VIDEO - Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings facing prostitution charges
WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7
Published on Mar 14, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFb2RVOnfY
A human trafficking investigation led to the arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette revealed today.
VIDEO - Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings facing prostitution charges
WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7
Published on Mar 14, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtzoLZ5D6RU
A human trafficking investigation led to the arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette revealed today.
VIDEO - Prosecutor charged with hiring prostitutes in 3 counties
WOOD TV8
Published on Mar 14, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_aYBOcwU9Y
The Ingham County prosecutor has been charged in three counties with hiring prostitutes and committing other crimes.
VIDEO - Gretchen Whitmer sworn in as Ingham County Prosecutor
Former State Senator Gretchen Whitmer reacts to being sworn in as Ingham County Prosecutor. She will serve for six months and isn't on the ballot for the permanent position. She replaces Stuart Dunnings III who was arrested in March.
VIDEO BY DAVE WASINGER/LANSING STATE JOURNAL
VIDEO - Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings accepts plea deal
MLive
Published on Aug 2, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IShG2Li54rI
Video as former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings accepts plea deal
VIDEO - Former Prosecutor Pleads Guilty to Reduced Charges
FOX 47 News
Published on Aug 2, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8NRUPF8FN4
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has plead guilty to reduced charges in his prostitution case.
VIDEO - Former County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings Plea Hearing on Prostitution Charges
CourtChatter Live
Published on Aug 2, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO-nYVY44Ko
Dunnings, 63, was arrested March 14 and faces 15 prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. Dunnings, who was first elected prosecutor in 1996, resigned
VIDEO - Schuette's office: Dunnings violated trust of community
Attorney General Bill Schuette's spokeswoman said that Stuart Dunnings III violated the trust of the community and that the deal was important that he receives the justice that he deserves.
Video by Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal
VIDEO - Judge will not sentence Stuart Dunnings III
FOX 47 News
Published on Sep 14, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfE4y7ZRHls
Judge Aquilina Wednesday recused herself from the Dunnings case.
VIDEO - Judge Aquilina recuses herself from Dunnings case
Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said that while she believes she can be an impartial judge in sentencing former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, the appearance of impropriety is what has her stepping away.
Video by Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal
VIDEO - Judge recuses herself from Dunnings' case
FOX 47 News
Published on Sep 15, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVY6L6cn82o
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina wanted to avoid the appearance of impropriety, but did not seem happy about having to give up the case.
VIDEO - Dunnings to be sentenced November 10
FOX 47 News
Published on Sep 24, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd-e71Bm1Ks
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced on prostitution-related charges on November 10 in Genesee County. Dunnings faces up to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to Misconduct of a Public Official.
VIDEO - Lansing Housing Commission separating from Steven Dunnings firm
FOX 47 News
Published on Sep 27, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEDXiTRirvo
Lansing Housing Commission accepts Steven Dunnings' law firm's request to cut ties to the commission.
VIDEO - Dunnings to serve 5 years in prison
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 10, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH_u1Icr_9c
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
VIDEO - Dunnings will be sentenced to 5 years in prison
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 10, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4BVAyHPLA
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
VIDEO - Former Ingham County Prosecutor to be sentenced to prison
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 10, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuasWiowN7Y
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
VIDEO - Report details Dunnings' sex crimes
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 11, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChYb_dUMmx4
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter sentence.
VIDEO - Dunnings appears in court, sentencing postponed
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 11, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9f5SMtIS_o
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter sentence.
VIDEO - Attorney General pushing for tough sentence for Stuart Dunnings III
FOX 47 News
Nov 11, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeoCYjCodfA
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter
VIDEO - Dunnings expected to be sentenced Tuesday
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 22, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRpCD9A_jO8
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison.
VIDEO - Dunnings to be sentenced today
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 22, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1i4Tkn62WA
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison
VIDEO - Former Ingham County prosecutor to be sentenced
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 22, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPjQrFCqAMY
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison.
VIDEO - Live from court for the Stuart Dunnings sentencing
VIDEO - UPDATE - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings sentenced to probation, one year in jail
FOX 47 News
Published on Nov 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn8_RsjGqJ8
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
VIDEO - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III sentenced, Attorney General hoped for more
FOX 47 News
Nov 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Na9v5jc6sI
Dunnings has to turn himself in at the Ingham County jail by 6 p.m. on Friday. The sheriff could move him to another jail if it's determined that his former job as county prosecutor puts him at risk there. How did we get here? FOX 47's Clayton Cummins takes a look back at the case that spawned from a human trafficking investigation.
VIDEO - Dunnings gets 1 year in jail, 3 years of probation
FOX 47 News
Nov 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lxaovqAOlY
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
VIDEO - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III sentenced, Attorney General hoped for more
FOX 47 News
Nov 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AS9Jzm8iXo
Dunnings has to turn himself in at the Ingham County jail by 6 p.m. on Friday. The sheriff could move him to another jail if it's determined that his former job as county prosecutor puts him at risk there. How did we get here? FOX 47's Clayton Cummins takes a look back at the case that spawned from a human trafficking investigation.
VIDEO - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings sentenced to probation, one year in jail
FOX 47 News
Nov 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn8_RsjGqJ8
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
VIDEO - Ingham County Prosecutor's Office working to improve reputation
FOX 47 News
Dec 29, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBmlfwtyymo
The Ingham County Prosecutor's Office is working to improve its reputation after former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III left office following several prostitution related charges earlier this year.
Carol Siemon is Ingham County's newly elected prosecutor in 20 years. Matt Mencarini/Lansing State Journal.
VIDEO - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III officially banned from practicing law
FOX 47 News
Jul 19, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKcQqYu8cPs
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III is no longer allowed to practice law in Michigan by order of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Dunnings's law license was automatically suspended on August 2 of 2016 when he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office as well as a misdemeanor count of engaging the services of a prostitute.
VIDEO - Watch Stuart Dunnings III leave the Clinton County Jail
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings: Refused to file charges against MSP Trooper Artis White, despite police evidence against White in the murder of his estranged wife Bernita Sims White.
Department Of Justice
Michigan Man, Tyrone Smith, Pleads Guilty To Sex Trafficking Four Victims, Including One Minor
Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Western District of Michigan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, November 25, 2015 https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmi/pr/2015_1125_TSmith
Michigan Man, Tyrone Smith, Pleads Guilty To Sex Trafficking Four Victims, Including One Minor
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN – Tyrone Smith, 45, of Lansing, Michigan, pled guilty yesterday in federal court to three counts of sex trafficking girls and women and transporting them across state lines for prostitution. He will be sentenced in April 2016 and faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in federal prison, up to a maximum of 25 years.
After serving 15 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections for second degree murder, Smith began recruiting women in Lansing for his interstate commercial sex operation. A federal grand jury indicted him in July 2015 on seven counts involving four victims, including one minor. The indictment charged Smith with three counts of sex trafficking by force, threats of force, fraud, and coercion; one count of sex trafficking a minor; and three counts of transporting adult women and the minor from Michigan to Illinois for commercial sex. In a written plea agreement, Smith admitted to recruiting the first victim, an adult woman, in about December 2012, providing her with heroin, posting commercial sex ads of her online in lingerie, and arranging for johns to pay for sex with her in Lansing, Chicago, and elsewhere over a two-year period. Smith admitted to being physically violent and threatening towards her throughout this time, knowing that this would cause her to continue to engage in commercial sex acts. Smith also admitted to recruiting a 17-year-old girl and sex trafficking her from December 2014 to June 2015. He arranged for johns to buy sex from her in his Lansing residence and area motels, and he took her to Chicago for several weeks in early 2015. The minor watched Smith assault another woman for her disloyalty to Smith’s prostitution business, and Smith continued to cause the minor to engage in commercial sex acts after that. In June 2015, while Smith and the minor were in a Lansing motel, Smith grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the bed to stop her from leaving with the cell phone he gave her, which had a large amount of information on it about his prostitution business. The minor sought medical attention afterwards for a concussion, a laceration on the bridge of her nose, and bruising on her face and body. Smith admitted that a short time later, he reconnected with the minor and continued arranging commercial sex dates for her.
The conviction resulted from a joint investigation led by the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, and East Lansing Police Department, with assistance from the Michigan State Police (MSP). Assistant United States Attorney Tessa K. Hessmiller prosecuted the case. This is the third federal sex trafficking conviction in the Western District of Michigan, following cases against Eddie Jackson and Christopher Bryant. This is the fourth sex trafficking conviction obtained in the past year as a result of the FBI’s joint investigation with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office and other Lansing area law enforcement partners, who collaborated in the federal Christopher Bryant trial and the related state convictions of Jonathan Purnell and Mariah Haughton in Ingham County.
In announcing the conviction, U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles stated, “Sex trafficking is real and happens in West Michigan. Traffickers target victims by identifying vulnerabilities to exploit, whether through drugs, money, violence, or a false sense of security and affection provided by the trafficker. My office is working hand-in-hand with federal, state, and local law enforcement to identify and prosecute human trafficking, including the sex trafficking of children.”
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse. The U.S. Attorney’s Office; county prosecutor’s offices; and federal, state, and local law enforcement are working closely together to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children. Individuals with information or concerns about possible child exploitation should contact local law enforcement.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Tyrone Smith, 45, of Lansing, Michigan, pled guilty yesterday in federal court to three counts of sex trafficking girls and women and transporting them across state lines for prostitution. He will be sentenced in April 2016 and faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in federal prison, up to a maximum of 25 years.
After serving 15 years in the Michigan Department of Corrections for second degree murder, Smith began recruiting women in Lansing for his interstate commercial sex operation. A federal grand jury indicted him in July 2015 on seven counts involving four victims, including one minor. The indictment charged Smith with three counts of sex trafficking by force, threats of force, fraud, and coercion; one count of sex trafficking a minor; and three counts of transporting adult women and the minor from Michigan to Illinois for commercial sex. In a written plea agreement, Smith admitted to recruiting the first victim, an adult woman, in about December 2012, providing her with heroin, posting commercial sex ads of her online in lingerie, and arranging for johns to pay for sex with her in Lansing, Chicago, and elsewhere over a two-year period. Smith admitted to being physically violent and threatening towards her throughout this time, knowing that this would cause her to continue to engage in commercial sex acts. Smith also admitted to recruiting a 17-year-old girl and sex trafficking her from December 2014 to June 2015. He arranged for johns to buy sex from her in his Lansing residence and area motels, and he took her to Chicago for several weeks in early 2015. The minor watched Smith assault another woman for her disloyalty to Smith’s prostitution business, and Smith continued to cause the minor to engage in commercial sex acts after that. In June 2015, while Smith and the minor were in a Lansing motel, Smith grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the bed to stop her from leaving with the cell phone he gave her, which had a large amount of information on it about his prostitution business. The minor sought medical attention afterwards for a concussion, a laceration on the bridge of her nose, and bruising on her face and body. Smith admitted that a short time later, he reconnected with the minor and continued arranging commercial sex dates for her.
