Sherrone Moore appears in Ann Arbor district court for hearing on stalking, home invasion charges
Ann Arbor — An attorney for former University of Michigan Football Coach Sherrone Moore on Thursday said she’ll seek to have the criminal charges against her client dismissed, saying they’re based on “false and misleading statements.”
Speaking to reporters after a brief court hearing in Ann Arbor’s 14A District Court, where she sought phone and UM Title IX records in the criminal case against Moore, Ellen Michaels asserted Moore’s innocence. She said she has filed a motion to quash Moore’s arrest warrant and a motion to dismiss the complaint against him.
A motion to quash means the attorney believes an arrest was not valid, and that any evidence taken as a result of that arrest should be suppressed.
“This warrant was issued based on false and misleading statements presented as fact,” Michaels said. “We’re confident the truth will come out in court, under oath, where it belongs.”
Moore was fired Dec. 10 after an independent investigation by the university found he’d had a relationship with a staffer. Afterward, he allegedly went to the home of the woman and threatened to take his own life.
The Washtenaw County prosecutor’s office charged Moore in December with third-degree felony home invasion, misdemeanor stalking, and breaking and entering. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted of home invasion, the most serious of the three charges. After being held on $25,000 cash or surety bond in the Washtenaw County Jail, Moore was released just hours after his arraignment.
According to Washtenaw County Assistant Prosecutor Kati Rezmierski during Moore’s December arraignment, Moore went in through an unlocked door without permission and argued with the former staffer. During the argument, he took two butter knives and a pair of scissors from the woman’s kitchen and threatened his own life.
Michaels did not specify who she believes made false or misleading statements, though during Thursday’s hearing she said statements made by the “complaining witness” will need to be evaluated. She also noted that she has requested a Franks hearing, which means a defendant is challenging the truthfulness of statements made by a law enforcement officer in order to get an arrest warrant.
Wearing a dark suit with a black tie during Thursday’s hearing, Moore appeared before Judge J. Cedric Simpson for a probable cause conference and spoke just briefly to give his name to Simpson. Michaels told Simpson she needs specific discovery items, including phone and Title IX records, before she can proceed.
“All of the evidence that we have in discovery has been furnished to the defense, but the investigation is ongoing,” said Rezmierski.
Michaels said some of the discovery materials sought for the case are from the university, related to the other events that unfolded before Moore’s arrest.
“It’s our understanding that when you just step back a touch from the actual incident there were statements made… statements made by the complaining witness that are going to be important to this investigation because her credibility will always be at issue,” Michaels told Simpson. “… Different statements she made to different people will need to be evaluated so those statements are important.”
Moore did not speak to reporters after the hearing.
Simpson scheduled a hearing for Feb. 17 on the discovery materials Michaels is seeking, and a probable cause conference will now be held March 19.
Michigan’s athletic director, Warde Manuel, fired Moore the same day as his arrest, Dec. 10, after the university independently determined he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Moore’s termination letter said he lied during the university’s investigation into his relationship. That amounted to a violation of his contract as “fraud or dishonesty” in the course of his job’s duties.
Moore’s wife, who was in the courtroom Thursday, called 911 the day he was fired, before his arrest, out of fright he might harm himself, according to a recording of the emergency call obtained by The News. Moore had told her he’d been fired and was “in crisis,” his wife told the dispatcher, and she didn’t know where he was.
“He just called me saying he got fired from his job, and he’s in crisis,” Kelli Moore said on the recording. “I told him that I love him and that I need him to come home, but I don’t know where he is. He said he was on a highway.”
Moore was named UM’s head football coach in January of 2024, succeeding former coach Jim Harbaugh. He was the first Black head coach in Michigan football history, and, at 37, the youngest head football coach at Michigan in more than a half-century.
His firing and subsequent criminal charges mark the latest scandal against the UM football program. Harbaugh was suspended for three games in late 2023 after an investigation into sign-stealing involving former staffer Connor Stalions.
And former co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss was fired in 2023 because of a federal computer hacking criminal case that alleges he infiltrated the personal accounts of thousands of college athletes and stole intimate photographs and videos from 2015-23.
