But I was not aware of any of the substance of that review,” she allegedly said, according to the police affidavit. “The nature of the complaint, that was all learned in ’16.”
This stemmed from a 2014 complaint by medical student Amanda Thomashow. She filed a Title IX complaint saying that Nassar, then a doctor for MSU and USA Gymnastics, sexually abused her during what was supposed to be a medical procedure for hip pain.
Simon actually discussed the allegation in 2014, police said.
Thomashow was one of 156 women who spoke or were represented at Nassar’s sentencing hearing for sexual assault in Ingham County in January 2018. The disgraced doctor was also sentenced in Eaton County in a similar case, and in federal court for possessing child pornography.
The charges didn’t just take out Nassar. They rocked MSU and USA Gymnastics. Survivors often lashed out at the institutions, and claimed officials did little, if anything, to protect them.
“The investigation done by MSU was brief and sloppy,” Thomashow said. “It left me feeling disposable and worthless.”
[Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
