Restraining order granted preventing Mel Tucker from releasing text messages
As the title states, brenda tracy was granted a restraining order to stop Tucker and his legal team from releasing anymore text of tracy’s messages with her friend/assistant.
Her taking this action supports the sworn witness testimony that brenda tracy tried to obtain her friend phone and computer in order to delete the messages while her friend was on her deathbed.
“As detailed in the new witness’ sworn statement, while Ms. Tracy’s supposed friend lay dying in a hospital, and even after death, Ms. Tracy sought to sleep over at Ms. Alvarado’s house (in her room) and repeatedly asked Ms. Alvarado’s family for access to Ms. Alvarado’s phone and computers,” the letter says.
“It really struck me as odd that she would want Ahlan’s things and would be asking Ahlan’s family for them as Ahlan lay dying in her hospital bed,” the witness said, according to Tucker’s lawyers in the letter.
“Ms. Tracy’s shocking efforts to obtain access to Ms. Alvarado’s electronic devices containing evidence against her reveals how desperately she wanted and needed to ensure their contents were never disclosed,” the letter reads.
It’s easy to pile onto Mel and it should go without saying that he is a massive idiot.
I think tracy’s actions and all of this coming forward will be a blow to victims going forward. People will seize and point to this as a reason to not believe victims. Just as Mel should be held to a higher standard, she should to. She is a sexual assault victim and advocate. It seems like she was motivated by money first rather than the mission.
People are already drawing parallel’s between this and the Trevor Bauer- Lindsey hill situation. That makes an already uphill battle even steeper for victims.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:24 PM ^
Fascinating how you use a story about Tucker being found by a judge to have potentially violated the law in releasing her text messages to bash Tracy.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:47 PM ^
I feel like this is an "everyone sucks here" scenario AND it's a spectrum.
Brenda might lowkey suck.
Mel definitely sucks.
MSU embodies suck.
October 7th, 2023 at 3:03 AM ^
Seems like the summary of what we are hearing is:
- Mel is stupid for many reasons
- Tracy allegedly went out of her way based on witness accounts to destroy texts which could be evidence
- So far it’s a he said she said about whether there was consent to the phone call that was either abusive or consensual. In that case, I tend to believe the abused since coming forward means they subject themselves to a lot of abuse and scrutiny. And I don’t see where there is a huge financial reward for Tracy. Maybe I missed that?
- Mel wants money from MSU but it seems thats a stretch given the contract he signed and which he’s already admitted he’s broken. That is only related to the termination which seems valid even if the call was consensual
- Mel’s recent activity Thursday seems to be to clear his name and/or shape public opinion. It doesn’t mean he is truthful unless he has the evidence he claims
- I don’t recall what Tracy is trying to achieve with both the initial proactive press release and now trying to keep her texts with a friend from public consumption. Was she also trying to get money from MSU? I don’t think so. It is certainly odd.
- With regard to the matter of whether or not it was consensual, normally its a he said vs she said, and we always want to side with the abused in that case because at least 9 times out of ten she is in the right. But the strange thing here is that there have been many discussions about texts that could screw up the he said she said. Tracy I believe deleted hers (not sure why), Mel deleted his (he has many stupid things to cover up even if it was consensual), Mel wants her friends texts and she doesn’t want them.
- It seems as though that usually the abuser wants to hide things and the abused wants transparency. It’s odd that the opposite may be true here. Let’s keep an open mind.
- If those texts can be used in a trial I would hope the matter can be resolved accurately one way or the other. If Tracy isn’t fully honest, I would expect an all out effort to have the texts be inadmissible.
October 7th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
Typically the easiest way to resolve this would be for a judge to enjoin the further release (as was done here) and order that the texts be provided to the judge in a sealed filing. The judge reviews them in chambers and makes a ruling on whether they are relevant & whether they can be publicly disclosed. It is unclear if that second piece will happen, but I think it probably will at some point.
October 7th, 2023 at 6:58 AM ^
Yes, everyone sucks here.
Now Mel's career as a football coach is over and Tracy's career as a victim advocate is over.
At this point, they both want to get whatever money they can from MSU.
MSU wishes it would all go away.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:48 PM ^
I’m not bashing her. All the evidence coming out indicates seriously undermines her initial claims. We all have our perspectives. They’re shaped by experiences and, well, personal feelings. I’m not here to change minds.
