Mel Tucker is too ill to participate in today's hearing
Tucker won't participate, his attorneys said, because of a "serious medical condition," the details of which have not been disclosed.
Evidently, Tucker's lawyer also sent roughly 100 pages of new evidence to MSU.
The letter included an eight-page letter from one of Tucker's lawyers, Jennifer Belveal, and 98 pages of what the attorney calls previously undisclosed evidence that paints Tracy has been motivated by money. Belveal also is alleging that Tracy deleted "key" evidence.
"We want to be certain that each of you are privy to come some of the newly discovered evidence, primarily in the form of messages authored by Ms. Tracy herself, but also including witness statements, that she hoped (and obviously anticipated) you would never see," Belveal wrote.
The new evidence appears to not be public at the moment, from what I can tell.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:00 PM ^
Gonna need lots of popcorn.
October 5th, 2023 at 2:30 PM ^
Marty Feldman was a comic genius 🤣🤣
October 5th, 2023 at 4:44 PM ^
Best Marty Feldman line, ever? Young Frankenstein: "What hump?"
Kinda makes you think of our "man of the hour" - Mel Tucker, no?
October 5th, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
Marty Feldman was blessed with the rare ability to look both ways at once and still think nothing was "Abby Normal" about it at all!
October 5th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
His non-attendance should not surprise anyone -- his public statements have called the hearing and process a sham (or at least something close) and it's been entirely clear that he will be filing a lawsuit regardless.
Get well soon, Mel. Hand injuries are no joke.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:03 AM ^
He sure is getting shafted
October 5th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
Poor Mel. You're contract made you a winner but man you're just a sinner now.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
What you did there? I see it......
October 5th, 2023 at 11:07 AM ^
Feeling a little drained, is he?
October 5th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
Ha maybe it is a penis injury from the situation involving his penis.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
Tugger such a scumbag. Dude jerked it to the 1 person on the planet he should NOT be trying to rub one out to.
Whatever “dirt” or contradictions they find regarding BT is meaningless, as anyone with half a brain (and $80mm left on the table) knows to avoid this situation like the plague.
Even in the hypothetical where BT is the biggest gold digging fraud in America (this is what his lawyers are pushing as defense, not my view), it makes no difference in this case. No matter the garbage they throw at her, the case is between him and MSU for some settlement he doesn’t deserve. Just a total scumbag move trying to defame her on his way out.
Tugger is the ultimate Sparty No!, or Sparty Ohhhhhh hire.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:59 AM ^
The one person he shouldn't? He's married, the number of people he should even consider it with is one.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:19 PM ^
He has been separated from his (lawyer) wife for a few years now. I believe she still lives in Colorado.
October 5th, 2023 at 1:34 PM ^
I don't pretend to know that the Tuckers' deal is, but she's currently a Commissioner on the Michigan Community Service Commission, a board member for the Capitol Region Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Capitol Area Humane Society. That isn't consistent with still living in Colorado or being separated for "years".
https://www.michigan.gov/leo/boards-comms-councils/mcsc/about/commissioners/jo-ellyn-h-tucker
October 5th, 2023 at 4:13 PM ^
Meant to say…the absolute last person
October 5th, 2023 at 11:27 AM ^
"serious medical condition" is such a broad term. He could be a sex addict and you could argue it's a serious medical condition. Doesn't mean he's "sick" in the old sense of the word. It's obviously a ploy.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^
I personally don't understand why this is about Tracy. He engaged in a relationship or alleged relationship. He shared what he did. I feel like those two things gives MSU rights to terminate for cause. I am not a lawyer. I am not sure what he achieves in terms of money or his reputation to divulge anything about Tracy.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
For his lawsuit against MSU in regards to wrongful termination, I'm not sure this does much, if anything, other than spur on MSU's desire to just finally reach a settlement. When they fired him for cause, it was for his admitted behaviors, which means they knowingly fired him for cause even if the act was consensual.
But this new evidence is being submitted as part of the RVSM hearing, so they're hoping it would sway the final decision on the hearing in his favor.
October 5th, 2023 at 2:40 PM ^
Going to take an initial, tentative position here. If it's consensual, that is, between two age appropriate, mentally competent, mutually agreed adults? Then MSU fired him for insufficent cause. His judgment was seriously flawed, yes, absolutely. And he admitted various embarassing behaviors. But. I am struggling to see egregious violations of a public morals clause in this era.
Eventually? His attorneys are going to recover quite a bit of money. Enough for him to retire. It won't change the damage to his rep, marriage, etc.
Going to be a great bit of drama.
