MICHIGAN
Lansing State Journal
Matt Mencarini, Lansing State Journal
May 11, 2018
For the second time this year, a major MSU donor is under scrutiny for comments he’s made about Larry Nassar’s victims.
While waiting with a crowd to enter a gubernatorial debate held in Grand Rapids earlier this week, Sterling Riethman, one of the 204 women and girls who gave statements earlier this year during Nassar’s sentencing hearings on sexual assault charges, says she heard Peter Secchia say, “These girls are going to ruin the state of Michigan. We have to stop them.”
Secchia, who has donated millions to Michigan State University over the years and has his name on several university buildings, denied the allegation when the Lansing State Journal contacted him. He said Riethman misheard him and that he said the package of bills would ruin the state. The bills were inspired by Nassar, the disgraced former MSU physician accused of sexually abusing hundreds of patients.
Riethman had testified at a state House committee about why she supports legislation intended to extend the statute of limitations for criminal and civil cases involving sexual assault cases, among other changes. Hours later Riethman was waiting to take her seat to watch the debate between Republican candidates.
A group of men were having a conversation within feet of her and she heard one ask Secchia if he had heard that some of Nassar’s victims had been “paraded” in front of the state House Law and Justice Committee to testify in support of the Nassar-inspired bills, Riethman told the State Journal on Tuesday.
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