The conviction resulted from a joint investigation led by the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, and East Lansing Police Department, with assistance from the Michigan State Police (MSP). Assistant United States Attorney Tessa K. Hessmiller prosecuted the case. This is the third federal sex trafficking conviction in the Western District of Michigan, following cases against Eddie Jackson and Christopher Bryant. This is the fourth sex trafficking conviction obtained in the past year as a result of the FBI’s joint investigation with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office and other Lansing area law enforcement partners, who collaborated in the federal Christopher Bryant trial and the related state convictions of Jonathan Purnell and Mariah Haughton in Ingham County.
In announcing the conviction, U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles stated, “Sex trafficking is real and happens in West Michigan. Traffickers target victims by identifying vulnerabilities to exploit, whether through drugs, money, violence, or a false sense of security and affection provided by the trafficker. My office is working hand-in-hand with federal, state, and local law enforcement to identify and prosecute human trafficking, including the sex trafficking of children.”
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from exploitation and abuse. The U.S. Attorney’s Office; county prosecutor’s offices; and federal, state, and local law enforcement are working closely together to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children. Individuals with information or concerns about possible child exploitation should contact local law enforcement.
Human Trafficking Investigation Results In Criminal Charges Against Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings
LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, joined by Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, today announced the filing of criminal charges against Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, III.
The charges were filed at four courts in three Michigan counties (Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia) and include a total of 15 criminal counts:
PROSTITUTION/PANDERING, 1 COUNT
*Did induce, persuade, encourage, inveigle or entice a person to become a prostitute, contrary to MCL 750.455
*Felony, 20 years
ENGAGING IN THE SERVICES OF PROSTITUTION, 10 COUNTS
*Did engage or offer to engage the services of a person for the purpose of prostitution contrary to MCL 333.5129
*Misdemeanor, 93 days and/or $500
WILLFUL NEGLECT OF DUTY, 4 COUNTS
*Did willfully neglect to perform his duty to refrain from blatant violations of the criminal law, a duty enjoined on him by his oath of office as a county prosecutor, contrary to MCL 750.478
*Misdemeanor, 1 year and/or $1,000
CASE BACKGROUND
The charges against Stuart Dunnings grew out of a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring which took place in 2015. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan filed federal charges in that case against human trafficking ring leader Tyrone Smith in July 2015. On November 25, 2015, Tyrone Smith pleaded guilty and now awaits sentencing on three counts of sex trafficking young girls and women, including one minor.
Following the federal investigation into Tyrone Smith, members of the Michigan Attorney General’s office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Ingham County Sheriff’s Office jointly conducted an additional investigation based on information provided by witnesses in the federal investigation of Smith, which led to Stuart Dunnings.
The state-local-federal investigation resulted in evidence that Stuart Dunnings, the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney, allegedly paid for commercial sex (engaging in prostitution) hundreds of times in three counties (Ingham, Clinton and Ionia), with multiple women, between 2010 – 2015. Contact with these women allegedly took place via escort websites.
Furthermore, evidence showed that Dunnings also allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one, resulting in the charge of Pandering, a 20-year felony.
Finally, as a result of the entirety of the evidence, Schuette also charged Dunnings with multiple counts of Willful Neglect of Duty for failing to refrain from committing blatant violations of the law as the prosecutor of Ingham County.
Charges against Stuart Dunnings were filed today at the following four locations, based on where the crimes allegedly took place:
54-A District Court in Lansing (Ingham County):1 count, Pandering, 20 years
*5 counts, Engaging the Services of Prostitution, 93-days and/or $500
*1 count, Willful Neglect of Duty, 1 year and/or $1,000
55th District Court in Mason (Ingham County)2 counts, Engaging the Services of Prostitution, 93-days and/or $500
*1 count, Willful Neglect of Duty, 1 year and/or $1,000
65-A District Court in St. Johns (Clinton County)2 counts, Engaging the Services of Prostitution, 93-days and/or $500
*1 count, Willful Neglect of Duty, 1 year and/or $1,000
64-A District Court in Ionia (Ionia County)1 count, Engaging the Services of Prostitution, 93-days and/or $500
*1 count, Willful Neglect of Duty, 1 year and/or $1,000
The defendant was taken into custody by Ingham County Sheriff’s Office today without incident and is being scheduled for arraignment.
Dunnings has served as Ingham County Prosecutor since 1997 and has been an outspoken advocate for ending human trafficking and prostitution.
Additionally, Schuette announced that Stuart Dunnings’ brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings, was also charged with two counts of Engaging the Services of Prostitution as a result of the same investigation. Steven Dunnings will be charged in 54-A District Court and his arraignment will be scheduled.
Schuette will also be sending notification of the charges to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission because both defendants are attorneys.
At the announcement in Lansing today, officials offered the following comments:
ATTORNEY GENERAL BILL SCHUETTE:
*“Human trafficking is a crime that puts people, in this case young women, into situations where their lives are endangered and where they are manipulated and brutalized. During an investigation into a suspected human trafficking ring, we discovered that one of our own was using the services of women who were being trafficked.”
*“We live in a time where people wonder if government actually works. People wonder if the system is rigged. People wonder whether we have a "wink and a nod" justice system where the chosen few skate and escape punishment because of who they know or because they hold an important position in government. Well, let me be very direct and crystal clear. The system in Michigan is not rigged. Not on my watch.”
*“A personal comment. I have worked with Stuart Dunnings while I have served as Attorney General. I am saddened that an elected official who holds a special trust from voters and is the chief prosecutor in our capital city would allegedly engage in conduct causing felony and misdemeanor charges to be filed.”
INGHAM COUNTY SHERIFF GENE WRIGGELSWORTH:
*“Engaging in criminal behavior while serving as the Ingham County Prosecutor is a betrayal to everyone in our county that has voted for Mr. Dunnings over the last several decades. His alleged behavior is not what best represents law enforcement in Ingham County or law enforcement anywhere in Michigan.”
FBI SUPERVISORY SENIOR RESIDENT AGENT TED DOCKS PROVIDED THIS COMMENT:
*“Through the course of investigating a human trafficking case with our partners from the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, we developed information we could not ignore involving a public official. Although that information did not reach the threshold for a federal violation, we shared that information with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. This sort of interagency coordination is routine to ensure crime problems in the Lansing area are addressed appropriately.”
Schuette strongly encourages others who may have been a victim or witnessed misconduct by Dunnings to contact his investigation team directly by calling 517-241-6556.
A charge is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
BACKGROUND ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Around the country, and right here in Michigan, children, women and men are forced into prostitution, domestic servitude and other labor for little or no pay, often resulting from the use of force, fraud or coercion.
Demand for illegal activities such as paid sex fuels human trafficking, turning daughters and mothers into victims, permanently impacting the lives of those involved, their families and their loved ones.
Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery and it is the second-largest and fastest-growing criminal industry in the world.
Attorney General Schuette has made fighting this crime a priority by creating the first-ever human trafficking prosecution unit in his office and by helping create the Michigan Human Trafficking Commission.
The next meeting of the Michigan Human Trafficking Commission will be on April 26, 2016, followed by meetings on July 27 and November 2, 2016.
For more information, please visit the Attorney General’s human trafficking webpage.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings facing prostitution charges
A human trafficking investigation led to the arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette revealed today.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings facing prostitution charges
A human trafficking investigation led to the arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette revealed today.
Prosecutor charged with hiring prostitutes in 3 counties
The Ingham County prosecutor has been charged in three counties with hiring prostitutes and committing other crimes.
Prosecutor charged with hiring prostitutes in 3 counties
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
March 14, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A prosecutor who's been the top law enforcer in Michigan's capital for nearly 20 years has been charged in three counties with hiring prostitutes and committing other crimes.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says the case against Stuart Dunnings III developed from tips during a federal human-trafficking investigation.
The 63-year-old Dunnings is the elected prosecutor in Ingham County. He was charged Monday with using the services of prostitutes in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties over many years.
Dunnings is also charged with pandering and willful neglect of duty. He's lodged at the Ingham County jail. There was no immediate comment from his office.
Schuette says he's worked with Dunnings in a professional role and is "saddened" by the charges. Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth says it's a "huge betrayal."
A closer look at Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings
Stuart Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015, according to Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.
Schuette's office said the 2015 FBI human trafficking investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings, who was allegedly a client in the ring.
The investigation
Dunnings' arrest stemmed from a federal investigation of a human trafficking ring that took place in Michigan in 2015. Tyrone Smith, the ring leader, pleaded guilty on three counts of sex trafficking young girls and women, which includes one minor.
Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a press release from the Justice Department. Further federal investigation into Smith, who remains without a sentence, led to Ingham County's top prosecutor.
Upon further investigation, evidence surfaced that Dunnings allegedly paid for sex on hundreds of occasions between 2010 and 2015, according to a press release from the Attorney General's office.
It was later found that the prosecutor allegedly induced a woman into becomming a prostitute. This felony charge comes with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The charges
In all, Dunnings has been charged with 10 counts of engaging a prostitute, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of felony prostitution/pandering. These 15 counts are spread across Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
If found guilty on all charges, Dunnings faces 26-1/2 years in prison. His brother, Stephen Dunnings, is charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
Felony Prostitution/Pandering: 1 count
Dunnings allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one. This charge is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He is charged with one count of prostitution/pandering.
Engaging in the services of prostitution: 10 counts
Dunnings allegedly engaged or offered to engage the services of a prostitute on at least 10 occasions. This misdemeanor is punishable by 93 days in jail and/or a $500 fine for each charge.
Willful neglect of duty: Four counts
Dunnings allegedly willfully neglected his duty to uphold the law by engaging in the aforementioned charges. This charge, in which he faces four counts, is a misdemeanor punishable by one year and/or a $1,000 fine.
History
Dunnings, who is a Democrat, has served as Ingham County's top prosecutor since 1997. He won his most recent re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He was at the tail-end of his fifth term as the county's top prosecutor when the charges were announced Monday, March 14.
He is a former president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan. Dunnings yearly salary exceeds $132,000, which makes him the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County, according to the Lansing State Journal.
A 'staunch opponent of prostitution'
Starting in 2001, Dunnings took control of the city of Lansing's prostitution investigations with the hopes of conjuring harsher penalties for offenders, according to the Lansing State Journal. The prosecutor reportedly went as far to impounding customers' vehicles, and charging prostitutes and their johns' with felonies once they hit their third offense. Between 2001 and 2003, Dunnings and his team issued 19 people with felonies and impounded at least 50 vehicles.
What investigators are saying
The following three slides include quotes from the Monday afternoon, March 14 press conference featuring Attorney General Bill Schuette, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and FBI Agent Ted Docks.
Attorney General Bill Schuette
“A personal comment. I have worked with Stuart Dunnings while I have served as Attorney General. I am saddened that an elected official who holds a special trust from voters and is the chief prosecutor in our capital city would allegedly engage in conduct causing felony and misdemeanor charges to be filed.
We live in a time where people wonder if government actually works. People wonder if the system is rigged. People wonder whether we have a 'wink and a nod' justice system where the chosen few skate and escape punishment because of who they know or because they hold an important position in government. Well, let me be very direct and crystal clear. The system in Michigan is not rigged. Not on my watch."
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth
“Engaging in criminal behavior while serving as the Ingham County Prosecutor is a betrayal to everyone in our county that has voted for Mr. Dunnings over the last several decades. His alleged behavior is not what best represents law enforcement in Ingham County or law enforcement anywhere in Michigan.”
FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Ted Docks
“Through the course of investigating a human trafficking case with our partners from the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, we developed information we could not ignore involving a public official. Although that information did not reach the threshold for a federal violation, we shared that information with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. This sort of interagency coordination is routine to ensure crime problems in the Lansing area are addressed appropriately.”
INGHAM COUNTY, MI -- Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings has been arrested and will be charged with seven separate counts, which include five counts of engaging a prostitute.
Attorney General Bill Schuette and Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth will speak on the charges 1 p.m. Monday, March 14.
In addition to the five counts of engaging a prostitute, Dunnings faces charges of pandering prostitution and willful neglect of duty by a public officer.
Citizen Patriot media partner WLNS-TV will provide a live stream on the Attorney General's press conference.
The Attorney General's office announced Dunnings' arrest in a Monday morning press release. The succinct press release simply stated that Schuette and Wriggelsworth "will provide brief remarks on the charges and arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings."
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as the county's top prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings arraigned in Jackson County
JACKSON, MI -- Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was arraigned on multiple charges related to prostitution patronage and willful neglect of duty Monday in Jackson County District Court.
Dunnings, who's served as Ingham County's prosecutor for roughly two decades, appeared before Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren through a video monitor as judges in Ingham County have recused themselves from hearing the case.
Dunnings was charged with one count of Prostitution/Pandering, 10 counts of engaging in the services of prostitution and four counts of willful neglect of duty Monday, March 14.
The charges, which span five years and three Michigan counties, were issued after a 2015 FBI into Tyrone Smith revealed the prosecutor had been a client of a sex trafficking ring, attorney General Bill Schuette's office has alleged.
According to a statement released by the Attorney General, Dunnings is accused of paying for sex "hundreds of times" throughout Ingham, Clinton and Ionia Counties and allegedly contacted the women through escort websites.
The charges span from 2010 to 2015, while it was not clear as of late Monday afternoon where the case against Dunnings would be held.
According to a Lansing State Journal report, the judges of Ingham County's 55th District Court in Mason have recused themselves from hearing the case, while judges in other districts are in the process of determining whether or not they will recuse themselves as well, Schuette's Press Secretary Andrea Bitely said.
"Dunnings has been active in the community for so long; he's gotten to know a lot of people," Bitely said of the prosecutor's connections to the counties he's been charged in.
Following the investigation of Smith in 2015, authorities with the Attorney General, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Ingham County Sheriff's Office all conducted a joint investigation of Dunnings based on witness information.
In November, Smith pleaded guilty to three counts of sex trafficking and transporting women across state lines.
"There has been chatter over the years, but never any proof until several months ago when we started this investigation," Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wrigglesworth told reporters during a press conference Monday afternoon.
In addition to purchasing prostitutes, the investigation into Dunnings revealed he "induced" a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one, the Attorney General's Office alleged.
The ensuing charge, pandering, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and is the most serious crime the prosecutor faces.
Each of the four counts of willful neglect of duty, which were issued against the prosecutor for "blatant violations of the law," are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail.
Engaging in the service of prostitution is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 93 days in jail.
State AG: Ingham County prosecutor arrested, charged
Detroit News Lansing Bureau
March 14, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Lansing - Attorney General Bill Schuette has called a Monday afternoon press conference to discuss criminal charges filed against Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings.
Schuettte will be joined by Ingham County Sheriff Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, according to an advisory. They will offer brief remarks on "the charges and arrest" of Dunnings.
While the attorney general's office has not provided details, an inmate locator accessible on the county website indicates Dunnings, 63, had been held at the Ingham County Jail on prostitution-related charges. Bail information was not available.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as county prosecutor since 1997 and was re-elected to the post multiple times.
Schuette's Monday press conference is schedule for 1 p.m. at his Lansing office.
Ingham County Prosecutor allegedly engaged prostitutes 'hundreds of times'
LANSING, MI -- The top prosecutor in Ingham County is being prosecuted himself in what could be hundreds of prostitution incidents spanning three counties.
Stuart Dunnings III has served as Ingham County Prosecutor since 1997. He faces 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015, according to Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.
He was arrested Monday in a coffee shop, officials said.
"There has been chatter over the years, but never any proof until several months ago when we started this investigation," said Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wrigglesworth.
Schuette's office said a 2015 FBI human trafficking investigation against Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings, who was allegedly a client of the trafficking ring.
FBI Senior Resident Agent Ted Docks said through that investigation, "we developed information we could not ignore involving a public official."
Both the FBI and Wrigglesworth gave information to Schuette's office about Dunnings' involvement with prostitutes.
Schuette said the case turned his stomach, and called on Dunnings to resign.
"The system in Michigan is not rigged. Not on my watch. It doesn't matter who you are... if you break the law there are consequences, period," Schuette said.
He encouraged people who may have been a victim or witnessed misconduct by Dunnings to contact the investigative team directly at (517) 241-6556.
Dunnings is facing the following charges, spanned across Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties:
1 count of Prostitution/Pandering - Dunnings allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one. That charge is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
10 counts of engaging in the services of prostitution - Dunnings allegedly engaged or offered to engage the services of a prostitute on at least 10 occasions. This misdemeanor is punishable by 93 days in jail at a $500 fine.
4 counts of willful neglect of duty - Dunnings allegedly willfully neglected his duty to uphold the law by engaging in such activity, a misdemeanor punishable by one year and/or a $1,000 fine.
Dunnings' brother, Lansing attorney Stephen Dunnings, is also being charged with two counts of engaging the services of prostitution in connection with the investigation.
Ingham County prosecutor charged with hiring prostitutes, neglect of office
They are talking about a laundry list of criminal charges filed today against a long-time county prosecutor.
Stuart Dunnings lll has been Ingham County’s prosecutor for nearly 20 years.
He now faces up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings was arrested at a Lansing-area coffee shop this morning. He’s been charged with multiple prostitution-related charges, including soliciting and pandering. He’s also charged with neglect of office.
Attorney General Bill Schuette says an investigation into human trafficking uncovered that the long-time prosecutor allegedly hired prostitutes and even convinced one woman to engage in prostitution.
“He not only failed to report a crime, but worse yet, (Dunnings) committed crimes as well,” Schuette told reporters.
For much of his tenure as county prosecutor, Dunnings has worked with Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth.
Wriggelsworth appeared almost to be at a loss for words. He says the charges show a "betrayal” by Dunnings to the community.
But Wriggelsworth says the situation may not have come as a total surprise to local law enforcement.
“There has been chatter over the years … but never any proof until several months ago,” says Wriggelsworth.
Attorney General Bill Schuette says Dunnings should resign.
No comment yet from Stuart Dunnings on the charges.
New update: Dunnings arrested
Ingham County prosecutor charged with pandering, solicitation
MONDAY. March 14 — Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings has been charged with pandering, a felony involving aiding and abetting prostitution, as well as 10 counts of engaging prostitutes and four of willful neglect of office.
The pandering charge arises from allegations that Dunnings, in his role as a prosecutor, enticed a woman he met through the office into engaging in sexual activity for cash, an affidavit alleges. That commercial sex relationship was an on again and off again situation for two years.
If found guilty of the felony charge, Dunnings could land in prison for up to 20 years. If found guilty of engaging prostitutes, he could face 93 days in jail and up to $500 on each charge. On each of the four willful neglect charges, he could face up to a year in jail and $1,000 in fines.
Law enforcement officials said the county’s top law enforcement official had been engaging the services of the sex workers for at least five years. Charges were filed in both 54-A District Court in Lansing and 55 District Court in Mason, as well as in Ionia and Clinton counties.
“We arrested him shortly after 8 a.m. as he was leaving a local coffee shop,” Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said at a press conference. Wriggeslworth called Dunnings’ alleged crimes a “betrayal.”
Dunnings’ brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings, was also arrested and charged with two counts of engaging the services of a prostitution.
Wriggelsworth, a Democrat, joined Republican Bill Schuette, the state attorney, to announce the charges today.
Both men called on Dunnings to resign his elected post because it could interfere with ongoing criminal cases. Wrigglesworth said if Dunnings did not resign, steps should be taken to remove him from office.
The case grew out of the investigation of Tyrone Smith, 45, of Lansing. Smith was indicted and pleaded guilty to three counts of sex trafficking women and taking them over state lines. Those charges were agreed to in federal court in Grand Rapids in November. He faces at least 15 years in federal prison on those charges.
Smith was convicted of second-degree murder in 1996 in an Ingham County court and served 15 years in the Michigan prison system. A pandering conviction carries up to a 20-year sentence.
Dunnings, a Democrat, was first elected in 1996.
The Michigan Penal Code defines pandering as:
(a) Procures an inmate for a house of prostitution.
(b) Induces, persuades, encourages, inveigles, or entices a person to become a prostitute.
(c) By promise, threat, or violence, or by any device or scheme, causes, induces, persuades, encourages, takes, places, harbors, inveigles, or entices a person to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or assignation place or any place where prostitution is practiced, encouraged, or allowed.
(d) By any promise or threat, or by violence or any device or scheme, causes, induces, persuades, encourages, inveigles, or entices an inmate of a house of prostitution or place of assignation to remain there as an inmate.
(e) By any promise or threat, or by violence, any device or scheme, fraud or artifice, or by duress of person or goods, or by abuse of any position of confidence or authority, or having legal charge, takes, places, harbors, inveigles, entices, persuades, encourages, or procures any person to engage in prostitution.
(f) Inveigles, entices, persuades, encourages, or procures any person to come into this state or to leave this state for the purpose of prostitution.
(g) Upon the pretense of marriage, takes or detains a person for the purpose of sexual intercourse.
(h) Receives or gives, or agrees to receive or give, any money or thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure any person to become a prostitute or to come into this state or leave this state for the purpose of prostitution.
AG's Office announces charges against prosecutor Dunnings
LANSING - Stuart Dunnings III paid for sex "hundreds of times" between 2010 and 2015, state and county law enforcement officials said Monday as they announced charges against the long-serving Ingham County prosecutor.
Dunnings was arrested Monday morning outside a Lansing coffee shop, officials said.
He is facing a total of 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties, the most serious being a felony charge of prostitution-pandering for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money, according to court records.
The other charges are misdemeanors for engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty, which stems from his failure to report crimes, according to court records.
According to an affidavit from an Ingham County detective, Dunnings solicited prostitutes from websites such as Escort Vault and Backpage, paid for sex for sex as often as three or four times a week and was videotaped by one of the prostitutes.
"I’ve known Stuart for a long time," Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said at a news conference Monday. "We've done some campaigning together. This was a huge betrayal of his trust, his oath of office, his service to the people of this county."
A year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the FBI and the Attorney General’s office resulted in the charges. Dunnings faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
He was arraigned in several District Courts on Monday afternoon. During the video arraignment in 54A District Court in Lansing, G. Michael Hocking, Dunnings’ attorney, told Magistrate Laura Millmore the charges might be "somewhat of a political case" full of "titillating-type accusations," but that his client was no threat to the community. He added that Dunnings had been aware of the investigation for weeks and hadn’t fled or harassed witnesses, despite ample opportunity to do so.