There’s a clear ‘Tracy can do no wrong’ contingent. I get it. But the facts are facts and it tough not to see the constant double standard.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:56 PM ^
and by "the evidence" you mean baseless claims made by his lawyer after a judge sides with her?
October 7th, 2023 at 1:37 AM ^
Wow. At least five people negged you and not one had the courtesy to explain why.
That’s rude of you people.
I think I can explain the negs, but I’m not a mind reader so I don’t know why they did it. But if I were inclined to neg you it would be for this:
The “evidence” is not “baseless claims.” The evidence is very clearly the many text messages and sworn testimony from a new witness that they released.
Now, you may think those are fabricated (a belief of some, apparently, that honestly I find baffling but maybe I’m giving Mel’s UM law grad lawyer too much credit, or not enough credit for being very creative) or maybe you think the evidence is flimsy. But those are different accusations than baseless.
As for the judge siding with Tracy, it was not because the judge determined that the text messages were immaterial or fake, but because Tracy had a claim that they were improperly released.
October 7th, 2023 at 12:05 AM ^
This is about Mel having a relationship with a contractor, which I assume not allowed. That is all that matters with regards to Football.
Tracy's story is not the primary subject of this topic and Mel's lawyer is trying to hard to make it that way.
October 7th, 2023 at 12:11 AM ^
The termination letter reads:
It is immaterial if, as you allege, these actions were purportedly consensual and somehow occurred outside of your workplace. As the University previously stated, "[i]t is decidedly unprofessional and unethical to flirt, make sexual comments, and masturbate while on the phone with a University vendor."
October 7th, 2023 at 1:06 AM ^
Love how the abusurdity of Tuggers action allow the text to escalate so quickly and absurdly...
You shouldn't flirt, make sexual comments....or you know, rub one out on the phone when talking to a vendor.
LOL Melllllllll
October 7th, 2023 at 7:39 AM ^
vendor?
he hardly knew 'er
...
sorry
October 7th, 2023 at 12:07 PM ^
Never apologize for exercising your gift.
October 7th, 2023 at 3:09 PM ^
When I used to teach writing, I think that Strunk and White called that a cumulative sentence. Fantastic example.
October 7th, 2023 at 10:57 AM ^
A lot of people can just never get this with rape cases. A woman is allowed to be interested in the man. A woman is allowed to want TO HAVE SEX with a man. Most of us do that all the time, right? That's how such cases EVOLVE.
The very stupid notion that "she wanted it," or "she wasn't innocent" grows out of this. She DOESN'T HAVE TO BE innocent. Of COURSE, she was interested; of COURSE she doesn't want their intimate back and forth made public precisely FOR THIS REASON: Noodles will jump all over it. As we see here.
All she has to do is NOT WANT HIM TO F*CKING DO CREEPY SH*T TO HER against her consent to have a legal case.
All he has to do is do that shit to a contractor to get his ass fired.
A woman does not have to be some freaking paragon of virtue to obtain justice in this world!
October 8th, 2023 at 3:44 AM ^
That's correct and I agree. What you miss is that with a 'he said, she said', believing one person over the other comes down to credibility. So while you don't have to be the paragon of virtue, being a LIAR when your whole case depends on your credibility is damaging to say the least. If you'll lie under oath about anything, how can we trust what you say about everything?
October 7th, 2023 at 1:38 AM ^
Jamo’s order said it also appeared to the Court that “protected, personal, private, and sensitive business information related to sexual assault survivors and employees... was gathered in violation of Michigan law,”
I'm not saying her story is 100% the whole truth, but there's also some serious fuckery going on from the Tucker camp. I don't think much of what they've thrown out can be taken at seriously. Much of it seems to be taken out of context specifically to smear her character.
October 7th, 2023 at 1:58 AM ^
“protected, personal, private, and sensitive business information related to sexual assault survivors and employees... was gathered in violation of Michigan law,”
If that turns out to stand, that Mel’s team violated Michigan law to acquire these texts, is there somehow a strategic reason to knowingly do this? Smear Tracy by any means necessary?
From Mel’s perspective, sure, but surely the lawyer has more professional pride and concerns than that. She’s not Saul Goodman.
Edit: As stated in a reply I had above, negging someone without an explanation is chickenshit unless you’re negging something that is obvious trolling. I’m asking an actual question here. His lawyer is a real lawyer. If she did something that violates Michigan law, then that seems like a huge mistake. Just curious about the potential consequences and if anyone has an idea about what we could be missing. Usually lawyers don’t break the law and then make sure everybody knows, hey, I broke the law!
