Dr. William Strampel, Former Michigan State Boss Of Larry Nassar, Arrested

Emma Baccellieri|published: Mon 26th March, 23:00 2018

credits: WLNS | source: [object Object]

Dr. William Strampel—the former boss of convicted serial sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar and dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State—was arrested this evening on undisclosed charges.

Both state police and investigators from the attorney general’s office were seen outside Strampel’s house today before he was booked in Ingham County Jail. The police department has not released information on the reason for the arrest, which came shortly after the attorney general’s office announced that it would give an update tomorrow on their ongoing investigation into Michigan State and Nassar’s record of abuse there. A press conference is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Strampel, who is 70, took medical leave from his position at Michigan State in December and has not returned. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal obtained and published notes from an October 2016 meeting in which Strampel said that he did not believe the victims of Nassar, who had already been fired at that point after publicly reported allegations:

“This just goes to show that none of you learned the most basic lesson in medicine, medicine 101, that you should have learned in your first week: don’t trust your patients,” Dr. Strampel is quoted saying. “Patients lie to get doctors in trouble. And we’re seeing that right now in the news with this Nassar stuff. I don’t think any of these women were actually assaulted by Larry, but Larry didn’t learn that lesson and didn’t have a chaperone in the room, so now they see an opening and they can take advantage of him.”

That report included other complaints of inappropriate behavior from Strampel during his 15 years as dean, and ESPN has since published more, including a “habit of making inappropriate remarks of a sexual nature in professional settings.”

Michigan State began taking steps to officially fire Strampel last month, according to ESPN, but that full process can reportedly require months. The university issued a brief statement tonight: