LANSING, Mich. — Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Joyce Draganchuk agreed with prosecutors and allowed them to add a count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct against William Strampel.
The state had originally charged the former dean of MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine with a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Michigan's attorney general's office came into today's hearing wanting to add this count which is punishable with up to 15 years in prison.
The judge instructed prosecutors to file this new information properly.
In a second motion by prosecutors, they hoped to admit additional evidence against Strampel.
This included five photos of scantily clad women found on Strampel's work computer and a video depicting Larry Nassar with a patient in his office. They argued the video would prove that he failed to enforce medical protocols, but his defense argued the evidence was irrelevant.
"You have a video of Larry Nassar performing the procedure, quote-and-quote, that put him in prison for the rest of his life. It goes to my next point of, that unfair prejudicial value that will do nothing but conflate issues before this jury," his defense attorney said.
The judge decided the photos will be allowed to be used as evidence by the state, but she sided with the defense and rejected the inclusion of the video.
"All it is is evidence that the protocols were right to be put in place, but they're not evidence that the defendant knew that Nassar was acting in violation of the protocols," Draganchuk said.
MSU used his failure to follow the protocols as justification to fire Nassar in 2016.
In another motion, the judge did grant Strampel access to emails that he said he needs to defend himself against two misdemeanor charges of "willful neglect of duty. MSU had previously argued attorney client privilege as a reason why he could not use them as evidence.
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