Auston Robertson Was Whistleblower in Alleged MSU Football Assault

Submitted by Mercury Hayes on

Auston Robertston (Yes, that Auston Robertson) was the player who told Mark Dantonio about the alleged sexual assaults involving three Michigan State football.

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2017/06/msu_trustee_auston_robe…

You may recall, Robertson has since been kicked off the team for a separate sexual assault that occurred while the initial investigation was underway. Here is the link to that story from April.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state/spartans/2017/…

  • So to recap, Robertson was present for two different alleged sexual assualts in Spring semester
  • Understood that the first alleged assault was wrong but then assaulted a girl months later anyway (while his girlfriend waited in the car)

Update: MSU Trustee says he mispoke. Although people on this board implicated Robertson months ago. I wonder if anyone can FOIA who Dantonio met with on the 16th by checking his emails and or calendar.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state-universi…

ijohnb

June 7th, 2017 at 1:19 PM ^

I am telling you, yesterday created far more questions than it answered.  The coordinated rollout of the MSU news the last 48 hours was really odd.  The news of the "who" and the "what" of the alleged incident took the headlines away from the "how" and "why" the news was being presented in the fashion that it was. 

They announced three football players were kicked off the team and going to be tried for a serious sexual assault, and the Nassar investigation is still on-going, but yet Dantonio and Hollis were given the "full support" by the Board of Trustees?  How could that possibly be said at this point by anybody?  And now it comes out that the kid who reported the assault was kicked off the team, while the assault was being investigated, for an assault that happenned three months later?  Huh?  This is still not adding up people.

Anybody so inclined should read Pat Caputo's article in the Oakland Press yesterday for some really good insight and perspective.  I, for one, don't believe that yesterday was the "end" of anything for MSU, nor did I see anything "transparent" about it. 

war-dawg69

June 7th, 2017 at 10:04 PM ^

 There is a lot more to this than two seperate sexual assault incidents obviously. If it was reported to Dantonio by Robertson who did Dantonio report it too and did he follow the proper protocol. The first incident set a lot of other stuff into motion that we really don't know of just yet that is for sure. There is something really wrong going on and you can just feel it. I really hope the prosecutors office gets it right and exposes all wrong doers.

umbig11

June 7th, 2017 at 1:20 PM ^

So let this sink in Dantonio. Robertson was kicked off the team for sexual assault and will likely testify against his former teammates who were just kicked off the team for sexual assault. Expert witness? 

Also, this is why his teammates were hunting him down. Not only because Robertson assaulted a teammates girlfriend, but for turning these three in!

Larry Appleton

June 7th, 2017 at 1:30 PM ^

I think you mean "key" witness, and if he can testify that any of the three told him what they did, that would be key indeed.

However, if he pleads to a felony before this goes to trial (assuming it does, and these usually do not), then his conviction could be used in court as evidence of his character.

umbig11

June 7th, 2017 at 1:42 PM ^

 Hollis announced some changes, assigning three people to the football program:

Alan Haller, who played in the NFL and was a Lansing police officer.

Jennifer Smith, the compliance director at MSU.

Elliott Daniels, from academics.

“The three of them are going to turn over every rock,” Hollis said, later. “They have my authority. They can make change. It’s not about X’s and O’s or football. It’s about life. It’s about structure.”

In reply to by Boom Goes the …

Alumnus93

June 7th, 2017 at 3:05 PM ^

Not really... This is why Brandon did all the title X work and covered any gaps, long ago.... Now the MSU admin has to tiptoe around many laws that protect many people, and not just for assault, but employment, student rights, medical rights, etc. at least, that's how it looks to me...
An mgolawyer should chime in here...

In reply to by Boom Goes the …

Alumnus93

June 7th, 2017 at 3:05 PM ^

Not really... This is why Brandon did all the title X work and covered any gaps, long ago.... Now the MSU admin has to tiptoe around many laws that protect many people, and not just for assault, but employment, student rights, medical rights, etc. at least, that's how it looks to me...
An mgolawyer should chime in here...

