Two former Michigan State students claim one-time dean William Strampel, who oversaw disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar, creeped them out long before his arrest Monday, including one incident in which he insinuated he was the father of a pregnant student’s child.
Bre O’Keefe, a medical student who was seven months pregnant at the time, said Strampel, 70, started a meeting in spring 2010 as dean of MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine by telling students that he was told he could no longer refer to them as his children.
“Except Breanna’s baby,” O’Keefe recalled Strampel saying. “That’s my kid.”
O’Keefe told the Lansing State Journal that the incident was “one of the most humiliating moments” of her life, prompting several classmates to ask her if Strampel’s comments were true (they weren’t). As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, O’Keefe said the meeting was telecast to satellite campuses across the state.
Strampel’s inappropriate conduct was not entirely unexpected, however, because his behavior had become something of a running joke among students, according to O’Keefe, who claims the now-former dean once suggested in an email that she wear a low-cut top to get a sought-after clinical placement.
During a follow-up meeting, O’Keefe claims, Strampel told her and her husband that spending long stretches apart during those clinical placements would be good for their marriage. Strampel then told the couple the only time he saw his wife in the initial years of their marriage was to get her pregnant, leaving O’Keefe disturbed.
“I had very little interaction with him after,” she told the newspaper. “I saw him at a local wedding, and I intentionally avoided him.”
But O’Keefe couldn’t dodge Strampel at her graduation ceremony in 2012. While shaking her hand, Strampel remarked on her red high heels and how attractive they made her legs.
“This is the final moment of medical school,” O’Keefe said. “I’m getting my diploma and that’s what you say to me?”
Strampel, who served as dean of the medical college from 2002 until December, was charged Tuesday with fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly grabbing another student’s backside at an event in 2010 and soliciting nude photos from at least one student. He was also charged with willful neglect of duty for failing to protect students and athletes after a Title IX case placed restrictions on Nassar, according to an affidavit.
Nicole Eastman, the former student whom Strampel allegedly groped at the college’s annual ball in 2010, said she didn’t speak up about the incident at the time because she was worried that Strampel might derail her medical career.
“It was accepted behavior at MSU,” she told the newspaper.
Eastman said Strampel also spoke about drinking during a flu-shot clinic hosted by the college, telling her that it “was good when women were drunk” because then it was “easy to have sex with them.”
The alleged groping could’ve been spotted by at least two other faculty members, Eastman said, but the incident wasn’t reported. It wasn’t until Eastman saw the strength and courage of Nassar’s accusers that she started a correspondence with Rachel Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual assault. Her claims eventually were forwarded to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
“With the climate we’re in now, people shouldn’t fear coming forward and sharing what happened to them,” Eastman said.
Strampel’s attorney, John Dakmak, has denied the allegations. Neither Dakmak nor Strampel responded to requests for comment on Thursday, according to the Lansing State Journal.