October 7th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
The entire point of the neg pos system is to show is you approve or disapprove of a comment. If every vote required a post what would be the point. Stop have such thin skin.
October 9th, 2023 at 1:33 PM ^
When it's obvious what someone might be approving or disapproving of, then sure, thumbs up/thumbs down without an explanation makes sense. That's what I said, more or less, above.
But if someone is posting something that is not obviously objectionable, then the negging does nothing if you have any interest in the receiver of the neg to understand. If you don't care about that, then bully for you, I guess. But multiple people negged my fairly innocuous (IMO) post, which makes me think I wrote something offensive, somehow. But I have no idea what, so I guess I'm just doomed to do it again sometime since no one could be bothered to explain their disapproval.
October 7th, 2023 at 8:13 AM ^
Mel was fired for an unprofessional, embarrassing incident as a key employee of MSU.
Her initial claims and Mel’s own words reflect an unprofessional relationship with a vendor. Mel undisputedly tugged one out during a call that she didn’t reciprocate and found uncomfortable.Then he cancelled her August speaking after the incident. Retaliation or loss of career opportunities for not reciprocating advances is a central point in sexual harassment.
The rest of Brenda’s personal life seems irrelevant and this situation sure looks like victim blaming rather than arguing the law or the actual facts.
October 7th, 2023 at 9:14 AM ^
that she didn’t reciprocate and found uncomfortable.
That’s the part that is in dispute. Mel would disagree with your statement. He claims the evidence he has provided casts serious doubt on that claim. You may not agree with Mel, but that’s his claim.
October 7th, 2023 at 11:50 AM ^
It doesn't matter. Mel violated policy by having a relationship with a vendor. Game over.
October 7th, 2023 at 12:10 PM ^
It's not game over for Mel if he is being labeled a sexual harasser! If he has text showing she was willing and approved of the flirting then he should do everything in his power to show that. Sure fire him, but to say that's all this is clearly shows you don't care if someone is now labeled like this forever. Once a man is labeled a sexual deviant, that never goes away. Ask the Duke lacrosse team.
October 7th, 2023 at 2:36 PM ^
It doesn't matter whether she consented as to whether it's sexual harassment.
If he has the power to hire/fire her, it's quid pro quo sexual harassment even if she consents.
October 11th, 2023 at 6:56 AM ^
It does matter!! I can't believe people think it's no big deal if a man is being labeled a sexual deviant. That is a label that never goes away.
October 7th, 2023 at 6:16 PM ^
You realize she could flirt with him and still not have consented to him rubbing one out during a phone conversation, right? Your argument is "she shouldn't have dressed that way if she didn't want it" churched up to sound different.
October 8th, 2023 at 3:55 AM ^
It's not at all "undisputed". It's the very core of the LAW SUIT. Legally, to this point there has only been an allegation. An allegation that many leaped to accept as true with NO evidence. The accused has maintained all along that the allegations are false. To even get to 'Victim blaming' you decided that there was a victim, based on what someone said and also decided that the opposing party was lying. This goes both ways. Only once a judge decides what the crime was can we even know who the 'victim' is.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:26 PM ^
¡No mas!
October 6th, 2023 at 11:48 PM ^
Don't stop now. Who could possibly be tired of daily Tucker/Tracy updates?
October 6th, 2023 at 11:28 PM ^
What's Mel Tucker's motivation in all this? Oh, yeah. Money.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:34 PM ^
I'm a lawyer and I don't get Tucker's strategy. If he wants to get the biggest check possible, and he seems to, the answer is to clam up and get into discovery with MSU so he can find nasty stuff through discovery as settlement leverage. Going after Tracy in public doesn't increase his settlement leverage vis-a-vis MSU and it doesn't get his job back.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:44 PM ^
Maybe he's not after money.
There are other motivations, like revenge.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
October 7th, 2023 at 1:12 AM ^
Oh yeah? What’s a lawyer’s percentage of revenge?
Mel doesn’t need a lawyer if he just wants to humiliate her.
October 7th, 2023 at 8:13 AM ^
First, you don't know what fee arrangement they have in place.
Second, absolutely he'll want the court of public opinion to see her bad side as soon as possible. His has been exposed already. PR will be a constant issue with the case.
October 7th, 2023 at 9:20 AM ^
Lawyer above said he questions the strategy for maximizing the money.
You (also a lawyer by trade I believe you have said) seem to think this is in fact the correct strategy.
Lawyer fight!
