The woman who accused Michigan State University football coach Mel Tucker of sexual harassment received a restraining order Friday afternoon that temporarily barred Tucker and his associates from releasing any more of her private text messages.
Brenda Tracy, a prominent rape survivor and activist who hired Tucker to speak to his team about sexual violence, filed the civil lawsuit in Ingham County Circuit Court in Michigan. Judge James S. Jamo granted her motion, ruling that Tracy had demonstrated the need for immediate action to prevent Tucker, his attorney and others from disclosing sensitive, confidential matters that could cause irreparable harm.
“The actions of Mel Tucker and his legal team have placed me in the position of protecting the lives and confidential information of third parties unrelated to this case,” Tracy said in an emailed statement.
According to a copy obtained by USA TODAY, Jamo’s order states that the court also feels that “protected, personal, private and sensitive business information related to sexual assault survivors and employees … in violation of the law.” were collected from Michigan.”
Investigation: Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker is accused of sexually assaulting a rape survivor
Tucker and his attorney released a letter Thursday along with 98 pages of heavily redacted text messages that appeared to be from the cellphone of Ahlan Alvarado, Tracy’s best friend and booking assistant who died in a car accident in June. They said the messages contained “newly discovered evidence” that discredited Tracy’s account to the university’s outside investigator.
The letter said the information undermined MSU’s decision to fire Tucker last week and suggested more evidence was coming. The excerpts were taken from 20,000 communications or documents that were “too extensive to contain in a single letter.”
Alvarado was a key witness in the sexual harassment case. She worked for Tracy’s nonprofit organization, Set The Expectation, which aims to reduce sexual violence through the inclusion of men, particularly athletes and coaches. The private conversations between Alvarado and Tracy “include highly sensitive information about other survivors and their families,” Tracy said in an affidavit accompanying her request for a restraining order.
“As the founder of STE, survivors view me as a support and confidant,” Tracy’s affidavit states. “I am often the only person survivors confide in. These survivors did not tell their families and friends what happened.”
In addition to confidential conversations, her assistant’s cell phone also contained Tracy’s business documents, calendars and other private information, according to Tracy.
It is unclear how Tucker and his legal team obtained Alvarado’s cellphone messages, although Tracy’s affidavit seeking the restraining order and her statement point to Alvarado’s husband, Agustin Alvarado, who is listed as a defendant along with Tucker and his attorney, Jennifer Belveal . The affidavit says Tucker’s legal team received the messages from an outside party, and Tracy’s statement says they came from someone close to Alvarado.
Agustin Alvarado, Belveal and Tucker could not immediately be reached for comment. Voice messages to their cell phone numbers were not returned.
The civil lawsuit says further disclosure of the messages would violate several laws, including Michigan’s wiretapping law and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This would also constitute misappropriation and theft of business records, tortious interference with business relationships, malicious intent to harm the professional and personal reputation of Tracy, her company and its clients, unauthorized disclosure of clients’ medical information related to mental health and constitute retaliation for violating the Whistleblower Protection Act, which would result in at least $5 million in damages, the lawsuit says.
The ex parte order – meaning it was issued in the presence of only one party – is valid until October 17th. A preliminary hearing will then be held to decide whether to terminate, modify or extend it. At the hearing, the parties’ attorneys will be able to present evidence and make arguments before Judge Wanda Stokes.
“It is troubling to me that the man who abused me has access to every intimate detail of my life, my business and my nonprofit through my best friend’s phone,” Tracy’s statement said. “I deeply grieve for my friend, who did not deserve this terrible betrayal by someone close to her, and I am angered by the gross violation of my and her privacy.”
Tracy has accused Tucker of making sexual comments and masturbating during a phone call in April 2022, which came 12 days after her second visit to campus at Tucker’s behest to be recognized as an honorary captain at the Spartans’ spring football game without her consent. Her complaint, filed with the university in December, alleged that Tucker had pursued her romantically for months – culminating in this phone call – despite her repeated efforts to set boundaries, and that he had subsequently threatened to damage her reputation if she committed would utter a word.
Tucker and Belveal did not appear at Thursday’s hearing in the campus sexual harassment case, but instead released the letter and messages in a press release 14 minutes after the hearing began. Tracy told USA TODAY that she learned about it during a break after answering questions from her attorney and hearing officer Amanda Norris Ames.
