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Msu Trainers Knew Nassar Issues but Are Still on Job, Ex-athletes Say

By Gina Kaufman and Joe Guillen
Detroit Free Press
March 30, 2018

https://www.freep.com/story/news/2018/03/30/2-msu-employees-still-job-though-informed-nassar-ex-athletes-say/417731002/

Two Michigan State University employees who allegedly were aware of complaints years ago against Larry Nassar are still on the job, raising continuing questions about the university’s response to abuses by the former Olympic doctor that go back decades.

The two athletic trainers were informed nearly 20 years ago of incidents in which Nassar made athletes uncomfortable during appointments, according to two former athletes. It's unclear what the trainers did with the information, but Nassar wasn't stopped.

One of the trainers, Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, is named as a defendant in a federal lawsuit, which claims she and others at MSU "knew or should have known of Nassar's abuse yet failed to take corrective action."

An MSU spokeswoman told the Free Press in mid-March the trainers have never been suspended and are still working.

Employees who were informed about abuse and failed to act should be fired, said John Manly, an attorney who represents dozens of women suing the university and its officials.

"If they reported, hundreds of girls would have been spared," he said. "They obviously didn't."

The trainers are among several MSU officials whose texts and e-mails were requested by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for its investigation into the university’s handling of the Nassar matter.

The scope of the attorney general’s probe is unclear, but it has already ensnared William Strampel, Nassar’s former boss and former dean of the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine. Strampel, who was arraigned on criminal charges Tuesday, is accused of sexually harassing and groping female students and also failing to supervise Nassar.

Interim MSU President John Engler, in a statement when charges were announced against Strampel, said Strampel’s actions didn't align with the university’s values and the former dean’s “lack of attention to the conduct” of Nassar was unacceptable.

“While the crimes of one doctor and the misconduct of his dean do not represent our university, they do demand the scrutiny of everyone in order to assure individuals like these can never be in a position again to harm others,” his statement said.

Questions from the Free Press to the university about why employees who were aware of Nassar complaints were still working were not directly answered.

Former athletes have said athletic trainers Teachnor-Hauk and Lianna Hadden received complaints about Nassar in the early 2000s.

The trainers, according to athletes and investigative records, described Nassar’s treatments as medically appropriate — using a model of a pelvis to explain the procedure — and conveyed to young women what pursuing complaints against Nassar would involve.

Teachnor-Hauk was twice interviewed as part of investigations into Nassar — once in 2014 by an MSU official and, last year, by police. Both times, she reported that no athlete had ever expressed discomfort with Nassar.

Teachnor-Hauk did, however, say under questioning in the police interview that she had heard athletes discuss Nassar doing procedures near their vaginas, and she would use a pelvis model to "redirect" their understanding of the treatment, according to a police report obtained by the Lansing State Journal.

Emily Guerrant, a university spokeswoman, told the Free Press that MSU does not discuss personnel actions, but said action would be taken if an employee violated MSU policies and “if the university discovered at any time that any employee was involved in criminal activity, it would be immediately reported to the police."

Teachnor-Hauk and Hadden did not return calls seeking comment. Guerrant said they could not be made available because of ongoing civil litigation, but she confirmed in mid-March that both trainers still work at the university. Guerrant would not say whether either had been investigated by the university for wrongdoing, but confirmed neither had faced suspensions.

Scott Schneider — an attorney with Fisher Phillips, a national labor and employment law firm — said there could be multiple reasons why the university hasn’t taken action.

MSU may have investigated and determined employees did nothing wrong or there could be a concern that firing employees for wrongdoing could be an acknowledgement of the institution’s failures, said Schneider, who said he specializes in Title IX issues and institutional response to sexual misconduct.

“I think Michigan State’s in the midst of kind of a reckoning here, where they may have to, at some point, acknowledge, yes, there is wrongdoing here,” he said, adding that will have an impact on the civil lawsuits.

'By the book,' at first

Almost immediately after starting her softball career at MSU in the late 1990s,Tiffany Lopez — then known as Tiffany Thomas — started experiencing lower back pain.

Her trainer at the time directed her to see Nassar.

The initial visit, Lopez said in an interview, was “by the book.” Nassar walked her through the stretches he was doing and did not perform any invasive procedures. He left a good impression.

Lopez started seeing Nassar regularly, but the appointments quickly took a turn. Nassar would have her undress from the waist down and massage her pelvic area, occasionally penetrating her with his hand. Eventually, she said, the penetration became routine.

Along the way, Lopez said, she informed three trainers about how uncomfortable she was with the treatments.

Tiffany Thomas Lopez complained to MSU trainers Destiny Teachnor-Hauk and Lianna Hadden about her treatments from Larry Nassar. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State)

“Right out of the gate, I said, ‘This is so weird, like this man is not using gloves, like is that weird or is it just me?’” Lopez said. “I was always questioning.”

Lopez’s first trainer, who she said she talked to about Nassar, no longer works for MSU, is not named in any lawsuits and declined to comment when reached.

