John Engler- strikes from the grave. Apparently in an effort to thwart efforts to get him out at MSU offered Perles a $200,000 inducement to resign last fall.
How is this not bribery of an elected official?
https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/01/20/michigan-state-george-perles/2335168002/
January 20th, 2019 at 2:07 PM ^
I would be perfectly happy to never hear his name again.
January 20th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
Which one, Engler or Perles? They are both really shitty people.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:21 PM ^
Why not both?
January 20th, 2019 at 2:09 PM ^
We need a thread on Delaney next.
January 20th, 2019 at 2:14 PM ^
+1 for ‘thwart.’
January 20th, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
+1 for most informative title of the year
January 20th, 2019 at 7:42 PM ^
But were the max number of characters allowed in a thread title executed?
January 20th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
January 20th, 2019 at 2:18 PM ^
Probably an overly informative title. Much more appreciated than uninformative
January 20th, 2019 at 2:25 PM ^
Let’s consider the lesser titles we could have gotten:
Perles
Engler
SMH
$200,000
MSU BoT
LOL Sparty
January 20th, 2019 at 4:51 PM ^
X-coach quits 4 $
January 20th, 2019 at 2:43 PM ^
The problem with an "overly informative" title is that it shoves over threads off the sidebar. You should be able to say what you need in a few words.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:55 PM ^
Agreed. If your title is longer than your post, U R doin' it rong.
January 20th, 2019 at 4:37 PM ^
So it's "arrogant" to ask that people not write monster titles that push other threads off the front page?
January 20th, 2019 at 5:46 PM ^
"Michigan arrogance", whatever you believe that is, cannot be the same as asking people to exercise a little editorial judgment and create a situation where the title can be both informative but also not quite so verbose. Trying to find a little balance between the title and the summary at the top is certainly not an unreasonable request.
January 20th, 2019 at 6:37 PM ^
As I understand it, you are a mod.
Suggest to the powers that be a character minimum and maximum for headlines.
Then, we can all be spared literally thousands of annual comments complaining in Goldilocks fashion of headlines being just a little too long or just a little too short.
January 21st, 2019 at 3:26 PM ^
lol coming from you
January 20th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
Well, the Michigan AG already wants to talk to Engler about shielding internal email exchanges about the investigation by including an attorney on the mailing list so I guess this will just add to the list of questions. Also, add this to the list of examples of Engler’s ethics problems, crazy man. We all know who the crazy man is.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:17 PM ^
Do you think this is legally crooked, or just good old fashioned crooked people crooked? I'm interested in the fact that Perles continues to have his name attached to the plaza or whatever it is.
Also glad that the Free finally appears to have got one right--that is, found something of real note to investigate and uncovered the story. Sometimes the sense of proportion over there has been sorely lacking.
January 20th, 2019 at 4:17 PM ^
Since this involves attacking a Republican, you should regard this as part of the Freep's mission statement. One of their core competencies.
Athough -- and it is a bit hard to believe -- the Freep actually endorsed Engler in 1998, when the alternative was Fieger.
So let's get this straight; the MSU BoT (not Engler) approved the zeroing out of Perles' donation pledge. And the BoT (not Engler) accepted Perles' resignation. Before his resignation, Perles was in badly failing health. It was widely known that he was not competent to remain a Trustee. And so he resigned. And he did so at a time when nobody knew who would be the Governor in 2019. And, the Perles resignation was accepted at a time when neither Engler nor any Republican member of the BoT could pick the replacement. It was up to Snyder, who clearly did not choose any sort of Engler sycophant. And presumably all of this was reviewed by attorneys for MSU and approved. It may even be that in failing health, Perles could not personally afford to make his final contributions to fulfill his pledge, and it would have been a loss to MSU in any event. I know nothing about Perles' personal finances. But if he had invested badly and lost his money, he would not be the first coach or athlete to have done so.
Can anyone explain to this lawyer where a crime or a civil cause of action might lie here?
January 20th, 2019 at 4:51 PM ^
Where did it say the BoT approved zeroing out the account? The article just says the directive came from Engler’s office. The board doesn’t have to approve every zeroing like this, so I don’t know if they ever approved this one. If so it sounds like management buying influence on ownership, which still isn’t necessarily illegal. But it’s not a good look.
January 20th, 2019 at 5:20 PM ^
Once again, your love for Engler blimds you to pertinent facts.
Perles resigned on November 29th.
I am pretty sure that Engler knew almost a month after the election who the governor was going to be.
Keep swinging off his jockstrap though.
January 20th, 2019 at 5:47 PM ^
You are entirely correct. I was mistaken about the date of the Perles resignation. I was confusing the chronology; thinking about when Perles’ name came up in one of the MSU/Nassar civil suits. Quoting from the Freep:
Erika Davis said in the lawsuit, filed in September in federal court in Grand Rapids, that she told her coach, Martha Ludwig, that Nassar had raped her and that Ludwig confronted Nassar about what happened and demanded and received a video recording of the assault. Perles forced Ludwig to return the video, resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement, according to the lawsuit.
