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Ex-Michigan State football staffer Curtis Blackwell sues Mark Dantonio

In May 2017, Dantonio opted not to renew Blackwell's contract.
Credit: Kevin W. Fowler | for the Lansing State Journal
MSU director of college advancement and performance Curtis Blackwell, here with football coach Mark Dantonio, is a critical piece behind MSU's massive upcoming recruiting weekend.

GRAND RAPIDS — Former MSU football staff member Curtis Blackwell filed a federal lawsuit against football coach Mark Dantonio, former university President Lou Anna Simon, former MSU Athletic Director Mark Hollis and two MSU police detectives.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Grand Rapids alleges that the defendants "feeling the heat from the Larry Nassar cover-up, and eager to prove they were tough on cover-ups, ran roughshod over (Blackwell's) rights when he was wrongly accused of covering up for MSU athletes involved in an alleged sexual assault of a female co-ed in January 2017.

"With no evidence, none, that (Blackwell) covered up for the athletes, the MSU Police Department, in stormtrooper fashion cuffed (Blackwell); seized his personal and MSU cell phones and hauled him off to the MSU Police station."

James Fett, Blackwell's attorney, said he sent a copy of the lawsuit to Michigan State University's Office of General Counsel weeks before it was filed.

University spokeswoman Emily Guerrant declined to comment. A message was left seeking comment from Matt Larson, the spokesman for the Athletic Department.

Blackwell, the former director of college advancement and performance, was suspended in February 2017, the same day a staff member and three players were suspended for their role in a reported sexual assault that occurred in the month before.

In May 2017, Dantonio opted not to renew Blackwell's contract.

Blackwell's lawsuit characterizes the departure as Blackwell being fired.

The three players involved in the incident — Josh King, Donnie Corley and Demetric Vance — were kicked off the team once they faced sexual assault charges. They pleaded guilty to charges of seduction and were sentenced to 36 months probation and ordered to undergo sex offender treatment.

The seduction charge involves seducing an unmarried woman for sexual acts. It does not require sex offender registration.

MSU police arrested Blackwell in February 2017 after determining that he interfered with their investigation, according to police reports previously obtained through an open records request.

Blackwell told investigators he had spoken with two players later identified as suspects about the incident days after it occurred on Jan. 16. That was before MSU police and the university's Title IX office knew about the alleged involvement of the two players, records show.

Blackwell didn't tell police or university officials about his discussions with the players until police interviewed him Feb. 8 at the Duffy Daugherty Building.

In a report submitted to prosecutors, police wrote that Blackwell "took it upon himself to investigate" the incident, interviewed suspects and did not share that information he received with police or MSU's Title IX office.

"I wasn't doing an investigation or anything," Blackwell told police. "I was just trying to find out exactly what happened."

In the lawsuit, Fett says that Blackwell "did not provide cover for the student athletes or interfere with an investigation; rather, he was simply performing his job which required "mentoring student athletes."

The lawsuit also alleges that Blackwell's arrest was unlawful and police did not read him his Miranda rights before arresting him. The lawsuit says police read Blackwell his Miranda rights once they were in an interview room at the MSU Police Department and Blackwell was released about 30 minutes later.

The university hired the law firm Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue to review the way athletic department officials handled the report of sexual assault.

The lawyers found "no evidence that senior leaders within the football program or Athletic Department attempted to impede, cover up, or obstruct the Office of Institutional Equity’s (OIE’s) investigation into the underlying incidents," according to the report MSU released.

The report did say that a football staff member violated MSU policy, but the law firm could not gauge the severity of the violation because the staff member declined to be interviewed.

Blackwell is the staff member, according to the lawsuit, and he acted on advice of his legal counsel when he declined to be interviewed by the Jones Day attorneys.

MSU officials, including Simon, Dantonio and Hollis, were "greatly displeased" by Blackwell invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, according to the lawsuit, and the university retaliated against him for doing so.

Blackwell's lawsuit alleges that Nassar scandal contributed to the way the university treated him.

Nassar is a former MSU and USA Gymnastics physician who sexually abused hundreds of women and girls, many during medical appointments at MSU. He's serving 60 years in federal prison on child pornography convictions and was sentenced to decades more on 10 sexual assault convictions in state courts.

"On information and belief a regent petitioned Defendant Simon to spare (Blackwell),

but she refused because the heat was on from the Nassar scandal," Fett wrote in Blackwell's lawsuit. "Similarly, Defendant Hollis stated to a media representative that were it not for the Nassar scandal, (Blackwell) would not have been treated so poorly."

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.

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