October 7th, 2023 at 11:07 AM ^
That's what we do! Holding hands would be against our nature.
Regarding fees, I'll tailor mine to the case. Whether a retainer will be flat fee, hourly, objective based, contingency based...
No way I'm working on just contingency if I represented someone like Tucker. He's reasonably likely to screw things up without my help and reduce the odds of a settlement.
October 7th, 2023 at 8:56 PM ^
Original lawyer. I'd have to think you take this one on contingency if you can - presume a lowball deal is ~$20mm (25% of the remaining balance on the contract). Hard to imagine the facts go lower than that. A third of that is around $6-2/3mm, which is a lot more than you'd get on an hourly retainer unless you're paying top-top-top New York rates. Facts would have to be insane here (both bad for Tucker and no skeletons for MSU) to avoid a $large settlement.
On strategy, how does making Tracy look bad increase your settlement leverage? Presuming for a second that Tucker's 100% correct and can prove it, the time to do that is in settlement negotiations so he can tell MSU they, in fact, fired him without cause. Convincing the public that Tracy's a bad person - Mel's seeming intent here - doesn't, by itself, make MSU want to or have to pay Tucker $0.01.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:46 PM ^
Maybe he knows he's gonna get fuck you money at the end of the day via a settlement even if it's a fraction of the total contract. There's no scenario he gets his job back at MSU anyway. So maybe he's trying to clear his name for future jobs by attacking her credibility.
October 6th, 2023 at 11:56 PM ^
Did he consult with his right-hand man (or just right hand) about this fuck-you-money settlement?
October 7th, 2023 at 12:21 AM ^
It's absolutely about future employment. If it turns out they were in a relationship, he will be able to get a job again. If it turns out her allegations were financially motivated, he can paint himself as the victim in all this.
My opinion? Every person involved is an asshole.
October 7th, 2023 at 1:25 AM ^
Absolutely correct.
October 7th, 2023 at 10:39 AM ^
Right.
October 7th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
I don't think he comes out of this as employable even if everything is exactly as Tucker claims, because he's very clearly committed to burning the house down with him. Loudly and publicly litigating against your employer makes you an extremely difficult hire.
October 7th, 2023 at 7:56 AM ^
So part of his public defense seems to be the accusation that Brenda Tracy was just looking for a pay day. At this point, what is Mel's motive? He's never getting his job back so there's only one other reason he's doing this. I understand that he was under contract so he thinks that he has that money coming to him. But she was, for all intents and purposes, under contract, too. She was set to do a speaking engagement for $10,000, and that was cancelled by Mel. So for him to point a finger at her in disgust seems really disingenuous to me. I'm not a big fan of punitive damages in a case like this but lost wages, yeah, I can see that.
October 7th, 2023 at 8:19 AM ^
Money is the motive.
This PR approach is all about making MSU uncomfortable with daily coverage of a salacious topic. Even his FMLA claim reeks of comp grabbing. Each month if comp is worth $800k and MSU will likely need to settle for millions to get this resolved, unless they go the full distance in the legal system. Bad PR is more costly for MSU than Mel and Mel knows it.
October 7th, 2023 at 10:10 AM ^
@highlow
This is what I am seeing.
When MSU quickly fired Mel before the Title 9 hearing, MSU stated that they had all of the evidence they needed to make that decision.
By going after Tracy and releasing new evidence, they are also simultaneously going after MSU and making the case that MSU actually didn't have the necessary evidence to fire. Tracy, claiming the new evidence was illegally obtained (withholding it) actually makes Mel's case stronger, because, once again, MSU hadn't gathered critical evidence.
MSU simply didn't collect all of the evidence necessary to make a determination to fire. And that might be one angle that gives Mel a winning case.
October 7th, 2023 at 9:00 PM ^
Replied above. Half-agree with you; if I represented Tucker I'd focus aggressively on the process angle. But doing this in public doesn't help that case; MSU/Tracy's lawyers may be able to score discovery wins off of this ("Your Honor, Tucker has already established that he can't be trusted with confidential information, so we shouldn't have to turn this over.")
October 7th, 2023 at 12:36 AM ^
I don’t always agree with your takes on this situation, but I respect where they come from. His motivations are about money and salvaging his career. But the evidence clearly paints a picture that money has been her motivation. Acknowledging the facts isn’t baselessly bashing her.
October 7th, 2023 at 3:27 AM ^
What facts are showing you that she's in it for the money? Seems like you just say there facts but don't sure any.