January 20th, 2019 at 6:25 PM ^
Why is it so hard for you to acknowledge that Engler and the MSU board was - and possibility is - what you find at the bottom of an outhouse at a DTE after a Gratetful Dead show?
January 20th, 2019 at 6:36 PM ^
A Grateful Dead Show? What might we find; some 25 year-old LSD?
Why is it so hard for some of you to accept that John Engler:
a) Had absolutely nothing to do with the substance of the Nassar scandal;
b) Accepted the MSU presidency on a purely interim basis, at no gain to himself. It was a pressure-cooker of a job, while Engler was donating his $500,000 salary back to MSU;
c) Said over and over how much he cared for the survivors and the University, and oversaw massive internal changes in the wake of the scandal;
d) And that the various kerfuffles over various statements made by Engler, and routinely reported by a biased and hostile media reveal nothing about Engler's attitudes toward survivors, but rather Engler's unconcealed and largely justified contempt towards the trial lawyers, who were unquestionably the big winnners in the Nassar matter?
January 21st, 2019 at 12:38 AM ^
Why are you unable to read a fairly simple news report without producing some absurd interpretation of it? The report also quotes an law professor saying it’s not likely anything illegal has been revealed, so why are you demanding some explanation from people in your post above? There are whole forums on the internet devoted to the supposed persecution of Republicans in the media. You should go to them and post there. And only there.
January 20th, 2019 at 8:14 PM ^
ATTACKING A REPUBLICAN IS VALID IF THEY'RE BEING SHITTY! My god, you don't have to defend this piece of shit just because he's a fucking Republican. You are such a god damn partisan hack playing the victim.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:42 PM ^
Well the special investigator, the former AG up until about 2 weeks ago, and Engler all go to the same MSU tailgate parties. So not expecting much to come of this.
Plus it makes me laugh that Perles is reneging on a donation when the dude used to extort MSU every off season by threatening to go to the NFL. That place is one big circle jerk of incompetence and fraud.
January 20th, 2019 at 5:53 PM ^
Well, they'll always have a couple of football and basketball wins; hope they were worth it. The harder road would have been the slow, patient work of building up the university attached to the sports factory, but hey. . .
January 20th, 2019 at 6:27 PM ^
As regards the current Michigan AG; my fear is that she enters office hating John Engler as much as many of you boys do. And with a documented history of anger management issues and abuse of her campaign staff per multiple reports of those staffers, I fear how she might abuse her office.
January 20th, 2019 at 6:41 PM ^
Once again, you inherent inability to apply facts in an evenhanded manner is completely lacking.
Just above this comment from you about the new AGs allegedly making some controversial comments that you view in the worst light is a comment from you about Englers well documented history or making inappropriate remarks demanding they be viewed in a positive light.
A light so absurdly positive that I dare suggest that Engler himself would be offended.
January 20th, 2019 at 8:11 PM ^
Wow - the new AG seems like a real winner. Way to go Michigan voters...
January 20th, 2019 at 3:04 PM ^
Title says it all but the last 9 words.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:16 PM ^
This was to continue the reform work Engler started. How could anyone say this with a straight face? Wasn't Engler supposed to be the interim president? I guess interim meant for as long as possible to them.
John and his supporters really needed Perles to go while Snyder was still governor," said a former university insider with ties to Engler. "They really thought they could use their connections with Snyder's administration to get someone on the board who would be supportive of Engler and work with him to do the reforms Engler...started.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:31 PM ^
Unbelievable how dirty things can be behind the scenes when these kind of people are involved. Gosh what an AWFUL program there.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:32 PM ^
Good for Snyder in not picking a Sparty/Engler slappy to replace Perles.
January 20th, 2019 at 3:44 PM ^
January 20th, 2019 at 4:00 PM ^
January 20th, 2019 at 4:07 PM ^
These fucking guys...
January 20th, 2019 at 5:00 PM ^
Engler should be in jail.
January 20th, 2019 at 7:23 PM ^
From the article:
"Barbara McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and the former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan who put former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick behind bars, said it'd be hard to prove that a crime had been committed even if zeroing out the account was some sort of incentive for Perles to retire. But the move might still be questionable.
"'In our office, we often talk about crime versus slime,' McQuade told the Free Press. 'I'm not sure this is a crime, but it has a lot of slime.'"
Kinda answers the question in the original post.
January 20th, 2019 at 8:20 PM ^
Yes, I saw that.
The fairly obvious observation is hard to prove is not impossible to prove.
January 20th, 2019 at 8:03 PM ^
So Perles was like "Yeah, I'm gonna donate 500k, I'll donate some now then get back to you later"? Kinda a weird thing to do.
January 20th, 2019 at 9:20 PM ^
My question is if there is a paper trail that leads from Engler to Mork and Izzo?
This could get really interesting if that is the case.
January 21st, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
The more of the story I read the more confused I get. I can decide who the biggest piece of shit is on that campuses is it George Perles is it Lou Anna Simon is a John Engler is it Joel Ferguson or any of the other cast of assclowns. Set them on couch give them some matches to play with and let's move on