Case against ex-MSU dean William Strampel will head to trial

EAST LANSING - A District Court judge has ruled that there's enough evidence for the case against former Michigan State University dean William Strampel to move to the trial court level.

"I think there's been misconduct in office," Judge Richard Ball said prior to issuing his ruling at the end of the preliminary hearing on Tuesday.

Three women testified during the hearing that lasted more than five hours. Two described Strampel indirectly propositioning them for sex during meetings. A third said Strampel groped her at a public event and made sexual comments about her on several occasions. A digital forensic expert testified that Strampel had a hidden camera outside his office, though Ball wouldn't allow a video from the camera as evidence.

Ball also ruled that there's enough evidence for a fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge to move to Circuit Court. Two additional misdemeanors will move over, as well.

John Dakmak, Strampel's attorney, said the decision wasn't a surprise.

"There's much more to come," he told a group of reporters after the hearing. "There's going to be more to be told in Circuit Court. We're going to have our motions in Circuit Court."

Strampel was disappointed in the preliminary hearing's outcome, Dakmak added, but knows he has a strong case.

Strampel, 70, of DeWitt, was the dean of MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine before stepping down in December. He was also one of the former bosses of Larry Nassar, the once famed doctor whose sexual abuse of female patients resulted in lengthy prison sentences and MSU's $500 million settlement with hundreds of victims.

Strampel faces four criminal charges, the first to come from a Michigan Attorney General's Office investigation of sexual misconduct at MSU, announced in the wake of one of Nassar's sentencings. He faces a felony misconduct in office charge for, as the AG's Office described in court records, using his position to "harass, discriminate, demean, sexually proposition, and sexually assault female students."

Strampel also faces the sexual assault charge and a two counts of willful neglect of duty related to actions during and after Nassar's 2014 Title IX investigation.

He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

Testimony in the preliminary hearing for Strampel began Tuesday morning with the digital forensic expert who reviewed Strampel's work and home computers.

Two women, one a current MSU medical student and one a former student, testified, as well, outlining sexual comments Strampel made to them. One of the women described an instance in which Strampel propositioned her for sex. The other testified about a time Strampel groped her. A third woman testified about Stampel making sexual comments during a meeting.

Brian Laity, a special agent in the Michigan Attorney General's Office, testified to the technical details of digital photographs and videos, including a video that prosecutors said came from a hidden camera that Strampel placed in his Michigan State University office.

That video, found on a hard drive on Strampel's personal computer, was an hour and three minutes long and included images of female students walking by his office.

Live from court: William Strampel preliminary hearing

Related: Ex-Michigan State dean William Strampel's preliminary hearing: 5 things to know

Dakmak argued that the AG's Office has no evidence about what Strampel used the video camera for, how long it was there and how it connects to the criminal charges.

"It's nothing more than an irrelevant piece of evidence," he told District Court Judge Richard Ball, who sustained Dakmak's motion and barred the evidence from being admitted.

William Rollstin, an assistant attorney general, argued that the simple facts made the evidence relevant.

"What the evidence shows is that Dean Strampel set up a hidden camera in his office so that he could look out into the anteroom and view individuals, and there are still photographs we're ready to provide the court as exhibits of young ladies walking past his office."

Ball allowed the AG's Office to admit 19 images and some videos found on Strampel's work computer as evidence. The photos, which were shown to the courtroom filled with media, attorneys and members of the public, were of bare vaginas, nude and semi-nude women, sex toys and pornography. Some of them were viewed online and saved to the browser's history, and others were sent through email or saved to the computer.

In the charging documents, the AG's Office wrote that Strampel solicited nude photos from at least one female student.

Dakmak argued against the admission of the photographs on the grounds that, on their own, they aren't criminal.

He would make a similar argument against the case moving forward. In his closing statement to Ball, Dakmak said Strampel's position as dean didn't make him a public official, based on statutes.

He also argued that Strampel's conduct, as testified to by the three women, didn't support a finding of "criminal culpability." He noted that Strampel never made any direct sexual propositions.

Rollstin, the prosecutor, countered in his closing argument that Strampel intentionally made "indirect" propositions for sex during one-on-one meetings with female students because he was too smart to say it directly.

The felony misconduct in office charge is tied to a broad range of Strampel's actions as dean, not any specific action. The argument Rollstin put forward is that the totality of Strampel's actions is criminal, even if some of the specific acts on their own aren't.

"Dean Strampel had too much power and too much ego and attempted to use those things in a corrupt fashion," Rollstin told Ball.

Related: MSU provost told of Strampel’s ‘inappropriate remarks’ during 2015 review

One woman, a former MSU medical student who is currently a doctor, testified that Strampel groped her buttocks while they posed for a photograph after she had been awarded a scholarship.

She also testified that Strampel once told her to turn around twice so he could look at her. She said she did it because he had told her and other students that he had connections in the medical field and could ruin their careers.

She also testified that he made sexual comments to her about her appearance.

The State Journal is not identifying her or the other woman who testified because they are reported victims of sexual assault or harassment.

Another woman, who is a current MSU medical student, testified that she met with Strampel after failing a prerequisite exam to continue in the College of Osteopathic Medicine. She wanted to appeal a committee's decision that she not be allowed to continue in the school.

She testified that she was along with Strampel during the first meeting and that, after five minutes of talking about the exam, he turned the conversation to sexual relationships between young women and older men, in which the women can "put out" for 20 minutes and get a vacation.

After asking her age, Strampel then used that age as the example of a woman in the relationship, she testified.

She added that she felt he sexually propositioned her during the meeting, including a comment he made, that seemed to be made in a joking manner, about him not wanting to find out she had nude photos of herself.

"I was very scared," she said. "I instantly was, 'What is going on?' I almost went into a survival mode as there was no one in the room with us. There was no one in the adjacent room because that was his office.

"I mean, his secretaries were two rooms over from us so I felt very trapped in this room with this man ... talking about very, very uncomfortable, inappropriate things."

Two of the women who testified about feeling uncomfortable with Strampel during meetings with him about academic struggles also said they brought their fathers with them to a subsequent meeting. One had her father wait in the car, the other just outside the room, according to testimony.

Rollstin pointed to that similarity in his closing remarks to show that Strampel's comments and actions weren't simply misunderstood but clearly meant as sexual.

Strampel's criminal charges are the first to come from an AG's Office investigation sexual misconduct at MSU, which was announced in January in the wake of Nassar's Ingham County sentencing hearing. Strampel, who MSU had moved to fire in February, was arrested and arraigned the following month.

While an affidavit filed in support of charges was the first public disclosure of sexual assault and harassment reports against Strampel, university officials has since acknowledged that MSU had been aware of similar allegations going back to the early 2000s.

An MSU spokeswoman previously said that the university is not paying for Strampel's defense attorney.

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