October 5th, 2023 at 2:48 PM ^
In MSU's notice to fire him for cause, they basically conceded it was consensual. I mean, really they didn't say whether it was or wasn't, they just said it didn't matter and they could still fire him for cause anyway.
Your position is they're wrong about that. That is also Mel Tucker's position.
I think everyone believes it will never get to court, though, because there will be a settlement. So we'll never know which way it would have gone.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:48 PM ^
Yep, a settlement is surely most probable - much more expedient and efficient. The "going public" events are or should have been open to discovery in counsels' various depositions.
I would really have liked to know what actually went on with/between the two of them. Not going to happen, unfortunately.
October 5th, 2023 at 11:34 AM ^
Did he have an erection that lasted more than 4 hours?
October 5th, 2023 at 12:00 PM ^
He should ask his doctor about Xeljanz; it’s the first FDA approved JAK inhibitor…
October 5th, 2023 at 12:10 PM ^
The whole thing has felt weird from the start and Brenda Tracy has never sounded 100% innocent. There has always seemed to be a financial component from previous quotes and the current released texts too. Tuck is obviously a freaking idiot, but I do not believe Brenda Tracy's reputation is going to leave this unharmed either between the angling for money side, and the relationships with married men side, especially given the nature of her business.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:12 PM ^
When has she angled for money?
October 5th, 2023 at 12:26 PM ^
Yeah, for some reason people take whatever Tucker's attorneys say as gospel strikes me as profoundly "both sides"-ing everything. Tucker's the one who has repeatedly been found to lie about what he was doing when and where and on whose dime, has made some bald-faced lies about other people trying to hurt him, and generally has comes across the guy super-focused on money while Tracy has had little incentive for any of this to come to light.
Also, the details being provided by him don't make a ton of sense practically. Maybe there was a settlement offer but if so I sorta doubt she'd have asked a guy looking to make $95M for a mere $10k, or that Tucker's attorney would turn down such a low-ball number. It reads like an Arrested Development bit, except he honestly believes that someone would accept less than your average NIL deal for a P5 player after having to listen to Tucker jerk off on a phone call.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:34 PM ^
Not that you personally need to be told this, but her being savvy enough to realize that there might be a settlement from this also just doesn't defeat her claim. I have worked with very real victims of sexual abuse, and at some point you end up talking about money. It doesn't mean that the bad thing didn't happen.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:24 PM ^
Oh absolutely. I don't think wanting to get paid for being sexual harassed is inherently bad; Tucker doesn't give a shit about coaching again but he definitely wants his money for being fired from a job he did a mediocre job at. What gets me more is this claim that Tucker's attorney would turn down a settlement for $10k in such a case given the potential downside for him. Again, clients do dumb stuff when they're mad but if she was just in it for money that (a) seems like very little, and (b) the downside of filing a public claim against him now would seemingly hurt her ability to get brought on campus other times, which again would be a financial hit for her with little upside.
I suspect that in the end Tracy will come out the worst of this entire ordeal, as her name is already severely tarnished and it's unlikely a bunch of programs will be excited about bringing her on campus to talk to student-athletes if for no other reason that the circus that'll follow her in the media. Tucker will get some decent percentage of his outrageous contract paid out, take a year or two off, and then wind up on someone's staff as a position coach of "analyst" comfortably clearing 6 figures for his troubles.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:48 PM ^
What gets me more is this claim that Tucker's attorney would turn down a settlement for $10k in such a case given the potential downside for him.
Sorry, I don't know what this is in reference to. Her text to her friend that basically said, "Gee whiz I can't wait to sue him and make him pay me $10k for my fee that I never got because he canceled my second appearance!" (paraphrasing)?
I don't recall seeing any claim that Mel would have turned down a $10k settlement with her...a settlement offer that never even was made.
Edit:
Okay, I went back and looked at DetNews's updated version of their story and found what you read:
Also in Thursday's letter, Tucker's attorneys cited messages saying Tracy sought a quick financial settlement with Tucker, with one message suggesting a $10,000 payment.
That is NOT how I read the letter from Tucker's attorney. I feel the DetNews misrepresented that. I believe the letter was stating that Tracy's texts had a pattern of being money hungry and her reference to wanting $10k was just an example of one of those messages. But maybe I missed something the DetNews saw.