The letter surprised Tracy, she said. In it, her previous romantic relationship with a basketball coach was brought to light and his name was mentioned. It also says Tucker and Belveal received a testimony “under oath” from a person who claimed Tucker and Tracy had “some kind of relationship” and had consensual phone sex. The letter did not include the person’s name or any indication of how they would gain access to this information.
The letter claims that her relationship with the basketball coach shows that she was willing to date people she worked with – which she told Tucker she did not do, according to her interview with the investigator. Tracy told USA TODAY that she dated the basketball coach in the 1990s — long before her career as an activist began — and remained friends with him afterward and briefly dated him again in 2021.
According to the State of Michigan’s Sexual Harassment Policy, “questions or evidence regarding a claimant’s sexual history, sexual identity, and prior sexual experiences” with anyone other than the accused person are immaterial and generally prohibited.
The letter goes on to say that her text messages to Alvarado show that in November 2021, Tracy agreed to allow Tucker to help fund a marketing project she was working on and that Tucker told her in January 2022 that he “loves” her. girlfriend – suggesting in the letter that she “enjoyed the attention of Mr. Tucker.”
Tracy told USA TODAY that the newly published messages are consistent with her account, that he had shown interest in her and that they had a good relationship before the April 2022 incident.
In the letter, Tucker and his attorney also accuse Tracy of being motivated by money. For example, they cite messages with Alvarado in November in which Tracy discussed the prospect of a settlement with Tucker as she considered reporting the matter to the school. In those messages, Tracy said that Tucker “should pay me 10,000 directly.”
Tracy told USA TODAY that figure refers to the $10,000 speaking fee she missed out on when Tucker canceled her scheduled July 2022 school visit. Tucker’s reasons for the cancellation were a major focus of the school’s external investigator, Rebecca Leitman Veidlinger, who completed her investigative investigation in July. If Tucker intended the rejection as punishment for rejecting his sexual advances, he could be found to have engaged in sexual harassment in return, Veidlinger’s investigative report said.
Michigan State football director Ben Mathers was scheduled to testify at Thursday’s hearing but, like Tucker, was a no-show. Mathers had told Veidlinger that Tucker had asked him to cancel the July 2022 visit.
During the hearing break, Tracy told USA TODAY that Tucker “deliberately spread further lies and mischaracterizations in what I can only assume is an attempt to disrupt the hearing.” She has previously criticized Tucker’s efforts to disrupt the school’s formal decision-making process to undermine what he called a “sham” aimed at terminating the 10-year, $95 million contract he signed with the school two years ago.
“This is simply more of the same DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), distraction, victim blaming and lies that I have been dealing with for months now,” Tracy said in a Sept. 11 statement in response to a Press release from Tucker in which he slandered her character while contradicting his own reports to the investigator. “Coach Tucker delayed the investigation process from the beginning and tried to stop it. He cannot afford to go to a hearing that will determine the credibility of the parties involved.”
None of the allegations made in the letter were brought up at Thursday’s hearing, Tracy said, because they had not been mentioned previously in the proceedings. Under MSU policy, Tucker and Belveal have the option to request admission of the messages as new evidence if they decide to appeal the school’s findings.
Norris Ames has 20 days to submit a report determining whether evidence collected during the seven-month investigation and hearing is sufficient to establish that Tucker violated school policies against sexual harassment and exploitation.
Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller fired Tucker for cause on September 27, stating that even accepting Tucker’s version of events as fact still constituted a criminal offense.
“As the university said, [i]“It is decidedly unprofessional and unethical to flirt, make sexual comments and masturbate while on the phone with a university salesperson,” Haller told Tucker in his termination letter. “Your unconvincing rationalizations and misguided attempts to shift responsibility cannot and will not excuse your own behavior.”
Tracy complied with every aspect of the state of Michigan’s sexual harassment reporting process, but was “constantly punished” for doing so, her statement Friday said.
“That’s why,” she said, “survivors don’t come forward.”
Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY, covering sexual harassment and violence and Title IX. Contact him by email at [email protected] or follow him on X @kennyjacoby.