Clarett drops lawsuit against OSU

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Suspended running back Maurice Clarett has dropped a federal complaint seeking a $2.5 million fine against Ohio State for releasing information from an NCAA investigation to prosecutors.\nIn his court motion, Clarett reserved the right to renew the complaint if he could get backing from the U.S. Department of Education, which oversees the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act he accuses the school of violating.\n"We intend to bring it again," his attorney, Percy Squire, said Tuesday. "We want to bring it as a joint action."\nThe complaint sought to add Clarett to an Education Department lawsuit against several Ohio universities over the release of educational records. The complaint asked the court to fine Ohio State at least $2.5 million, payable to Clarett.\nOhio State had argued that previous court rulings prevent individuals from suing schools under the privacy law. Squire said he wanted to avoid that question by having the Education Department join him in seeking the contempt ruling.\n"We expected the agency to have acted by now," Squire said.\nEducation Department spokesman Jim Bradshaw said he couldn't comment on pending complaints.\nU.S. District Judge George Smith granted the dismissal but chided Clarett because both complaints could legally proceed in tandem.\n"OSU has presumably expended resources responding to the motion to intervene, and it seems unfair at the eleventh hour to allow Mr. Clarett to dodge a potential adverse result in this lawsuit and on a whim shift the focus of this matter to another forum," Smith wrote.\nOhio State coach Jim Tressel said he did not know the court action was dropped. He and a university spokeswoman declined to comment.\nSquire filed motions in municipal and federal court seeking to prevent a tape-recorded interview from the NCAA probe from being used by prosecutors in a criminal case against Clarett. He is charged with filing a false police report in April after a car he borrowed was broken into.\nClarett, 20, pleaded innocent to falsification, a misdemeanor with a penalty ranging from probation to six months in jail.\nClarett was suspended for his sophomore season for NCAA violations of accepting money from a family friend and lying about it to investigators.