Dunnings is a Democrat who was elected in 1996. Attorney General Bill Schuette is a Republican. Wriggelsworth is a Democrat.
Stuart Dunnings' political future unclear after charges
Ingham County Circuit Court judge would have to appoint a replacement prosecutor if Dunnings resigns from post. Dunnings hasn't filed to run for re-election.
LANSING - The political future for Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III appears unclear after he was charged Monday with 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Dunnings, 63, faces one felony charge of pandering and 14 misdemeanor charges, including 10 of engaging a prostitute. The pandering count — enticing another person to become a prostitute — is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings is in his fifth four-year term as prosecutor and would need to run again this year to continue in the post.
As of Monday afternoon, Dunnings had not filed for re-election, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said. Nor had any other candidates filed for the seat, Byrum said, which is not unusual at this time of the year. The deadline to be on the Aug. 2 primary ballot, the first step toward the Nov. 8 general election, is 4 p.m. April 19.
Byrum described the charges against Dunnings as "an extremely unfortunate situation that I’m not comfortable commenting on as it needs to be decided in the courts."
If Dunnings should resign before the end of his term, state law would require an Ingham County Circuit Court judge or judges to appoint a replacement prosecutor, said Fred Woodhams, a Michigan Secretary of State spokesman. The appointee would serve the remainder of Dunnings' term, which expires at year's end.
Dunnings can't be recalled from his position because state law doesn't allow recall petitions to be filed against elected officials who are in the first or last year of a four-year term, Byrum said.
The charges against Dunnings stemmed from a federal investigation into a human trafficking ring Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's said at a Monday news conference.
Lansing Township resident Matthew Scholz, a Republican and licensed attorney, ran against Dunnings in 2012, but doesn't have plans to pursue the seat again. He's hopeful one of his fellow party members will compete for the job, especially now that Dunnings' reputation is being questioned.
“I’m hope that the Republicans put up a qualified reputable candidate who has earned and deserves the trust of the voters in Ingham Country," Scholz said.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has been Ingham County Prosecutor since 1996. He was last elected in 2012, winning by 69% of the vote.
“I’m shocked and saddened. The criminal justice system will take care of the matter. If what he is alleged to have done is true, then I think he should resign.”
— Kara Hope, D-Delhi Township, chairperson of the Ingham County Board of Commissioners
“I’m in shock. I’m in utter disbelief. And I’m sorry, but I still believe he has the presumption of innocence. I’ve always known Stuart to be a stand-up guy.”
— Milton Scales, a Democrat and member of the Meridian Township Board of Trustees who has known Dunnings for at least 20 years
“I’m hopeful that the Republicans put up a qualified reputable candidate who has earned and deserves the trust of the voters in Ingham County."
— Lansing Township resident Matthew Scholz, a Republican and licensed attorney who ran against Dunnings in 2012
“This is a sad day in Lansing. A person of Stuart Dunnings’ stature has been charged with these very serious, serious crimes. I would caution that a person is innocent until proven guilty. We are prayerful not just for our community, but also for the victims of pandering and human trafficking.”
— Bishop David Maxwell, pastor of Eliezer Temple Church and a prominent religious leader in Lansing
“I’m surprised and shocked that someone at that level and stature in Ingham County government could be even accused of such conduct.”
— Randy Maiville , R-Onondaga, vice chair pro tem of the Ingham County Board of Commissioners
“Like everybody we’re stunned. It’s crazy to have at one level somebody who has done so much to help so many, and then on another level somebody has done such horrific things.”
— C.J. Davis, Democrat, Delhi Township supervisor
Schuette: Dunnings paid for sex 'hundreds of times'
LANSING - Stuart Dunnings III paid for sex "hundreds of times" between 2010 and 2015, state and county law enforcement officials said Monday as they announced charges against the long-serving Ingham County prosecutor.
Dunnings was arrested Monday morning outside a Lansing coffee shop, officials said.
He is facing a total of 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties, the most serious being a felony charge of prostitution-pandering for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money, according to court records.
The other charges are misdemeanors for engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty, which stems from his failure to report crimes, according to court records.
According to an affidavit from an Ingham County detective, Dunnings solicited prostitutes from websites such as Escort Vault and Backpage, paid for sex for sex as often as three or four times a week and was videotaped by one of the prostitutes.
"I’ve known Stuart for a long time," Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said at a news conference Monday. "We've done some campaigning together. This was a huge betrayal of his trust, his oath of office, his service to the people of this county."
A year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the FBI and the Attorney General’s office resulted in the charges. Dunnings faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
He was arraigned in several District Courts on Monday afternoon. During the video arraignment in 54A District Court in Lansing, G. Michael Hocking, Dunnings’ attorney, told Magistrate Laura Millmore the charges might be "somewhat of a political case" full of "titillating-type accusations," but that his client was no threat to the community. He added that Dunnings had been aware of the investigation for weeks and hadn’t fled or harassed witnesses, despite ample opportunity to do so.
Dunnings is a Democrat who was elected in 1996. Attorney General Bill Schuette is a Republican. Wriggelsworth is a Democrat.
Millmore released Dunnings on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond.
With cuffed hands partially concealed beneath a table, the prosecutor appeared in an open-collar shirt and sport coat. His sister, Ingham County Circuit Court Administrator Shauna Dunnings, sat in the courtroom, and multiple court employees asked if she was OK and some hugged her.
Hocking refused to comment before or after the arraignment, but could be overheard in the hallway before the proceedings telling Shauna Dunnings and other court employees he felt Schuette’s motivations were political in nature.
During the news conference, Schuette said charges were "disheartening to the law enforcement community." He called for Dunnings to resign.
"This is not a going into Barnes and Noble and buying something as a client or a customer," Schuette said. "This is an instance where an officer of the law, an officer of the court, the prosecutor in the capital city of Michigan has a responsibility to enforce the law, report crimes, but he did just the opposite. He was a participant in commercial sex activity."
Officials in Clinton County 65A District Court said no arraignment had been scheduled as of Monday afternoon.
Dunnings' bond was set at $10,000 in 55th District Court, according to court records. He was arraigned by a Jackson County District Court judge after the local judges disqualified themselves.
Charges stem from federal investigation
While Wriggelsworth said there had been "chatter" over the years about Dunnings and prostitution, the charges against Dunnings grew out of a federal human trafficking investigation, in which the FBI gave local law enforcement information that led to the year-long investigation into Dunnings. The local investigation included interviews with the women and a review of phone and bank records, Wriggelsworth said.
The felony charge relates to a relationship between Dunnings and a woman came to him for help with a custody dispute with the father of her child, according to the affidavit from Det. Amber Kenny-Hinojosa, which was filed in support of charges that Schuette's office released today.
Dunnings and the woman, who's referred to in the affidavit as Witness 6, met at his office in 2010, the affidavit said. She told him she was a domestic violence victim and that the father of her child had abused her.
They met for lunch in the cafe of a downtown Lansing hotel, according to the affidavit. Dunnings asked her to lunch a second time and during that meeting told her he knew she was struggling financially and said he was "seeking a sexual relationship with her, and that he would pay her money in return."
She said she was shocked at first and eventually agreed — feeling like she had no choice — and the two started an on-and-off "commercial sex relationship" that lasted more than a year, the affidavit said. Dunnings paid the woman $600 every two weeks during the times they met for sex, and he also provided her with gifts and paid some of her bills.
The woman told police she hoped Dunnings would help in her child custody case and feared he would cause problems if she refused, according to the affidavit. The two met for sex in her home — a Lansing trailer park — and two area hotels, the woman told police.
In all, six women told police they had sex with Dunnings. One said they met for sex the first time at the Red Roof Inn in Lansing, and over the next five years would meet for sex as often as three or four times a week.
The woman told police that Dunnings had asked her to arrange for him to have sex with two women at the same time, which she did, and that she had videotaped "one of their commercial sex transactions."
A third prostitute said Dunnings asked her to call him at his office, which she did, according to the affidavit.
Dunnings had publicly opposed prostitution
Dunnings was first elected prosecutor in November 1996 and was most recently re-elected in 2012 to his fifth four-year term. He is a past president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.
With an annual salary of more than $132,000, he is the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County.
Ingham County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick said in a statement the office had no comment on the charges.
“The day to day business of the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office continues to be performed by the attorneys and staff,” she said. “I am not going to speak on behalf of Mr. Dunnings. Any questions about the case should be addressed by the Attorney General or Mr. Dunnings' attorney.”
Dunnings has presented himself in the past as a staunch opponent of prostitution.
In 2001, Dunnings took over prosecuting the city's prostitution-related crimes in hopes of getting tougher penalties for offenders. He began impounding johns' vehicles and charging prostitutes and their customers with felonies for third offenses. In the first two years alone, his prosecutors charged 19 people with felonies and impounded 53 vehicles.
Steven Dunnings, Stuart Dunnings III's brother, is also facing two charges of engaging in the services of a prostitute, which resulted from the same investigation. He has not yet been arraigned.
Preliminary hearings, which will determine if there’s enough evidence for Stuart Dunnings III to stand trial, are scheduled for later this month.
Schuette: Dunnings paid for sex 'hundreds of times'
LANSING — Stuart Dunnings III, Ingham County's prosecuting attorney for nearly two decades, paid for sex "hundreds of times" with multiple women between 2010 and 2015, according to information released this afternoon by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.
Dunnings is facing 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. Ten are misdemeanors of engaging the services of a prostitute, according to court records, but one count is for pandering — enticing another person to become a prostitute — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Court records also show a charges of willful neglect of duty and counts of engaging in the services of a prostitute.
The charges stem from a federal investigation into a human trafficking ring based in Michigan, Schuette's office said in a news release.
Tyrone Smith, the leader of that trafficking ring, pleaded guilty in federal court in November to three counts of sex trafficking girls and women and transporting them across state lines as part of an interstate prostitution ring.
Schuette: Prosecutor paid for sex 'hundreds of times'
Stuart Dunnings III, Ingham County's prosecuting attorney for nearly two decades, paid for sex "hundreds of times" with multiple women between 2010 and 2015, according to information released this afternoon by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.
Dunnings is facing 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. Ten are misdemeanors of engaging the services of a prostitute, according to court records, but one count is for pandering — enticing another person to become a prostitute — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Court records also show a charges of willful neglect of duty and counts of engaging in the services of a prostitute.
Federal child porn charges added for former Macomb County PR rep
The charges stem from a federal investigation into a human trafficking ring based in Michigan, Schuette's office said in a news release.
Tyrone Smith, the leader of that trafficking ring, pleaded guilty in federal court in November to three counts of sex trafficking girls and women and transporting them across state lines as part of an interstate prostitution ring.
Smith admitted recruiting one woman in December 2012, providing her with heroin, marketing her for sex online and arranging for men to pay her for sex in Lansing, Chicago and other cities over a two-year period, according to the release. He admitted doing the same to a 17-year-old girl in December 2014. He is to be sentenced in April and faces a minimum of 15 years in federal prison.
Mike Dillon, court administrator for 55th District Court, said judges there have recused themselves and that Dunnings, 63, would be arraigned by Jackson County 12th District Court Judge Michael Klaeren.
Dunnings hasn't been arraigned yet, according to court records.