Edit #2: Went back and read that portion again. She was just talking extemporaneously to her friend about the $10k in the midst of an entire conversation (it appears) about settlement talks with Mel.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:32 PM ^
Perhaps "angling" is unnecessarily negative in tone, but, if you read through the entirety of the letter coined by Tucker's lawyer including the text messages, and also include previous statements regarding comments made along the lines of "needing a sugar daddy" etc.., that's where my comment comes from. To clarify, Tucker is an idiot, and made horrible judgement and is clearly not a smart, nor good person. That said, this doesn't smell like a situation where Tracy is going to look good either. If her motive was purely to stand-up for survivors and not be taken advantage again, the constant comments/tone of finances both before and after the incident doesn't really support that. Yes, Tuck's lawyers will surely only want to show one side of the story (as will Tracy's), so you have to take everything with a grain of salt. It's also clear this is just going to turn into a smear campaign on both of their parts to try to make the other party look bad and try to salvage their reputations. This shouldn't actually impact his settlement with MSU.
October 5th, 2023 at 1:16 PM ^
“Sugar daddy” comment may have happened but that only came from Mel’s recollections.
Before today, there was nothing documented that came from Tracy that had anything to with money other than that she was paid for her job and that she accepted a gift and a donation from Mel.
October 5th, 2023 at 1:31 PM ^
Yeah I understand all of that. I am not trying to create a court case against anyone. Just stating my opinions/feelings =).
October 5th, 2023 at 2:04 PM ^
Basically this has been my take/opinion on this from the beginning. I don't think it's that complicated. Tucker and her obviously had some kind of relationship. They admit to being close. She was probably motivated by getting more business and money (which is 100% completely fine btw) and he liked the attention and was more motivated by the prospect of romance/sex because probably his marriage wasn't great or whatever and he also likes attention (less than 100% fine given his position). He took it to a place that she didn't sign up for with the jerking off. I have a hard time believing she would ever be physically attracted to him. He didn't maliciously rape, assault or physically harm anyone. There's no crime, I think he's just a pathetic person. Maybe she was indeed so traumatized and couldn't hang up like most people probably would. I'm not a rape survivor so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, he put himself in this precarious situation in a relationship that was a very bad idea and inappropriate to begin with. He should be held to a higher standard since he's a representative of the university and getting fired is justified. That said, she is definitely taking advantage of a situation that was presented to her which is her right. MSU is taking advantage of a situation to fire a coach they should have never hired or given an insane contract to in the first place. I could be wrong, but this seems the most logical to me.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:18 PM ^
Karen - a lawyer is reaching out to the head lawyer at MSU to discuss what this might look like moving forward. She’s going to gauge their response and we will go from there but sounds like we will be asking Tucker to not speak on me or the incident and him or MSU will need to make an anonymous donation to STE so that we can further our work.
Karen said once she can test their tolerance - like do they just want this to just go away - then she’ll be able to better help me make decisions.
Having him just sign an NDA tho just means he did it no one will know and there are no consequences for him.
Money is my only recourse to make him feel like there is a punishment and I can request it be anonymous so that he can’t take credit for it
Not even sure he would agree to it but I think I should try and if it leaked then it’s a donation to my work and not me
They said it would be a bad idea to call him.
Could look like I tried to extort him and then followed it up with a lawyer
October 5th, 2023 at 12:14 PM ^
Having read the actual article it's hard not to see that Tucker's entire approach here is to paint Tracy as, frankly, a (coach) jersey chaser. It's pretty disgusting and you have to wonder about a bunch of unnamed sources and scouring of dead friends' text messages they claim to have access to as the base of their evidence, but clearly Tucker is a huge fucking asshole and also a coward (I severely doubt he's suddenly suffering from some life-threatening illness around the time he'd actually be subject to some scrutiny) and I don't see how he expects to win the battle of credibility by sitting on the sideline.
Maybe Tracy really is at fault here but the fact Tucker keeps getting caught lying about important facts and keeps "finding" exculpatory evidence only months later makes me think he's mostly just angling for the paycheck and will scorch whatever earth he has left to get it.
October 5th, 2023 at 1:30 PM ^
you have to wonder about a bunch of unnamed sources and scouring of dead friends' text messages they claim to have access to as the base of their evidence
I don’t find it at all suspicious. First of all, the witness probably isn’t anonymous. They just didn’t release the name publicly. MSU probably has it.
And the witness is probably family of Alvarado, who appears bitter about Tracy’s behavior while Alvardo was on her deathbed.
Is it that surprising that Alvardo’s surviving relative would have access to her phone and messages?
I don’t know at what point they managed to get this information. Clearly not before the investigation report was submitted in July. That’s my only question. Why couldn’t they have had this earlier.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:17 PM ^
I never said the witness was anonymous but from the article this said he/she was unnamed, which is somewhat weird because the article later states that they had access to the name and current employer of the basketball coach that Tucker claims was also having an affair with Tracy.
