Former Michigan State staff member Curtis Blackwell sued former head coach Mark Dantonio and other officials at the university for wrongful termination. However, Blackwell will be the one cutting a sizable check.

The Lansing State Journal reported this week that U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Berens has ordered Blackwell to pay Dantonio and other university officials $52,010.

Blackwell’s legal team has been ordered to pay $25,000 to Dantonio, former athletic director Mark Hollis and former school president Lou Anna Simon. It has also been ordered to pay $27,010 to two Michigan State University Police Department detectives.

In March 2017, Blackwell’s contract was allowed to expire. He had been taken out of MSU’s football facility in handcuffs in February after being interviewed by the school’s police department in relation to an alleged sexual assault that involved former players Donnie Corley, Josh King and Demetric Vance.

Blackwell was never charged in the case.

Dantonio stepped down as the head coach at Michigan State in February 2020. He spent 13 seasons with the program and was the school’s all-time winningest head coach.

Michigan State hired Colorado’s Mel Tucker shortly after Dantonio’s retirement.