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Former MSU employee sentenced for July incident

September 2, 2009

A former university employee was sentenced Wednesday for a charge of disturbing the peace, which was amended from counts of prostitution, accosting and soliciting.

Samuel Eagan, 30, who until recently was employed by MSU as an interior designer, was ordered to pay $548 in fines to the court or spend 20 days in jail during the sentencing in East Lansing’s 54-B District Court.

University police arrested Eagan July 17 and charged him with prostitution, accosting and soliciting. The charge was amended to disturbing the peace under a plea agreement made July 29 with District Court Judge David Jordon.

Court records show the arresting officer also was the victim of the crime.

MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor said she was unable to comment on the details of the case Wednesday afternoon, citing that neither the investigator nor incident report were available at the time.

Taylor declined to release the incident report to The State News, saying MSU Police policies forbid releasing incident reports to individuals not involved in the crime .

During Wednesday’s court proceedings, Eagan’s attorney, John English, spoke of Eagan’s clean record, saying he had no earlier criminal convictions and nothing similar to the July 17 incident. English said Eagan felt remorseful about the incident.

There was nothing “untoward” in Eagan’s encounter with the police officer, which occurred in a bathroom in the MSU Union, besides the knocking on a stall, English said.

Jordon responded by saying the reason nothing else happened was because the
person in the stall was a police officer.

“This is not a case where someone … was sitting in stall for normal purposes in the Union,” he said. “Someone banged loudly on the door.”

Eagan said he was asked to resign from his position following the incident. He said he does not plan to appeal the case.

“The sentence is fine. Not a big deal, really,” he said.

Eagan declined to comment further regarding the sentencing, the case or his plans for the future.

English also declined to comment on the case.

Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said the charge against Eagan was appropriate and the sentence reasonable for the crime committed.

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