Former Michigan State University sports doctor Larry Nassar is "a pedophile and a criminal," but the university is not legally liable for Nassar's sexual assaults on patients, MSU attorneys maintain in documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.

The attorneys filed a motion asking federal Judge Gordon Quist to dismiss MSU as a co-defendant in the Nassar lawsuits.

The motion also seeks the dismissal of three individuals as co-defendants in the suits. Those individuals: Kathie Klages, former MSU gymnastics coach; Dr. Jeffrey Kovan, former head of MSU's sports-medicine clinic, and Dr. William Strampel, former dean of the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

There are 140 plaintiffs who have named MSU and/or the three individuals in lawsuits involving Nassar, a MSU faculty member and a physician at its Sport Medicine Clinic for 20 years until he was fired in September 2016.

"Although Nassar's actions were repugnant and merit the heavy criminal penalties

imposed upon him, the law does not support Plaintiffs' attempts to hold the MSU Defendants liable for his wrongs," says a 65-page brief accompanying the motion.

In addition to working for MSU, Nassar volunteered for years with USA Gymnastics and was team doctor for the U.S. gymnasts at four Olympic games. Nassar's accusers include three members of the U.S. gymnastics team at the 2012 Olympics, and USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee are co-defendants in some of the Nassar lawsuits.

Nassar has pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in cases involving eight former patients and a family friend. He is due in Ingham County Circuit Court on Tuesday to be sentenced on some of the charges. Last month, Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in prison in a federal child porn case, for pornography found on his computer.

"With the benefit of hindsight, Plaintiffs contend that MSU should have known that Nassar was a predator or done more to prevent his criminal conduct. But that is not the standard by which Title IX liability is measured," MSU attorney say in their court brief.

"A school can be liable only for deliberate indifference to acts 'of which it had actual knowledge' --not acts of which it 'should have known,' " the brief said.

MSU attorneys offer multiple other arguments as to why MSU is not legally liable in the Nassar lawsuits:

State law severely restricts lawsuits against state government and its employees, and the Nassar suits don't fit the exceptions.

Even for exceptions, the law requires plaintiffs to notify of their intent to sue within six months of when the event occurred. Almost all the allegations in the Nassar cases occurred years ago.

Most of the plaintiffs are not MSU students, which means MSU cannot be held liable under Title IX, a federal law that oversees sexual misconduct within universities.

MSU staff members such as Klages who allegedly received complaints about Nassar over the years were not Nassar's supervisor and were not in a position to take corrective action.

When Nassar's supervisors -- Kovan and Strampel -- were notified in 2014 of a patient complaint involving Nassar, MSU argues that complaint was handled appropriately with a Title IX and police investigation that cleared Nassar.

Plaintiffs who were not treated at the MSU Sports Medicine Clinic lack standing to sue MSU. This would include plaintiffs treated by Nassar at gymnastics training camps or competitions.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have been arguing for months that MSU was negligent in its oversight of Nassar.

In 1997, the lawsuits say, two teenagers in a MSU junior gymnastics program they told Klages, then MSU's head gymnastics coach, that Nassar was digitally penetrating their vagina and anus while treating them for sports injuries.

In 1999 and 2000, similar complaints were made by a MSU track and cross country runner and a MSU softball player to unnamed staffers in the university athletic department staff members, lawsuits say.

In all of those cases, the concerns were dismissed, the lawsuits say.

In 2014, a young woman filed a police report and Title IX complaint about her treatment by Nassar at MSU's Sports Medicine Clinic.

The woman alleged Nassar massaged the woman's breast, even after she said it was not helping with her hip pain, she alleges in her lawsuit. He then massaged her vaginal area under her underwear, even after the woman told him to stop, the lawsuit says. The woman had to physically remove Nassar's hands from her body, the lawsuit said, and she noticed Nassar had an erection.

Nassar was suspended for three months after the 2014 complaint were filed. He was allowed to return to work after he was cleared by the Title IX investigator.

However, the plaintiffs' lawyers point out that Nassar was allowed to see patients while still under investigation by MSU police and that Michigan State never notified USA Gymnastics of the 2014 allegation involving Nassar.

James White, an Okemos attorney representing some of the plaintiffs, said the record shows a pattern of MSU officials turning a blind eye to Nassar's behavior for 20 years.

"He got a pass that was extremely unusual and inappropriate," White said. "We have young women going on the record back to 1997" in regards to raising concerns about Nassar.

"All of this could have been avoided," White said, "if someone had picked up the phone and followed the law as a mandatory reporter."