While speaking at a tense Michigan State University board meeting today, Kaylee Lorincz, who said she was sexually abused by former MSU doctor Larry Nassar, detailed a troubling interaction with interim president John Engler. According to Lorincz, Engler attempted to “coerce” her into settling a civil lawsuit against the school without her attorney present.
Lorincz, 18, alleged Engler offered to cut her a check for $250,000 to drop the suit, even after she insisted that she was only interested in helping solve the problem. The crowd gasped as Lorincz spoke about how Engler tried to dismiss her claims and castigated her for simply trying to score money with the lawsuit.
“Mr. Engler then looked directly at me and asked, ‘Right now if I wrote you a check for $250,000 would you take it?’ When I explained that it’s not about the money for me and that I just want to help, he said, ‘well give me a number.’”
The board then tried to cut her off, and police even approached the podium, but Lorincz managed to finish reading her statement after attendees in the meeting chanted “Let her speak!”
The end of Lorincz’s statement was scathing, as she said of MSU, “They tried to make us feel like we were the problem and MSU was the victim because of the civil suits. This is how it works. When you protect and promote a sexual predator and foster a culture of lies and cover-ups, you are responsible.”
Engler continued to get embarrassed at the meeting, as he later proposed a 2.97 percent tuition increase, shortly after “teasing” a large increase to cover legal fees from the Nassar case. This too was met with outrage.
“What a vile man you are,” student Dan Martel, a member of the grass-roots Reclaim MSU movement, said. “To direct the anger cast by students for higher tuition rates on survivors of the worst sexual assault scandal in MSU history.”