Former MSU assistant Curtis Blackwell claims Jones Day Report 'manufactured' to clear Mark Dantonio

Curtis Blackwell is still in a legal battle with Michigan State and Mark Dantonio over his 2017 dismissal, and his camp fired another allegation at Dantonio on Wednesday.

Blackwell is suing the university and Dantonio for wrongful termination as well as suing university detectives. Amidst those ongoing legal issues, Blackwell put out a couple of weeks ago in a report that Dantonio avoided warnings when he brought in troubled recruit Auston Robertson.

Dantonio has not addressed any more questions about Robertson or his time in East Lansing since then, referring media back to his comments from when Robertson was dismissed from the university. However, Blackwell’s camp fired another shot Wednesday.

According to John Agar with MLive, Blackwell’s camp is claiming that the Jones Day Report was manufactured specifically to clear Dantonio and assign blame to Blackwell. The Report was an investigation into Dantonio’s handling of sexual assault allegations with three football players and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Here’s the statement from Blackwell’s attorneys:

“It is apparent that Jones Day … do not want to disclose these relevant documents because it would expose the fact that the Jones Day report was a manufactured attempt of the Defendants to clear Defendant Mark Dantonio of any wrong doing and try to place the blame on the Plaintiff,” attorney Andrew Paterson wrote in court documents filed Tuesday, Oct. 1.

According to Agar’s story, Jones Day did respond to the request, saying that the request is “overly broad” and contains requests for items that could be obtained through the defense:

Jones Day, in response, said Wednesday that Blackwell’s subpoenas are overly broad and include demands for documents that could be obtained from other sources, including the defendants.

It is worth noting the Jones Day Report was not the only investigation into Dantonio’s handling of sexual assault accusations. In his response to Blackwell’s allegations from two weeks ago, Dantonio cited the Jones Day Report and a separate NCAA investigation into his handling of accusations. Both investigations found that Dantonio and the program did not commit any violations.