The University of Michigan paid $1.2 million to settle allegations that former Atlanta Falcons assistant coach LaTroy Lewis sexually assaulted a woman while he was employed with the university's football staff in 2024.
The university denied the allegations, which included that former head football coach Sherrone Moore knew of the claims and didn't report them, but paid the woman who brought them $848,000 and her attorney, Lansing-based Karen Truszkowski, $352,000, the settlement agreement showed. The woman, whose name was redacted in the settlement, also agreed to release any claims she might have against the university.
Lewis was fired from the Falcons in February, after an online report detailed the allegations against him.
The settlement indicates the woman and Truszkowski raised the allegations against Lewis as part of the university's "culture review" of its athletic department. It states that the woman first reached out to the law firm conducting the review via email in December 2025. On Jan. 15 and May 12, 2026, Truszkowski sent letters to the university on behalf of the woman.
Truszkowski told The Detroit News previously that at the time of the alleged incident, the woman was not affiliated with the university and no lawsuit was ever filed. Truszkowski declined to comment on the settlement.
On July 16, the parties held a mediation. Just days later, on July 20, the university released a university-summarized version of the findings from the culture review.
Thursday, the Ann Arbor Police Department said it closed its investigation into the same allegation, but did not release the police report. No charges were brought against Lewis in Ann Arbor, according to court records accessed online.
The Ann Arbor Police Department began investigating the allegations against Lewis in February after the woman he allegedly assaulted filed a report. The woman said the incident took place in December 2024. The News does not typically name victims of alleged sexual assaults.
The Detroit News has filed an open records request for the police report.
Lewis, 32, was on the staff at Michigan in 2023, under then-head coach Jim Harbaugh, and in 2024, under then-head coach Moore, as a graduate assistant. He left to become the defensive line coach at the University of Toledo in 2025 and followed head coach Jason Candle from Toledo to Connecticut briefly before being hired by the Falcons.
He had briefly played in the National Football League in 2017 as a linebacker after being signed as an undrafted free agent out of Tennessee by the Oakland Raiders, getting cut and then picked up by the Houston Texans before his career ended.
Lewis was with the Falcons for just over two weeks before the team announced his firing in a 14-word statement on its website. The Falcons announced they were investigating claims made by the woman in a report originally published by Justin Spiro of the Metro Detroit-based Spiro Avenue website and podcast. In his report, Spiro detailed allegations of sexual assault as well as lewd text messages.
The lewd text messages came from both Lewis and Moore, according to the report.
Spiro published screenshots of the text messages, as well as photographs the woman said she took of bruises following the alleged assault.
Spiro also reported the woman contacted Moore over Snapchat to report the initial alleged assault, claims Moore's lawyer denied in February.
"Sherrone Moore did not fail to report misconduct, did not reward wrongdoing, and did not harass anyone," Moore's lawyer, Ellen Michaels, said in a statement to The News. "These claims are false."
The relationship between the woman and Lewis began in 2024, Truszkowski previously said.
Truszkowski said the two met on a dating app, Bumble, and began a virtual relationship. During that time, and before they ever met in person, the woman gifted Lewis with multiple items, including an iPad and golf clubs, the woman's attorney said.
Truszkowski said the two met in person for the first time in December 2024 at the Weber Inn hotel in Ann Arbor, where Lewis was supposed to return the gifts to the woman. That's when and where the alleged sexual assault occurred, Truszkowski said.
The two remained in contact, her attorney said.
About a month later, in January 2025, police were called to the woman's residence in Milford after a neighbor called and reported hearing loud noises, believed to be an argument between the two, coming from a nearby apartment, the report said.
In the Milford police report, obtained by The News, police said they were invited into the woman's home, and they spoke with both Lewis and the woman. Police believed the woman had been crying, but didn't observe signs of any physical abuse during the visit to her home Jan. 4, 2025.
Lewis told another officer that the two were arguing and "being loud" and that he threw a piece of Styrofoam from a box and slammed a bedroom door. Lewis denied anything physical happened, one officer wrote.
Officers recommended Lewis and the woman, who said they had been dating for five months, separate for a period of time to cool off, but the woman told police "she was fine with him staying."
Officers left the apartment, and no charges were filed because of a lack of evidence.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: UM settles allegations against ex-coach LaTroy Lewis