Dunnings, a Democrat, was first elected prosecutor in November 1996 and was most recently re-elected in 2012 to his fifth four-year term. He is a past president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.
AG charges Ingham County prosecutor with engaging with prostitutes, neglect of duty
Lansing — Longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was arrested early Monday and charged with 15 criminal counts, including engaging with prostitutes, pandering and willful neglect of duty.
Attorney General Bill Schuette confirmed the charges in a Monday afternoon press conference, outlining the results of a joint probe by his office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office.
Dunnings allegedly paid to have sex with prostitutes hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015. He is also accused of convincing one woman to become a prostitute, prompting a charge of pandering, a felony which can result in up to 20 years in prison.
“It turns your stomach when an officer of the law, who took an oath to enforce the law and report crimes, is engaging in criminal activities himself,” Schuette said. “He never tried to stop it.”
Dunnings also faces 10 misdemeanor counts of engaging the services of prostitution and four misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty by an elected official. His brother, Lansing-area attorney Steven Dunnings, is charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
The investigation grew out of a federal probe of a human trafficking ring. Witnesses provided additional information that led to a separate investigation into Dunnings, who is facing charges in three counties.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said there had been jailhouse “chatter” over Dunnings for several years before the investigation unearthed hard evidence.
Wriggelsworth called Dunnings’ alleged activity a “huge betrayal” of the public trust.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as county prosecutor since 1997 and was re-elected to the post multiple times, most recently in 2012 when he won nearly 70 percent of the vote against Republican challenger Matthew Scholz.
While Dunnings is innocent until proven guilty, Schuette said Monday he believes Dunnings should resign. The attorney general also intends to notify the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.
Dunnings’ arrest raises concerns over past, current cases
LANSING - Questions about past and current criminal cases handled by the Ingham County prosecutor's office are being raised after Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was charged Monday with multiple prostitution-related crimes..
At least one Lansing-area defense attorney said he's reviewing his notes for a possible challenge to a recent trafficking case in light of the charges against Dunnings. Lisa McCormick, Ingham County's chief assistant prosecuting attorney, said she is now handling day-to-day operations in the office, but wouldn't say whether her office would review past or present cases for impropriety.
"It would not be appropriate for our agency to conduct an internal investigation under the present circumstances," McCormick said Tuesday. "The Attorney General filed the charges and any questions of this nature should be addressed to the AG."
"Nothing is off the table and we are continuing to investigate leads as they are presented to us," Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Schuette, said in an email to the State Journal Tuesday afternoon in response to numerous questions. She did not immediately respond to a message seeking answers to follow-up questions.
Dunnings, 63, faces one felony charge and 14 misdemeanor charges after Schuette on Monday said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex. The charges against Dunnings resulted from a year-long investigation by local authorities, who were tipped off by information obtained by the FBI in a federal human trafficking case in Lansing.
Dunnings was booked into the jail at 10:39 a.m. Monday and was released on bond at 4:44 p.m., jail officials said. Dunnings couldn't be reached by phone Tuesday, and a woman who answered the door at his home refused to comment.
There's no rule requiring an automatic review of past cases when prosecutors are charged with a crime, said Stacy Sellek, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Supreme Court. It would be up to defendants and their attorneys to challenge past cases in court, she said.
Whether Schuette's office was examining Dunnings' old cases was one of several questions left unanswered by Bitely's brief statement.
But Okemos attorney Steven Feigelson, who represented a Lansing teen who pleaded guilty this summer to sex trafficking charges, said Tuesday he's reviewing his notes in the case to see if the allegations against Dunnings raise any questions that might be worth a challenge.
"If there’s some issue of impropriety, there ought to be some review,” Feigelson said.
Messages left seeking comment from the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan were not returned Tuesday. The Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan referred questions to Schuette's office. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan declined to comment.
"Any defense attorney with a client in the past five years who has been prosecuted (in Ingham County) for prostitution-related crimes seems to have an obligation to revisit the circumstances around their client's charges," Lansing defense attorney Lisa Babcock said.
In the meantime, McCormick said no criminal cases will be put on hold and the office will continue to function normally. The biggest change within the office is the additional duties for her, she said.
"I feel like my role as the leader now in the office is to provide support to the staff and answer their questions and to make sure the public's questions are answered," she said. "The victims have rights and the cases have to be prosecuted, and we have to move forward with those duties."
McCormick, who has been with the office since 1997, said she spoke with Dunnings by phone on Tuesday and told him she'll continue overseeing the day-to-day operations. She will also take on duties Dunnings held as the elected prosecuting attorney, which is allowed by a state statute.
She wouldn't say if she knew when or if Dunnings would return to work.
It wasn't immediately clear whether anyone can keep him from returning to work. State law allows the governor to remove prosecutors in certain circumstances, including when they are convicted of a felony, but the law makes no mention of prosecutors who are charged with crimes but have yet to be tried.
Ari Adler, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder, said the governor wouldn't comment on Dunnings' case.
If Dunnings were to leave office before the end of his term, the county's circuit court "judge or judges" could name a replacement, according to statute. The seat is up for election this year. Dunnings hasn't filed for reelection.
Dunnings has been prosecutor since 1997, winning his latest four-year term in 2012.
LANSING - Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III is free on bond after being arraigned Monday on charges of engaging prostitutes, pandering and neglect of duty in several local district courts.
Dunnings, 63, faces 15 criminal charges, with the most serious being a felony charge of prostitution-pandering, for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money, according to court records.
He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Dunnings was booked into the jail at 10:39 a.m. Monday and was released at 4:44 p.m., jail officials said. He was arrested outside a coffee shop in Lansing Monday morning, authorities said at a news conference yesterday.
Ingham County Sheriff's Office Corrections Major Sam Davis said Dunnings was held in a cell by himself for safety reasons. Davis said that is standard procedure for any elected official or law enforcement officer who is booked into the jail.
The charges are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
At a news conference Monday announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex with women hundreds of times in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties between 2010 and 2015.
According to an affidavit from an Ingham County detective, Dunnings solicited prostitutes from websites such as Escort Vault and Backpage, paid for sex as often as three or four times a week and was videotaped by one of the prostitutes.
G. Michael Hocking, who represented Dunnings during his 54A District Court arraignment, declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left on Dunnings' cell phone, which went directly to voice mail. The answering machine at Dunnings' home wasn't accepting messages.
Dunnings is facing charges in 65A District Court in Clinton County, 64A District Court in Ionia County and two Ingham County district courts — 54A and 55th. He was arraigned in all but Clinton County yesterday. Officials there said it is not yet clear when Dunnings will be arraigned.
The other charges are misdemeanors for engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty, which stems from his failure to report crimes, according to court records.
Dunnings was first elected prosecutor in November 1996 and was most recently reelected in 2012 to his fifth four-year term. He is a past president of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.
With an annual salary of more than $132,000, he is Ingham County's highest-paid elected official.
Hooker case snags prosecutor
State capital area's top law enforcer charged with engaging prostitutes, pandering
Detroit News, The (MI)
March 15, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Lansing – Longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was arrested early Monday and charged with 15 criminal counts, including engaging with prostitutes, pandering and willful neglect of duty.
Attorney General Bill Schuette confirmed the charges in a Monday afternoon news conference, outlining the results of a joint probe by his office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ingham County Sheriff's Office.
Dunnings allegedly paid to have sex with prostitutes hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015. Each time would be considered a 93-day misdemeanor.
He is also accused of convincing one woman to become a prostitute, prompting a charge of pandering, a felony which can result in up to 20 years in prison.
"It turns your stomach when an officer of the law, who took an oath to enforce the law and report crimes, is engaging in criminal activities himself," Schuette said. "He never tried to stop it."
Dunnings also faces 10 misdemeanor counts of engaging the services of prostitution and four misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty by an elected official. His brother, Lansing-area attorney Steven Dunnings, is charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
The investigation grew out of a federal probe of a human trafficking ring. Witnesses provided additional information that led to a separate investigation into Dunnings, who is facing charges in three counties.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said there had been jailhouse "chatter" over Dunnings for several years before the investigation unearthed hard evidence.
Wriggelsworth called Dunnings' alleged activity a "huge betrayal" of the public trust. He has been the top law enforcer in Michigan's capital area for nearly 20 years.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as county prosecutor since 1997 and was re-elected to the post multiple times, most recently in 2012 when he won nearly 70 percent of the vote against Republican challenger Matthew Scholz.
While Dunnings is innocent until proven guilty, Schuette said Monday he believes Dunnings should resign. The Republican attorney general also intends to notify the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.
The human trafficking ring leader pleaded guilty in November and is awaiting sentencing, Schuette said.
Prosecutor's political future unclear after sex charges
LANSING — The political future for Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III appears unclear after he was charged Monday with 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Dunnings, 63, faces one felony charge of pandering and 14 misdemeanor charges, including 10 of engaging a prostitute. The pandering count — enticing another person to become a prostitute — is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings is in his fifth four-year term as prosecutor and would need to run again this year to continue in the post.
As of Monday afternoon, Dunnings had not filed for re-election, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said. Nor had any other candidates filed for the seat, Byrum said, which is not unusual at this time of the year. The deadline to be on the Aug. 2 primary ballot, the first step toward the Nov. 8 general election, is 4 p.m. April 19.
Byrum described the charges against Dunnings as "an extremely unfortunate situation that I’m not comfortable commenting on as it needs to be decided in the courts."
If Dunnings should resign before the end of his term, state law would require an Ingham County Circuit Court judge or judges to appoint a replacement prosecutor, said Fred Woodhams, a Michigan Secretary of State spokesman. The appointee would serve the remainder of Dunnings' term, which expires at year's end.
Dunnings can't be recalled from his position because state law doesn't allow recall petitions to be filed against elected officials who are in the first or last year of a four-year term, Byrum said.
The charges against Dunnings stemmed from a federal investigation into a human trafficking ring Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's said at a Monday news conference.
Lansing Township resident Matthew Scholz, a Republican and licensed attorney, ran against Dunnings in 2012, but doesn't have plans to pursue the seat again. He's hopeful one of his fellow party members will compete for the job, especially now that Dunnings' reputation is being questioned.
“I’m hope that the Republicans put up a qualified reputable candidate who has earned and deserves the trust of the voters in Ingham Country," Scholz said.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has been Ingham County Prosecutor since 1996. He was last elected in 2012, winning by 69% of the vote.
Longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was arrested early Monday and charged with 15 criminal counts, including engaging with prostitutes, pandering and willful neglect of duty. Dunnings allegedly paid to have sex with prostitutes hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015. He is also accused of convincing one woman to become a prostitute, prompting a charge of pandering, a felony which can result in up to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutor charged with hiring prostitutes
Charges filed in Ionia, Ingham and Clinton counties
Sentinel-Standard (Ionia, MI)
March 16, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING — A prosecutor who has been the top law enforcer in Michigan’s capital area for nearly 20 years was charged Monday with hiring prostitutes hundreds of times and committing related crimes, including paying for sex with a woman who wanted help in a child custody dispute.
A police affidavit says Stuart Dunnings III met prostitutes through websites and told some of the women he was the county prosecutor. He paid one woman for sex as many as three or four times a week over five years, while another prostitute had sex with him more than 200 times, the complaint said.
