Michigan State head football coach Mel Tucker’s defense attorneys have released text messages from his accuser allegedly showing she was looking to get money from the wealthy coach.
Tucker was fired in September over sexual harassment allegations made by activist Brenda Tracy, who gets paid to speak to schools about sexual violence. She accused Tucker of making sexual comments about her and masturbating while the two were on a phone call together.
Tucker has maintained his innocence, and hundreds of newly released text messages between her and a friend cast doubt on the validity of her claims.
In alleged messages to a friend, Tracy seemed focused on Tucker’s money, writing that he “signed his contract. I cant [sic] even wrap my brain around 95 million. Sheesh … Can you imagine around 700k going into your bank account every month. Every month…”
“We’re gonna make it happen … I’m gonna ask him to finance the doc part of [marketing materials that Tracy wanted] … He’ll do it,” she wrote, according to a copy of the defense’s filing obtained by OutKick.
About a week before she filed her complaint with MSU’s Title IX office – the office that investigates allegations of campus sexual assault – Tracy admitted to her friend that “she was down to $5,” according to the legal filing. Once she filed her complaint, Tracy, referring to herself as a victim, allegedly wrote her friend “imagine the victim is taking on a $95M coach.”
After telling her friend that she owed money to the IRS and that she “was supposed to be paying down 2018 taxes and not staying caught up on the other years,” Tracy said that “[h]aving the IRS after me in a way that is known publicly surely won’t help my lawsuit,” according to the documents obtained by OutKick.
In other messages, though she was in a tough financial place, Tracy told her friend that her “priority is face lift and filming myself so we can make this [money],” according to the court documents.
The defense also says it has a witness who, under oath, explained that Tracy and Tucker “were in some sort of relationship when the conversation took place” and that “the phone sex was consensual.” Tracy herself has not given a statement under oath.
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This witness also told the defense that Tracy attempted to cover-up her messages with her friend discussing Tucker’s money. This witness said that as her friend was dying in a hospital – and after – Tracy tried to get access to the woman’s home and asked her family for access to the woman’s phone and computers.
Though the text messages look damning for Tracy, Tucker has reportedly not been completely honest throughout the investigation. He reportedly told investigators that he was at his Michigan home when the phone call took place, which should have made it outside of MSU’s jurisdiction. But Tucker was reportedly in Florida for a school-sponsored event, according to the report from USA Today. Witnesses reportedly discredited Tucker’s claim about where and when the phone call took place.