Tucker's lawyers also are alleging that while Alvarado was in the hospital, after the June car crash, 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," according to an unnamed witness who has provided a sworn statement.
The Detroit News has reached out to the school where the basketball coach, who previously was an assistant coach in the NBA, currently works, requesting comment. The school, which is not Michigan State, didn't immediately respond Thursday morning. The letter identifies the coach by name; The News is not identifying him at this time.
So I guess they have access to some of the reporting submitted by Tucker's attorney but not other information? I honestly don't quite get the tact here by the News, but whatever. Maybe Tracy is making this all up and is in fact trying to sleep with multiple head coaches (though to what end I really don't get; again, we're talking about a claimed $10k payout from a guy worth close to $100M on paper), but it feels like a lot of credence is being given to the unverified claims from Tucker while his verified lies and misstatements seem to be ignored. Maybe he really did get 20k texts and documents from a family member of the deceased assistant, but I'd surely want to check the authenticity and completeness of said records before putting a ton of faith in them especially if they wind up uniformly painting Tucker in a good light since that would be pretty convenient.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:54 PM ^
Anonymous, unnamed, okay. Sorry for my confusion. I think I understand.
When I posted the OP, the DetNews had NONE of that information from what Tucker submitted to MSU. They updated their story. Sadly, I cannot update the OP.
The 100+ document that Mel's lawyer submitted is online. I posted the link somewhere else in a comment. I'll go get it in a minute.
The basketball coach is Damon Stoudamire. Kind of hilarious that DetNews thinks they're protecting him by hiding his identity. Mel already made it public, lol. Like you've said, what an asshole.
Edit:
Here's the link.
The first 8 pages is the letter from the lawyer to MSU and they include things from her texts in there. I know you were (and maybe are) skeptical those are real texts but holy hell that is some amazing fraudulent lengths they've gone to to fabricate 100 pages of them.
After the letter, they blacked out roughly, oh, 90% of what they sent MSU. Or maybe that part is also blacked out for MSU? That wouldn't make sense to me but I guess I don't know.
I did't really look through those pages because so much was redacted. I mostly looked for the part about how she was talking to ESPN at the same time she was talking to USA Today before the article came out, but they removed so much of the context that I couldn't really understand what she was saying, other than that she definitely was also in touch with ESPN, not just USA Today.
October 5th, 2023 at 6:29 PM ^
, but it feels like a lot of credence is being given to the unverified claims from Tucker while his verified lies and misstatements seem to be ignored
So the only sworn testimony and hundreds to thousands of texts qualify as unverified claims? Tracy did not testify under oath. The texts she presented have been undermined and proven misleading and selective by sworn testimony and texts.
qwhite the double standard.
October 5th, 2023 at 6:53 PM ^
The guy is (was) getting paid roughly $9.0M a year. For that kind of money you are expected, at a minimum, not to embarrass the University. Also,assuming he was actually set up, you are expected for that kind of money to have a sixth sense about these types of relationships. Most guys do. It’s called social intelligence. We’re not talking about the guy on the shop floor here but rather a very visible ambassador for the University being paid a butt load of money. The bar and expectations is and should be extremely high. Perhaps if he was emptying trash cans at Spartan Stadium this could all be ignored. But that’s obviously not the case.
October 5th, 2023 at 7:10 PM ^
I think the fact that he is a massive idiot goes without saying at this point. HOF level bag fumble.
I took for granted that it was understood to the point where we all agree and it goes without saying.
Everything else about this case is obviously much different and the evidence and testimony under oath paint a much different picture than the original USA Today article
October 5th, 2023 at 12:21 PM ^
Midol?
Maybe he ate a bug in his SD4L mobile?
October 5th, 2023 at 12:25 PM ^
This has nothing to do with Tracy, and it's even worse for Mel if they did have a relationship. She worked for him. She could have initiated it, and it still would have been wrong and worthy of termination.
October 5th, 2023 at 1:20 PM ^
But is it a violation of their RVSM policy? That’s what the hearing is about.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:42 PM ^
The fake medical thing is not new territory for Tucker who filed for medical leave when the Bears fired him.
October 5th, 2023 at 12:44 PM ^
What a wanker
October 5th, 2023 at 12:45 PM ^
He ate some undercooked food from Jack-in-box!!!
October 5th, 2023 at 3:17 PM ^
Huh?
Having a fully consensual encounter with a UNIVERSITY VENDOR who you hired - is still sexual harassment.