The case against Dunnings, the elected Democratic prosecutor in Ingham County, developed from tips during a federal human-trafficking investigation, state Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
Dunnings, 63, was charged with pandering — enticing a woman to become a prostitute, a 20-year felony — and willful neglect of duty. He also was charged with using the services of prostitutes, a misdemeanor, in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015.
He was arrested while leaving a coffee shop, lodged at the Ingham County jail, arraigned and released on bond Monday.
One of his lawyers, Michael Hocking, declined to comment on the charges while leaving the courtroom. At the arraignment, he said Dunnings had been aware of the investigation for several weeks.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said there had been chatter about Dunnings’ activities but never any proof. The county’s role in the investigation began about a year ago, and the sheriff notified the attorney general in late summer.
“This is a huge betrayal of his trust, his oath of office, his service to the people of this county,” Wriggelsworth said.
Also charged was Dunnings’ brother Steven, a Lansing attorney. A message seeking comment was left at Steven Dunnings’ law office.
According to the affidavit filed by Ingham County Detective Amber Kenny-Hinojosa, one woman sent an email to Stuart Dunnings, telling him she had been the victim of domestic violence and asking for his help in a custody fight. After discussing the matter, he invited her to a lunch — at which he told her he was aware she was struggling financially and proposed paying her for a sexual relationship.
The woman, identified as W-6 in the court filing, told investigators she initially was shocked but ultimately felt she had no choice but to accept, hoping it would help in her custody dispute and fearing he might cause her problems if she refused. “W-6 asserts that she would not have gone along with the commercial sex if Dunnings III had not been the prosecutor,” the affidavit states.
Schuette called on Dunnings to resign and said “it turns your stomach” that Dunnings never intervened to help victims he said were “brutalized, assaulted, manipulated, provided drugs, imprisoned.”
“A member of law enforcement was using the services of women who were being trafficked,” Schuette said at a news conference.
The human trafficking ring leader pleaded guilty in November and awaits sentencing, Schuette said.
‘Smelled like cat pee’
Prostitute recounts her alleged experiences with the brothers Dunnings
For over a year, Cassandra lived in terror — beaten, strung out on heroin, her body hauled from one city to another and sold to as many as 15 men a day. Two of the men she was forced to service sexually were Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III and his brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings.
In the fog of sexual abuse, details of the encounters blur. But what Cassandra, one of six sex workers identified in the affidavit released on Monday, remembered vividly that the Dunning brothers “smelled like cat pee.”
She also recalled that her relationship with Stuart Dunnings emboldened her and other sex workers to believe they were protected from prosecution. Cassandra told her story to City Pulse in August during reporting on her struggle to overcome a heroin addiction. A lack of corroboration kept City Pulse from publishing her allegations about Dunnings.
State and county law enforcement have charged the men with purchasing sexual services from local prostitutes “hundreds of times,” state Attorney General Bill Schuette said Monday. The allegations date back at least five years.
Stuart Dunnings is facing 10 counts of engaging the services of prostitution and four counts of willful neglect of duty. He is also charged with felony pandering, or enticing a woman into prostitution.
The engaging charge is a misdemeanor and carries a penalty of up to 93 days in jail and up to $500 in fines for each charge. The willful neglect charges are also misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine. The pandering charge, a felony, carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. His brother has been charged with two counts of engaging the services of prostitution.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said the “chatter” on the street indicated for years Dunnings was engaging the sexual services of prostitutes. “But it never went anywhere,” he said during a press conference Monday. He said the information often came from prostitutes and drug users lodged in the Ingham County Jail. “They could never put us in touch with someone” who knew first hand, the sheriff said.
That is until a federal investigation and grand jury proceeding last July turned up hard evidence.
Cassandra, the woman who alleges the Dunnings brothers were clients, first told federal authorities about her situation last year. They were investigating a human trafficking ring run by Tyrone Smith, 45, of Lansing. Smith, a convicted murderer, came to the attention of law enforcement when a 17-year-old woman he had been trafficking was found beaten in East Lansing.
During the investigation, which included a federal grand jury in the U.S. court in Grand Rapids, Cassandra told her story over and over, including her claims the Dunnings brothers were regular clients.
Her life with Smith, known as T-Bone on the street, started as Lansing was encased in ice, and the city was plunged into darkness in 2013. Cassandra’s life mirrored this ominous timing.
“Pretty much then I knew that I owed him, you know” Cassandra said of her meeting with T-Bone the night during the ice storm. (Cassandra is a pseudonym.) Owing T-Bone meant doing as told or facing beatings — or worse —- she said. “You didn’t have any choice in anything because then you would get beat up,” she said. “I tried to run away a lot of times, but that ended up getting really scary. So that’s when the threats of him killing me would happen.”
She said she owed Smith because the pimp had provided her a home, and drugs, after the man she was living with was arrested for assaulting her, leaving her on the streets.
She said her relationship with Smith grew to a point that she was his “head bitch,” key to working with the other women and arranging “dates.” He advertised her services and those of other women on Internet sites, and when the Internet tricks were slow, Smith had them walk the Kalamazoo corridor.
Cassandra escaped when she approached Dr. Paul DeWeese seeking relief from her heroin addiction. He treated her, but he has since lost his license and is facing federal and state investigations related to his pain and opioid addiction treatment clinic.
Cassandra continues to struggle with her addiction.
“These victims were brutalized,” Schuette said. “They were imprisoned. It turns the stomach to think that an officer of the law, an officer of the court, the top prosecutor in the capital city was engaging in criminal acts and never tried to stop it.”
Schuette alleged that it was impossible that the Dunnings brothers were unaware of the violence being perpetrated on the women they hired for sex. He said the women would show up for their sexual trysts with bruises on their bodies.
An affidavit filed in the case does not identify the six women with whom Dunnings is accused of engaging in “commercial sex.” It refers to them as W1 through W6.
Detective Amber Kenny-Hinojosa of the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department alleges that one of the women, identified as W-3, had to respond to any and all calls for service.
“W-3 was routinely beaten by her pimp, and throughout the time she had commercial sex with Stuart Dunnings III and Steven Dunnings she had observable bruising on her body,” Kenny-Hinojosa alleges in the “Affidavit in Support of Complaint,” released Monday by the office of the Attorney General. “W-3 also had multiple, visible needle tracks on her arms from heroin use.” Another woman was reported as a crack and heroin user and the pimp “provided” her with these drugs “in exchange for her work.
“Her pimp provided her with drugs in exchange for her work, imprisoned her in his house, and beat her,” the affidavit alleges. “On one occasion, he beat her so severely that W-4 could barely walk and was unable to open her eye for several days. W-4 frequently had bruises on her body that would have been visible to her customers.”
The affidavit alleges that Stuart Dunnings engaged the services of one sex worker at her pimp’s home. During that episode, Dunnings is alleged to have identified himself as the county prosecutor. Another sex worker is alleged to have called Dunnings at his county offices.
The charges against Dunnings have stunned some, in part because of his long record of cracking down on sex workers and their “johns.” He began prosecution of prostitution cases from the city right after he was elected to the prosecutor’s office in 1996. Starting in 1997, he used the power of the courts to take the vehicles of those accused of purchasing sex and sought felony charges for women who had more than two previous prostitution convictions.
Law enforcement pointed out Monday that Dunnings had run a successful prosecution against three sex traffickers just last year. The two men and one woman were found guilty of transporting young women, some of them as young as 14, across state lines for the purposes of prostitution.
“I can’t congratulate and thank those various agencies enough for all the hard work the put into this to put an end to these people that were really exploiting some of our most vulnerable young ladies in our society,” Dunnings told WILX last August.
Yet even as he was working to prosecute those accused traffickers in 2014, he was engaging the services of sex workers, including Cassandra, law enforcement alleged.
Despite his reputation as a tough-onprostitutes prosecutor, Cassandra and other sex workers said they felt a certain impunity from the law as they carried on their work. Those sex workers said they believed that with the high-profile Dunnings brothers as clients, they were immune from prosecution.
Wriggelsworth confirmed that his officers had heard similar claims from those in jail, but had been unable to prove that was the case.
“If we had evidence of it, he would be facing another felony,” he said after a press conference Monday. “This is an ongoing investigation.”
The affidavit filed in the case alleges that Dunnings provided money to help bail a woman out of jail. She was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia by Lansing Police, the affidavit alleges, and Dunnings took money to her mother to help pay the bond.
Prosecutor Caught Hiring Prostitutes While on the Job
63-year-old Michigan prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, who has been the top law enforcer in Michigan's capital area for almost 20 years, was arrested on Monday and charged with hiring prostitutes and other related crimes. Dunnings, who led a crackdown on prostitution, allegedly paid for sex "hundreds of times" between 2010 and 2015 and forced a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money.
We look at the corruption case on the Lip News with Jo Ankier and Elliot Hill.
Disgraced prosecutor allegedly paid for methadone treatments for sex
INGHAM COUNTY, MI -- Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III allegedly paid for things like rent, YMCA memberships and methadone treatments in return for sex, according to witness statements.
Six witnesses provided affidavits, which detail the husband and father of three's alleged abuse of power and relationships with prostitutes.
The women who were designated as prostitutes in the affidavits are referred to as W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4 and W-5; with W-6 representing the woman Dunnings allegedly induced into prostitution.
The affidavit was filed by Ingham County Sheriff's Office Detective Amber Kenny-Hinojosa.
Dunnings, who has served as Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997, faces 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office said the 2015 FBI human trafficking investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings. Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
Further federal investigation into Smith, who remains without a sentence, led to Ingham County's top prosecutor, according to the press release.
It is not noted whether the six witnesses listed in the affidavit were involved with Smith's sex trafficking operation or not.
W-1 allegedly posted on the website Escort Vault, which led to Dunnings reaching out for her services. The two arranged to meet with Dunnings paying $200 for sex at a Lansing-based Red Roof Inn, according to the affidavit. For the next five years, W-1 and Dunnings met for sex as much as three to four times a week, the affidavit said.
According to the witness, Dunnings paid her rent and gave her money for things unrelated to sex. The prosecutor allegedly wanted to be W-1's only customer, which she allegedly declined.
W-2 was introduced to Dunnings through his request to have sex with more than one woman at once, according to the affidavit. According to the statement, W-1 videotaped W-2 and Dunnings having sex on at least one occasion.
Dunnings and W-2 allegedly had sex more than 200 times, which typically involved dinner and a hotel room at the rate of $100 for 30 minutes, $160 for an hour and $140 an hour for multiple hours, the affidavit said.
Dunnings, who paid for W-2's phone bill, groceries and YMCA membership, allegedly made it clear to her that he was the prosecutor of Ingham County, the affidavit said.
When W-2 told Dunnings she was addicted to heroin, he started paying $80 a week for methadone treatments and even attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings, the affidavit said. When W-2 was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, Dunnings allegedly took the prostitutes' mother money for bond, it said.
Dunnings and his brother, Steven, allegedly each had commercial sex with W-3 on multiple occasions, the affidavit said. It is noted in the affidavit that W-3 regularly had "observable bruising on her body" and "multiple, visible needle tracks on her arm from heroin use."