Schmoe

June 7th, 2017 at 3:49 PM ^

I agree with the spirit of this but a bit inaccurate, I believe.  UM's Title IX compliance had nothing to do with Dave Brandon.  It was a school thing.  And the school is a good school that complied properly because it wanted to avoid a culture problem.  Proud of that.  And we suspect MSU did not follow properly, although they are keeping that secret by turning down FOIA requests for the federal report of a few years ago.  Anyway, we are aligned and I would love to hear form an mgolawyer as well.

Mercury Hayes

June 7th, 2017 at 1:09 PM ^

I feel there are three different options here:

1. Player is dumber than shit and also a peice of shit which we sort of already knew

2. Trustee got the name wrong.

3. Maybe he was the scapegoat because he was already being kicked off the team at the time of the investigation. Since details of the player's report didn't name said player maybe it was easier to protect an existing teammate? Still Corley/Vance/King would know who was there or who wasn't.

PopeLando

June 7th, 2017 at 4:33 PM ^

I agree, but I accepted a long time ago that some people can't have empathy unless a situation touches them personally.

1: "The girl was raped. This is awful and I'm angry about it"
2: "Well, yeah I understand that it's bad, but we shouldn't rush to judgement, and it certainly doesn't mean anything is wrong. Maybe she asked for it."
1: sigh "And what if it was your daughter?"
2: "Fuck those guys. Fuck that place. How come her father isn't in jail for murder??"
1: "...so, this is awful and you're angry about it..."
2: "Well, there's a lot of nuances here...
1: "Your daughter"
2: "Fuck that, I'm going apeshit on someone"
1: sigh

Kapitan Howard

June 7th, 2017 at 5:25 PM ^

It has become more and more clear to me that when someone says "Imagine that was your daughter/sister/wife/etc..." it's effective, but there's often something pretty fucked up about it. I won't say why because I think it hits pretty close to the "no politics" rule, but I think you can figure it out.

FauxMo

June 7th, 2017 at 1:09 PM ^

OK, so to thicken the plot a bit...

I read a story/rumor about how a group of MSU football players were out looking for Auston to beat his ass, and this was (allegedly) because of the (alleged) sexual assault Robertson had commited. When he ran to Indiana, so the story goes, it was not to avoid arrest, but to avoid his own teammates and their wrath. 

What if - and stay with me on this - he was actually running away from these guys because they had found out he was the "rat" and wanted revenge for that, not the alleged sexual assault of a teammates girflriend? 

Or what if - and WARNING, this is 100% baseless speculation - there is even a deeper back story to the accusation against him for his own sexual assault case? I wonder if his accuser was the girlfriend of one of Corley, King or Vance??

In other words, these things are at least superficially no longer disconnected, isolated events, and I'll bet there is A LOT more to this story.

Mercury Hayes

June 7th, 2017 at 1:11 PM ^

The common rumor of a player sleeping with another player's girlfriend is way overused. There were rumblings about this with the Reschke incident, as well as previous incidents with MSU athletics, Syracuse basketball, the Cleveland Cavaliers (Lebron's Mom). I think this is a bad road to go down.

Blue in Paradise

June 7th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^

the problems coming out of EL are somehow worse than expected - which is nearly impossible because we were expecting this to be really, really bad (heinous was the word used a few months ago).

At this point, not only do you have the actual assaults themselves but this bizarre situation of the whistleblower subequently assaulting a teammates' girlfriend and running out of fear of his teammates.  As FauxMo points out: was he running due to fear of retribution due to his own assault or was he in fear of retribution for ratting out the other 3?  Are these events (the whistleblowing and then subsequent assault) really a conincidence?  I seriously can't wrap my head around this.

On top of all that, you have players fleeing the ship seemingly every week now - who could blame them?  I wouldn't want to be in the middle of a situation like this.  

As much as I would like UM to crush Sparty year in and year out between the lines, I don't want to see this situation devolve into a full meltdown.  It's not good for the state of Michigan, it's not good for the B1G and it is seriously bad for college football generally.

If these football team situations keep popping up, you will soon start seeing the politicians start to get involved - not good!

 

mGrowOld

June 7th, 2017 at 1:16 PM ^

Now I hate Mark Dantonio as much as the next Michigan fan but God in Heaven can you imagine what life must've been like for him over the past several months every time somebody said "hey coach I need to talk to you about something"

I would not want to have been his dog when he got home from work.