UPDATE: Click here to see the affidavit from the case against Lou Anna Simon.
An affidavit obtained by WKAR offers new details about former Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon’s knowledge of sexual misconduct claims against disgraced physician Larry Nassar.
In June, Simon testified before a congressional subcommittee that she was “truly horrified that Nassar’s crimes happened during my tenure.”
“I did not know that he was sexually abusing young women until a former youth gymnast bravely filed her complaint in 2016,” Simon said under oath.
But in an affidavit, Michigan State Police detective sergeant William Arndt states Simon first became aware of Nassar’s activity two years earlier.
In April 2014, gymnast Amanda Thomashow filed a formal sexual abuse complaint against Nassar. The affidavit reveals Simon met with senior adviser Paulette Granberry Russell to discuss the incident on May 19, 2014.
The investigator says Russell had written Nassar’s name and “SA,” meaning sexual assault, on the outside of a folder she brought to that meeting. He further states that Simon also wrote “COM,” an abbreviation for “College of Osteopathic Medicine” on her own meeting agenda. The affidavit concludes that Simon made false statements “knowingly and willfully in an effort to insulate herself and MSU from criminal and civil liability.”
Lou Anna Simon’s attorney, Mayer Morganroth, insists she’s innocent.
“The only crime committed was by the bringing of this indictment which has no merit and no truth to it whatsoever,” Morganroth says.
Simon faces two felony and two misdemeanor charges.
Her arraignment is set for Monday in Eaton County District Court in Charlotte.