Dunnings then met W-4 through W-3 at the Magnuson Hotel in Lansing for sex, the affidavit said. W-4, who got into prostitution through crack and heroin addictions, would eventually refer to Steven Dunnings as a "regular customer," it said.
Steven Dunnings is charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
W-5 and Dunnings only had commercial sex once, according to the affidavit. The two met at W-5's apartment in Holt, for which Dunnings allegedly paid $150 for about 15 minutes of sex, it said.
In 2010, W-6 sent an email to Dunnings regarding assistance with her custody dispute, the affidavit said. W-6 met Dunnings at his office, where she allegedly revealed to him that the father of her child was domestically abusing her, it said.
It was allegedly during the pair's second meeting that Dunnings proposed a solution to her financial issues; he would pay her for a sexual relationship, the affidavit said.
"W-6 was initially shocked by this proposition, and did not immediately accept," the document reads. "After thing the proposition over, she felt she had no choice but to accept." W-6 estimates that Dunnings III paid her about $600 every two weeks during the times they would meet for commercial sex, the affidavit said.
Dunnings III's position as Ingham County Prosecutor influenced W-6's decision to engage in commercial sex with him, the affidavit said. She both hoped that he would help her in her child custody dispute, and feared that he might cause her problems if she refused his proposition, it said.
Dunnings and W-6 allegedly had sex at multiple locations, which include her trailer park home in Lansing, the Fairfield Hotel and Causeway Bay Hotel, also both in Lansing, the affidavit said.
The ensuing charge from W-6's allegations, pandering, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious crime the prosecutor faces.
Prostitution, trafficking 'a widespread phenomenon'
Alleged crimes of Stuart Dunnings III a common problem across Michigan, including Lansing
LANSING – For all the shock in seeing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III in cuffs, the prostitution-related crimes he's been accused of are all too common, advocates say.
Dunnings, the 63-year-old lawyer who’s been Ingham County’s elected prosecutor for the past 19 years, was charged Monday with one felony and 14 misdemeanors after a yearlong investigation found he’d paid for sex hundreds of times with multiple women in three counties, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
Dunnings could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
The sensationalism of such charges against a leading law enforcement official garnered national headlines. Yet thousands of women and girls are quietly, sometimes violently, manipulated and abused into selling their bodies for sex every year, advocates said. And men and women from all kinds of occupations take advantage of these women or coerce them into prostitution.
“I think this is a very widespread phenomenon,” said Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for the Washington-based Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. “We see just a lot of different demographics and context when it comes to players in trafficking.”
“I assure you, it’s not a victimless crime,” said Dr. LaClaire Bouknight, a Lansing physician and chairwoman of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking Alliance. “Many of the pimps are very violent. They’re controlling the women with drugs, threats, threats to harm their families, and I don’t consider that victimless at all.
“It’s not a happy life,” she added. “It’s not a Julia Roberts story.”
‘Human trafficking is alive and well’
The charges against Dunnings follow several horrific cases in the capital city:
* The investigation against Dunnings began after the FBI passed on information obtained in a federal human trafficking case against Lansing’s Tyrone Smith, who pleaded guilty last fall to multiple charges after investigators said he recruited several women, including a 17-year-old, into an interstate sex operation.
* Last year in Ingham County, three people, including a then-17-year-old girl, were convicted of multiple crimes in a sex ring that allegedly included girls as young as 15.
* In 2014, two men were convicted of raping and robbing multiple women who advertised as escorts on Backpage.com, where Dunnings is alleged to have met some of the women he paid for sex.
Agencies across Michigan reported 307 arrests for prostitution and human trafficking-related crimes in 2013, and 409 arrests the following year, according to the most recent available statistics from the Michigan Incident Crime Reporting database.
Twenty-one of those arrests were women 18 years old or younger, including one reported to be 13 or 14 years old. Six males 18 or younger were arrested, according to the database maintained by the Michigan State Police.
Arrests were made in urban communities around metro Detroit and rural counties in northern Michigan such as Alpena and St. Ignace. They were made in impoverished areas such as Benton Harbor and tony towns like St. Clair Shores.
The database includes 26 cases in those years from Lansing.
Those numbers do not tell the whole story.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center, which runs a trafficking hotline, took more than 700 phone calls from Michigan and reported 152 cases of trafficking in the state last year, at least 52 of which involved minors. Trafficking also includes forced labor, but most of those cases involved sex trafficking.
That was the eighth-highest number of cases in the nation.
‘People don’t want to see that’
Prostitution and sex trafficking — which is prostitution with some sort of coercion involved — can fly under the radar for years and go missing from the statistics, advocates say.
In an affidavit filed with the charges against Dunnings, the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department alleges the prosecutor paid for sex multiple times a week as far back as 2010, while simultaneously prosecuting sex crimes, collecting campaign donations and winning elections by large margins.
“The reason why it’s hiding is because people don’t want to see that,” Laura Swanson, a Lansing-area filmmaker who’s finishing up a documentary about trafficking in Michigan, said of prostitution and trafficking in general. “I think we’ve been told that a victim looks a certain way. When you don't see that, then you’re not likely to call it out.”
The Internet, where women are advertised alongside sports equipment and puppies, has pushed it even further out of sight.
The move from street corners to the Web has made enforcement and sting operations more elaborate and difficult to accomplish than simply putting an officer undercover as a prostitute, Lansing police Public Information Director Robert Merritt said. Online stings usually require several departments.
Merritt said gun violence and violent crimes are a higher priority for Lansing police.
Bouknight, the Lansing physician, said pimps and traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people: runaways, foster children, people with histories of abuse or even the offspring of prostitutes. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is disproportionately represented, she said.
Recruiters — sometimes the pimp, sometimes the trafficked are forced to recruit new prostitutes — may go to the mall, for example, and prowl, Bouknight said. They’ll find a girl and tell her how pretty she is, gauge her self-confidence, and move in if she seems vulnerable.
Some women are coerced by force, kept on the line with a supply of drugs, or blackmailed because of compromising photos they've posted online or sent to someone they thought they loved, advocates said. Others are bought gifts and treated like girlfriends before being pulled into prostitution. Dunnings faces a felony charge because, according to the affidavit, he coaxed a woman to be paid for sex after she came to him for help with a custody matter. He also paid for food, rent and drug treatment for the women he also paid for sex, court records allege.
For her documentary, called “Break the Chain,” Swanson spent time with a Michigan woman who ran away from home when she was 13 and met a man whom she thought was interested in a romantic relationship. The man ended up forcing her to become a prostitute.
The misconception, Swanson said, is that the prostitutes have chosen their occupation or have been kidnapped. The vast majority are merely vulnerable women seeking a better life, who are approached by someone willing to provide one, she said.
“That opportunity seems to be the right one at the time,” Swanson said. “You have no other reason not to trust that individual.”
For the victims, the scars are lifelong, and not all of them are physical. The women Dunnings allegedly slept with had bruises from being beaten by their pimps and track marks on their arms from frequent use of intravenous drugs, according to the affidavit, but the trafficked are also emotionally abused and carry that trauma with them long after they escape the life.
“You have to look beneath the surface,” said Walsh, of the Resource Center. “The reality of a situation may not be what instantaneously meets the eye.”
‘Knowledge is incredibly empowering’
Key to stopping the problem, the advocates say, is awareness.
Michigan has made human trafficking a priority. Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of laws in fall 2014 that created two boards focused on the issue and both Schuette and federal law enforcement have cracked down.
The United Auto Workers Local 6000, which represents thousands of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, has reached out to the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human trafficking among those applying for public assistance.
But more can be done.
Bouknight said schools should look for consistently truant children. Doctors, hospitals and abortion clinics should look for young pregnancies or frequent pregnancies and abortions. Police and others should look closer at young people who are frequently arrested for shoplifting, because some prostitutes are forced to do that to have nice clothes for their clients.
Walsh said the most important thing is for community members everywhere to report what they see so victims can get help and perpetrators can be charged.
“Having the knowledge is incredibly empowering in trafficking,” she said.
Prosecutor allegedly paid for groceries, rent in exchange for sex
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III allegedly paid for things like rent, YMCA memberships and methadone treatments in return for sex, according to witness statements.
Six witnesses provided affidavits, which detail the husband and father of three's alleged abuse of power and relationships with prostitutes.
The women who were designated as prostitutes in the affidavits are referred to as W-1, W-2, W-3, W-4 and W-5, with W-6 representing the woman Dunnings allegedly induced into prostitution.
The affidavit was filed by Ingham County Sheriff's Office Detective Amber Kenny-Hinojosa.
Dunnings, who has served as Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997, faces 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office said the 2015 FBI human trafficking investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings. Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansingbased women for his interstate sex operation, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
Further federal investigation into Smith, who remains without a sentence, led to Ingham County's top prosecutor, according to the release.
It is not noted whether the six witnesses listed in the affidavit were involved with Smith's sex trafficking operation.
W-1 allegedly posted on the website Escort Vault, which led to Dunnings reaching out for her services. The two arranged to meet, with Dunnings paying $200 for sex at a Lansing-based Red Roof Inn, according to the affidavit.
For the next five years, W-1 and Dunnings met for sex as much as three to four times a week, the affidavit said.
According to the witness, Dunnings paid her rent and gave her money for things unrelated to sex. The prosecutor allegedly wanted to be W-1's only customer, which she allegedly declined.
W-2 was introduced to Dunnings through his request to have sex with more than one woman at once, according to the affidavit. According to the statement, W-1 videotaped W-2 and Dunnings having sex on at least one occasion.
Dunnings and W-2 allegedly had sex more than 200 times, which typically involved dinner and a hotel room at the rate of $100 for 30 minutes, $160 for an hour and $140 an hour for multiple hours, the affidavit said.
Dunnings, who paid for W-2's phone bill, groceries and YMCA membership, allegedly made it clear he was the prosecutor of Ingham County, the affidavit said.
When W-2 told Dunnings she was addicted to heroin, he started paying $80 a week for methadone treatments and even attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings, the affidavit said.
Dunnings and his brother, Steven, allegedly each had commercial sex with W-3 on multiple occasions, the affidavit said. It is noted in the affidavit that W-3 regularly had "observable bruising on her body" and "multiple, visible needle tracks on her arm from heroin use."
Dunnings then met W-4 through W-3 at the Magnuson Hotel in Lansing for sex, the affidavit said. W-4 would eventually refer to Steven Dunnings as a "regular customer," it said.
Steven Dunnings is charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
W-5 and Dunnings only had commercial sex once, according to the affidavit. The two met at W-5's apartment in Holt, for which Dunnings allegedly paid $150 for about 15 minutes of sex, it said.
In 2010, W-6 sent an email to Dunnings regarding assistance with her custody dispute, the affidavit said. W-6 met Dunnings at his office, where she allegedly revealed to him that the father of her child was domestically abusing her, it said.
It was allegedly during the pair's second meeting that Dunnings poised a solution to her financial issues; he would pay her for a sexual relationship, the affidavit said.
"W-6 was initially shocked by this proposition and did not immediately accept," the document reads. "After thinking the proposition over, she felt she had no choice but to accept."
W-6 estimates Dunnings III paid her about $600 every two weeks during the times they would meet for commercial sex, the affidavit said.
