CHARLOTTE, Mich. - Lou Anna Simon, the former president of Michigan State University, was arraigned today, in the same courtroom where Larry Nassar's criminal cases ended, on charges that she lied to police about the disgraced doctor.
She's charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors, and faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
The hearing was moved from Eaton County District Court Judge Julie Reincke's courtroom to a larger courtroom in Circuit Court, to accommodate the expected media and as to not disrupt the rest of Reincke's docket.
In the brief court appearance, Simon sat at the same table where Nassar sat earlier this year for his three-day sentencing hearing in Eaton County.
Simon told the judge she understood the charges and a hearing was scheduled for Dec. 18, during which they will set the date for her preliminary hearing. Reincke set a bond that did not require payment for Simon to be released today and ordered her to surrender her passport.
After the arraignment, Mayer Morganroth, one of Simon's attorneys, said the evidence described by the Michigan Attorney General's Office is false and ridiculous, and that Simon has no culpability in the Nassar scandal.
"She had 47 years there and all they're doing is torturing a woman," he said.
Lee Silver, Simon's other attorney, said she has done "absolutely nothing wrong" and they will prove that fact.
"Dr. Simon is about as far from a criminal as anybody that I could think of," he said. "And it's ridiculous, in my opinion, that she is being treated like a common criminal."
Twenty minutes after her attorneys spoke to media outside the courthouse, Simon walked out the back of the building, got into a black SUV with her attorneys inside and drove off.
Simon, 71, stepped down as president of MSU on Jan. 24, hours after Nassar was sentenced in Ingham County Circuit Court on seven sexual assault convictions, six of which relate to abuse in his university office. She'd been the university's president for more than a decade.
Former MSU President Lou Anna Simon leaves the Eaton County Courthouse via the backdoor Monday, Nov. 26, 2018, after her arraignment on four charges of lying to police related to the Larry Nassar investigation. [AP Photo/Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal] (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)
Simon has maintained for more than two years that she did not know about reports against Nassar until 2016. In May, during an interview at Michigan State Police headquarters in Eaton County, she said that she was aware that in 2014 a sports medicine doctor was subject to a review, but didn't know the nature of the complaint.
An affidavit filed by the AG's Office in support of the charges undercuts that statement. The document details a the series of events over four days in 2014 that started with Amanda Thomashow telling a Title IX investigator that Nassar sexually assaulted her and ended with the head of MSU's Title IX office meeting with Simon to discuss the investigation.
Notes and the meeting agenda, the AG's Office says in the affidavit, show that Simon was aware in May 2014 that Nassar was under investigation for sexual assault.
That 2014 Title IX investigation has been widely criticized during the past two years. It cleared Nassar of policy violations and in reaching that conclusion the investigator, Kristine Moore, relied on the options of four medical experts who all worked for MSU and had close ties to Nassar.
Moore also produced two versions of the final report, the only time this was done in a three-year period.While both reports said Nassar did not violate university policy, Thomashow received a version with a shorter conclusion section that left out Moore's findings that Nassar was a liability risk and his conduct could traumatize patients by giving a perception of sexual misconduct.
Thomashow’s report also prompted a criminal investigation by the university police department, which went on for 16 months longer than the Title IX investigation. MSU allowed Nassar to resume seeing patients before that investigation ended. More than 20 women and girls have said they were abused during those 16 months.
Former MSU President Lou Anna Simon appears before Judge Julie Reincke in Eaton County on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018, for her arraignment on four charges of lying to police related to the Larry Nassar investigation. [AP Photo/Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal] (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)
Simon was charged last week. She became the third person charged as a result of the AG's Office investigation of how MSU handled reports about Nassar.
William Strampel, former dean of osteopathic medicine and one of Nassar's former bosses, was charged in March. He faces a felony charge unrelated to Nassar and two misdemeanor charges for his actions during and after the 2014 Title IX investigation of Nassar.
In August, the AG's Office charged former MSU gymnastics coach Kathie Klages with a felony and misdemeanor charge of lying to police about her knowledge of sexual assault complaints against Nassar prior to 2016.
Both Strampel and Klages are awaiting trial in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Nassar, 55, formerly of Holt, sexually abused hundreds of women and girls, many at his MSU office. He's serving a 60-year federal sentence on three child pornography convictions and was sentenced to decades more in prison on 10 sexual assault convictions in state courts.
In May, MSU agreed to pay $500 million to settle lawsuits from more than 300 women and girls who say Nassar sexually abused them.
Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.