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One yr in the past, Michigan State College fired head soccer coach Mel Tucker amid allegations that he sexually harassed a rape survivor he had employed to show his gamers about sexual assault prevention. On Friday, that girl filed a lawsuit in opposition to him for defamation.
Brenda Tracy, whose gut-wrenching story of being gang-raped by school soccer gamers in 1998 catapulted her to an activism profession and nationwide fame, alleges in a 30-page lawsuit that Tucker completely tarnished her good identify and popularity by claiming they developed a mutual romance.
Her lawsuit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court docket in Michigan, seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages. No greenback quantity was given.
Tucker and his attorneys didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Karen Truszkowski, Tracy’s lawyer, stated in an announcement: “The lawsuit speaks for itself.” She and Tracy declined to remark additional.
Tracy says within the lawsuit that she misplaced future earnings and suffered psychologically and emotionally due to Tucker’s false statements, together with his claims that she made up the allegations in a plot to extort him and the college for cash. Amongst different counts, the lawsuit accuses him of breach of contract, stealing her enterprise information and fraudulently accessing her e mail and private accounts.
Tracy filed a criticism with Michigan State’s Title IX workplace in December 2022 alleging that Tucker made a sequence of unwelcome sexual advances over the course of their yearlong enterprise partnership, culminating in an April 2022 telephone name wherein he masturbated with out her consent. As his protection, Tucker informed MSU’s exterior investigator that he and Tracy engaged in a one-time occasion of consensual telephone intercourse.
For eight months, MSU’s Title IX workplace quietly investigated Tracy’s criticism, whereas Tucker continued to educate the Spartans soccer crew. The case spilled into public view in September 2023, shortly after Tucker led MSU to its second win of the season. Tracy gave USA TODAY entry to her 1,200-page case file, which the information group used to interrupt the information together with her permission.
Hours after the story printed, Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller and then-interim President Teresa Woodruff held an emergency press convention wherein they introduced Tucker could be suspended without pay for the rest of the campus case. They stated that they had identified the Title IX workplace was investigating a criticism in opposition to Tucker however didn’t know the small print till studying them in USA TODAY.
Per week later, Haller notified Tucker of his intent to fire him for trigger, cancelling the roughly $75 million left on the document 10-year contract extension Tucker had signed lower than two years earlier. Even Tucker’s model of occasions – that he and Tracy had been engaged in a romantic relationship – constituted a fireable offense, Haller wrote in his termination letter.
“It’s decidedly unprofessional and unethical to flirt, make sexual feedback, and masturbate whereas on the telephone with a College vendor,” the letter stated. “Your unconvincing rationalizations and misguided makes an attempt to shift duty can not and don’t excuse your personal habits.”
The college officially fired Tucker on Sept. 27, capping his beautiful fall as one of many highest-paid coaches in all of sports activities. In the meantime, the campus investigation moved ahead.
MSU held a listening to within the case on Oct. 5. As an alternative of exhibiting up, Tucker, his lawyer, Jennifer Belveal, and his agent, Neil Cornrich, despatched the media and MSU’s Board of Trustees a 106-page letter claiming that they had obtained “new evidence” proving that Tracy falsely accused him in a cash seize.
The press launch contained 98 pages of closely redacted textual content messages that they had obtained from the cellular phone of Tracy’s longtime buddy and enterprise supervisor, who died that summer season in a automobile crash. Amongst different issues, the messages confirmed Tracy had consensually dated a basketball coach who had employed her years prior and that she was struggling financially on the time she filed her criticism with MSU.
In her lawsuit, Tracy says Tucker launched the knowledge 14 minutes into the listening to “understanding that Tracy and her counsel could be taken without warning and never in a position to reply.”
“Tucker sandbagged Tracy in an egregious try to publicly humiliate her,” the lawsuit says.
Tracy obtained an emergency restraining order the following day, barring Tucker and his associates from releasing extra of the messages, which she alleged he obtained illegally. An Ingham County choose dismissed that lawsuit earlier this yr.
A number of consultants informed USA TODAY the text messages were largely irrelevant. Outdoors attorneys employed by the college later concurred.
In a call issued on Oct. 25, Virginia-based Title IX lawyer Amanda Norris Ames concluded that Tucker sexually harassed and exploited Tracy on a number of events earlier than, throughout and after the now-famous April 2022 telephone name. Tucker’s repeated contradictory statements to the investigator, Ames decided, made his account troublesome to imagine.
A separate exterior enchantment officer employed by MSU denied Tucker’s appeal in January, affirming Ames’ determination that Tracy’s account was extra believable, constant and supported by the proof than his. MSU permanently banned Tucker from future employment.
Tucker filed a lawsuit against MSU in July, alleging the college wrongfully terminated him, defamed him and discriminated in opposition to him based mostly on his race. He alleged the college carried out an “improper, biased and sham investigation” designed to fireside him. His lawyer, Rita Glavin, stated in an announcement that MSU’s “conduct was not solely shameful, it was unlawful.” That lawsuit is ongoing.
Amongst Tucker’s allegedly defamatory claims about Tracy, Tucker claimed that Tracy informed him she “needed a sugar daddy” to pay her $4,000 per 30 days to be his girlfriend, and that she solely filed a criticism in opposition to him as a result of MSU refused to provide her financial compensation. He additionally alleged that she despatched him a “provocative image” that prompted him to begin masturbating throughout the April 2022 telephone name. He stated that the photograph confirmed Tracy carrying “tight leather-based pants.”
Tracy included that photograph as a part of her lawsuit. It exhibits her and Tucker standing a number of toes aside contained in the MSU soccer administration constructing on the day of considered one of her two visits to the MSU campus at Tucker’s behest, for the spring soccer sport wherein Tucker made her an honorary captain.
Within the photograph, she is totally clothed, carrying a long-sleeved black T-shirt and free black athleisure pants – the identical outfit she wore when she stood on the 20-yard line in Spartan Stadium as she was honored on the jumbotron.
Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY masking sexual harassment and violence and Title IX. Contact him by e mail at kjacoby@usatoday.com or observe him on X @kennyjacoby.
This text initially appeared on USA TODAY: Mel Tucker, coach fired by Michigan State, sued for defamation
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