Lopez said she also confided in another trainer, Hadden, during a spring break trip in Florida.

In a hotel room, Hadden was treating Lopez with stretches and massages, but the pain Lopez was suffering wouldn’t go away. She said she described to Hadden the procedure Nassar performed.

“Her face got really bright red; she started to cry,” Lopez said. “I started to cry because I felt, like, 'are you joking? You feel like this isn’t appropriate, so I shouldn’t have been doing this this entire time?' ”

Hadden, Lopez said, told her to talk to Teachnor-Hauk.

But Lopez put that conversation off.

About a week later — Hadden came back with an explanation for Nassar’s treatment, using a model of a pelvis to describe that he penetrates her to manipulate a bone. Lopez continued her appointments with Nassar.

During her last appointment with Nassar, Lopez said Hadden was there, holding her hand.

“I’m in tears, I’m shaking, I’m crying, I’m in tears because I don’t want to be there,” Lopez said.

Lopez said she stopped the appointment, hopping off the table and leaving. She said she heard Nassar ask: “What’s wrong with her?”

“I didn’t wait around for an answer,” she said, “and I never went back to the doctor.”

That year, in 2000, Lopez said she took her complaint about Nassar to Teachnor-Hauk. During a meeting with Teachnor-Hauk on the bleachers in Jenison Field House, the trainer told Lopez that the procedures Nassar performed were medical treatment.

“I felt like she didn’t believe me,” Lopez said. “She called me crazy; she told me I was crazy for thinking that … the treatment that I had been receiving this entire time wasn’t, like, actual medical treatment.”

She said Teachnor-Hauk told her that filing a complaint would draw attention to the school and herself and would be a burden on her family — a reference, Lopez said, to her stepmother recently passing away.

In that same meeting, Lopez decided to declare herself medically inactive, ending her collegiate softball career. She said she was offered a position to stay with the team. Her athlete profile, which can still be found on the MSU Athletics Department website, says she would be spending her third and fourth years as an undergraduate assistant coach after retiring with an injury.

But, instead, Lopez quit school and went home to California.

Siding with Nassar

James White, an Okemos-based attorney who is representing several women in lawsuits against the university, said Nassar was repeatedly believed by people, including employees such as the trainers, over women alleging abuse.

This, he said, is inexcusable.

"Here, there was an immediate deference to the individuals whom allegations have been made against," White said. "I think that's inappropriate and it's reckless."

Manly, who represents Lopez, said he is unsatisfied with MSU's response.

“The message that sends is either that we don’t believe you or we don’t care,” he said.

Former MSU volleyball player Jennifer Rood Bedford also has said she informed Hadden in the early 2000s that something felt wrong after her treatment from Nassar.

Bedford was among the many women and girls who gave victim impact statements during Nassar's sentencing hearings earlier this year. In court, she recounted how she had feared harming the reputation of a potentially innocent doctor, but ultimately decided back then it was important to report her experience.

Former Michigan State volleyball player Jennifer Rood Bedford has said she informed trainer Lianna Hadden in the early 2000s that something felt wrong after her treatment from Larry Nassar. (Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State)

She asked Hadden about filing a general complaint. Hadden asked her whether she thought Nassar had done something criminally wrong and whether he hurt her. Bedford said she held back details.

“All I wanted to do was say, ‘I’m uncomfortable’ and to have that heard and recorded with the small hope that I wasn’t alone,” Bedford said in Ingham County Circuit Court in January.

Hadden, she said, wanted to make sure she realized what filing a report could entail.

“An investigation, making an accusation against Nassar, and stating that I felt that he did something unprofessional or criminally wrong,” Bedford said. “I had a hard time saying that with certainty.”

Bedford did not file a report but instead came up with a strategy to confront the doctor if he ever treated her again and made her uncomfortable.

In all, more than 200 girls and women have come forward to report that Nassar abused them during a time frame that spans decades. Nassar will spend the rest of his life in prison. He was sentenced to several decades in state prison, but before that he must complete a 60-year federal prison sentence for possession of child pornography.

Lindsey Lemke, a former MSU gymnast who said she was sexually assaulted by Nassar, questioned why trainers who had been informed about Nassar would be allowed to continue working with athletes.

Lemke said she had to take a medical disqualification from competing this year because of injuries, but was still working with the team as a student coach. In that position, she regularly saw Teachnor-Hauk, who is the team’s trainer.

“If someone’s being investigated for knowing about sexual assault, you should be suspended,” Lemke said in an interview with the Free Press.

Those aware of complaints against Nassar, Lemke said, could have prevented future abuses — including her own — had they spoken up years ago.

“I think the main thing that’s frustrating,” she said, “is the enablers who have not been held accountable.”

Contact Gina Kaufman: 313-223-4526 or gkaufman@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ReporterGina

Contact Joe Guillen: 313-222-6678 or jguillen@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @joeguillen

Lansing State Journal reporter Matt Mencarini contributed to this report.

 

 

 

 

 




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