Son of Former Michigan State AD Denies Covering Up Rape
The son of former Michigan State head football coach and athletic director George Perles says the claim that his father covered up a rape committed by former MSU doctor Larry Nassar that was alleged in a lawsuit is not true.
Erika Davis, a former Michigan State field hockey player, said in a lawsuit that was filed Monday that Nassar drugged, raped and got her pregnant in 1992. Davis says that she informed her coach and another school employee about the assault.
The lawsuit said that Perles got involved when he learned of the alleged rape and went "to great lengths to conceal this conduct."
Perles is now a member of the Michigan State Board of Trustees and his son says his father doesn't remember any complaint about Nassar raping an athlete during the time he served as the school's athletic director.
"His memory is remarkably good for a man his age," Pat Perles said. "He doesn't remember any of this because it never happened. There was no meeting with the field hockey coach. It certainly didn't include this subject. It's a fabrication."
The younger Perles says some of the timeline of events recalled by Davis, now 44, that appeared in the lawsuit don't match up, adding that the documents “create holes… big enough for a truck to drive through.”
The court documents details Davis's story about how she went to the Michigan State police department to report the assault.
“The police told them that since she was an athlete, she had to report it to the athletic department,” according to court documents. “The detective explicitly told them that he was powerless to investigate anything that takes place to the athletic department [sic] and to go to the athletic department.
"Plaintiff Erika explained that the athletic department already dismissed it and the sergeant responded that George Perles is a 'powerful man,' and she should just drop it."
Michigan State University police chief Jim Dunlap said that claim was "nonsense."
Nassar is currently in a Florida federal penitentiary serving a 60-year sentence on federal child pornography charges. He also received a sentence of 40 to 125 years in Michigan state prison on seven first-degree criminal sexual misconduct charges.