Dunnings III's position as Ingham County Prosecutor influenced W-6's decision to engage in commercial sex with him, the affidavit said. She both hoped that he would help her in her child custody dispute, and feared that he might cause her problems if she refused his proposition, it said.
Dunnings and W-6 allegedly had sex at multiple locations, which include her trailer park home in Lansing, the Fairfield Hotel and Causeway Bay Hotel, also both in Lansing, the affidavit said.
The ensuing charge from W-6's allegations, pandering, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious crime the prosecutor faces.
Attorney General Bill Schuette announces the charges against Stuart Dunnings III at a Monday afternoon, March 14 press conference.
District Court judges disqualify themselves from Dunnings case
LANSING - All four judges in 54A District Court have disqualified themselves from hearing the case against Ingham County Prosecuting attorney Stuart Dunnings III, the court administrator said.
Judges in 55th District Court, where Dunnings also faces prostitution-related charges, disqualified themselves on Monday before Dunnings was arraigned. A Jackson County judge will handle the case in that court.
Dunnings, 63, faces 15 criminal charges, including one felony charge of prostitution-pandering, after a yearlong investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the felony.
According to an affidavit filed in support of the charges by an Ingham County detective, Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015, and used his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money. He's charged in four district courts in three counties.
Anethia Brewer, 54A District Court administrator, said Friday that the court has sent a request to the State Court Administrative Office for a judge from another county to be assigned to the case.
Dunnings case
Wife of Ingham County prosecutor files for divorce
TUESDAY. March 22 — Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has a new court battle — his wife of 37 years is suing him for divorce in the Ingham County Circuit Court.
Dunnings
Cynthia Dunnings, 59, filed the action on Friday, five days after state and county law enforcement authorities announced that her husband had been charged with 14 misdemeanors and one felony related to allegations of his involvement with prostitutes.
She is being represented by Lansing attorney Jeffrey Ray.
The two, who were married on Oct. 22, 1977, have three adult children. Her maiden name is Cynthia Duda.
The complaint, which has been assigned to Judge Janelle Lawless, uses boilerplate language seeking the divorce.
“There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the object of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved,” the complaint reads.
She is seeking temporary spousal support as well as a restraining order preventing Dunnings from “transferring, wasting, or dissipating assets of the marital estate.”
He’s been charged with 10 misdemeanor counts of engaging a prostitute, four misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty and one felony charge of pandering, He is accused of paying at least six women thousands of dollars in cash and gifts over five years in exchange for sexual services.
Stuart Dunnings' wife files for divorce amid scandal
LANSING — Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III's wife filed for divorce days after he was arraigned on prostitution-related charges.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Cynthia Dunnings, 59, filed for divorce in Ingham County Circuit Court on Friday.
"There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed," according to the filing, "and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved."
Jeffrey Ray, attorney for Cynthia Dunnings, said his client "was shocked like everyone else" at the criminal charges and allegations. He added that Stuart Dunnings III was served on Tuesday with the divorce papers.
They were married in 1977, according to the divorce filing.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. The charges are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities.
At a news conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
A message was left seeking comment from Mike Hocking, Stuart Dunnings III's attorney for the criminal cases. No attorney of record was listed for him in the divorce case.
Dunnings has not responded to State Journal requests for comment since he was charged.
LANSING - The same Jackson County judge who was tapped to hear the criminal case against Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III in 55th District Court will hear the case in 54A District Court.
Dunnings, 63, faces 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony.
He was arraigned last week. Before his arraignment in 55th District Court in Mason, the judges disqualified themselves and Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren was assigned to hear the case. Judges in 54A District Court in Lansing disqualified themselves Friday, and on Monday Klaeren was assigned to hear that case as well, according to court records.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The charges are the result of a yearlong investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case started the local investigation, officials said.
Michael Hocking, Dunnings' attorney, couldn't be reached for comment.
LANSING - Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III's wife filed for divorce days after he was arraigned on prostitution-related charges.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Cynthia Dunnings, 59, filed for divorce in Ingham County Circuit Court on Friday.
"There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed," according to the filing, "and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved."
Jeffrey Ray, attorney for Cynthia Dunnings, said his client "was shocked like everyone else" at the criminal charges and allegations. He added that Stuart Dunnings III was served on Tuesday with the divorce papers.
They were married in 1977, according to the divorce filing.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. The charges are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecutor Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities.
At a news conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
A message was left seeking comment from Mike Hocking, Stuart Dunnings III's attorney for the criminal cases. No attorney of record was listed for him in the divorce case.
Dunnings has not responded to State Journal requests for comment since he was charged.
LANSING - The same Jackson County judge who was tapped to hear the criminal case against Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III in 55th District Court will hear the case in 54A District Court.
Dunnings, 63, faces 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony.
He was arraigned last week. Before his arraignment in 55th District Court in Mason, the judges disqualified themselves and Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren was assigned to hear the case. Judges in 54A District Court in Lansing disqualified themselves Friday, and on Monday Klaeren was assigned to hear that case as well, according to court records.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The charges are the result of a yearlong investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case started the local investigation, officials said.
Michael Hocking, Dunnings' attorney, couldn't be reached for comment.
Unease with charges
Dunnings sex-crime arrest rankles African-American community
The arrest last week of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has left leaders in the African American community confused and angry.
“I thought how he was portrayed in the LSJ and how gloating the state attorney general and sheriff were seems overboard,” said the Rev. Melvin Jones, pastor of Union Missionary Baptist Church. He referred to the coverage as “convicted in the media,” and “forgive this, a public lynching.”
Dunnings, 63, was charged with 14 misdemeanors and one felony last week after a months-long investigation into allegations of his involvement in prostitution. He faces 10 charges for engaging the services of prostitutes, four charges for willful neglect of duty and one felony charge of pandering.
The shock and anger at the Dunnings arrest is part confusion and part betrayal. He is a leading figure in the black community and the most senior of elected black officials in the county. Derrick Quinney, who was appointed to the post of Ingham County register of deeds last year, and Circuit Judge Clinton Canady III are the only other black countywide officials holding elective office.
Civic and religious leaders throughout the city stressed that they wanted to see the legal process play out before they would judge.
“These are allegations, mind you,” Jones said. “He has entered a plea of not guilty.”
Lansing City Council President Judi Brown Clarke said she was “saddened” and “shocked” by the charges against Dunnings.
“This is so incredibly out of character,” she said. “I don’t know where the breakdown occurred.”
She said the allegations were “counterintuitive” to Dunnings’ platform of “taking a strong stand against prostitution.”
While Jones and Clarke spoke freely about the impact of the charges against Dunnings, many others declined to comment for a variety of reasons, including feeling uncomfortable with speaking ill of a leader in the community.
Community members did express unease with Dunnings over his tough-on-crime prosecution stance, as well as his support for police officers involved in shootings.
The announcement of the charges and the arrest of Dunnings, a Democrat, were made during a joint press conference by Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, a Democrat, and state Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, leading some to conclude, wrongly, that Schuette led the investigation. That misunderstanding led some in the community to level allegations of political prosecution at the case.
But Wriggelsworth called that “just pure hogwash” during an interview in his office in Mason.
“Well, clearly we didn’t have a prosecutor to go to,” he said. “I couldn’t go to any of his assistants because they would have an obligation to report it to the boss. So we were pretty much bound to go to the AG’s office. It was a case that clearly needed to be prosecuted in our opinion and they agreed — so here we are.”
Wriggelsworth said the investigation began about July when federal authorities provided information from an investigation into human trafficking against Tyrone Smith. “We received information from women who were victimized — in my opinion,” he said. “We have an obligation to investigate that. We did it. We presented it to the proper authorities. They issued warrants. We’re more than willing to take this to trial and prove our case.”
Wriggelsworth said he had worked closely with Dunnings, the top law enforcement officer in the county. He said Dunnings regularly attended his weekly sheriff leadership meetings. The two attended an event on the Thursday before Dunnings’ arrest in Eaton County.
“Quite frankly, it was surreal,” Wriggelsworth said. “I think he had to know I knew, but our relationship was pretty much like it had been in the past.”
Interviews with public figures and others suggest some confusion about the charges against Dunnings. Some have conflated allegations that he had sex with trafficked women with the allegations that Dunnings is alleged to have enticed a woman into prostitution.
Two of those women, according to an affidavit in the case, were victims of human trafficking. Those two women would routinely show up for sessions with Dunnings with bruises on their bodies — and that, law enforcement has said, means he had to have been aware the women were being forced to perform sexual services against their will.
Another woman has accused Dunnings of enticing her into prostitution after he met her in his office about a child custody dispute. That woman alleges the only time she engaged in commercial sex was with Dunnings. Three other women are alleged to have been paid for sexual services by Dunnings, but whether they were victims of human trafficking is unclear.
“I didn’t understand how you got from engaging the services of a prostitute to human trafficking,” said Brown Clarke after the affidavit information was shared with her. “That makes more sense.”
She and other leaders said they really did not know what to make of the charges, but they were watching carefully. “I want to see what evidence they have,” Brown Clarke said.
Even as the criminal cases against Dunnings work themselves through the justice system, Wriggelsworth said there is more investigation to be done. Last week, he said, investigators in his office as well as in the Attorney General’s Office received numerous tips related to the Dunnings’ involvement with sex for pay. He also said a prisoner at the jail came forward with information as well, but that’s a path he has been down before and it has not been fruitful, Wriggelsworth said.
He discounted suggestions that the investigation to date involved narcotics. City Pulse interviewed a prostitute who said Dunnings and his brother, attorney Steven Dunnings, also charged with engaging the services of a prostitute, smelled of cat urine, often a telltale marker for methamphetamine. “There’s no indication of that,” said Wriggelsworth.
Investigators are trying to determine how Dunnings was able to afford thousands of dollars in expenses for hundreds of sexual trysts. Investigators say he paid $140 to $200 for each encounter and allegedly met with one sex worker as many as three or four times a week. He is also alleged to have showered the workers with gifts, and in at least one situation paid for methadone treatment.
Dunnings makes $132,000 a year, the top salary of an elected county official.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has a new court battle — his wife of 37 years is suing him for divorce in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Cynthia Dunnings, 59, filed the action on Friday, four days after state and county law enforcement authorities announced that her husband had been charged with 14 misdemeanors and one felony related to allegations of his involvement with prostitutes.
She is being represented by Lansing attorney Jeffrey Ray.
The two, who were married on Oct. 22, 1977, have three adult children. Her maiden name is Cynthia Duda.
The complaint, which has been as signed to Judge Janelle Lawless, uses boilerplate language seeking the divorce.
“There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the object of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved,” the complaint reads.
She is seeking temporary spousal support as well as a restraining order preventing Dunnings from “transferring, wasting, or dissipating assets of the marital estate.”
Jackson County judge to preside over Stuart Dunnings cases
JACKSON, MI -- Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren was already assigned to the Stuart Dunnings III case in 55th District Court, and now he'll do the same in 54A District Court.
While Dunnings had a pre-preliminary-exam phone conference Tuesday, March 22, a preliminary exam has not been scheduled, according to court records and a WLNS-TV report.
Judges in Ingham County's 55th District Court in Mason have recused themselves from hearing the case, and the judges from the 54A District Court followed suit, the Lansing State Journal reports.
Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as the Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He has yet to resign from his seat, which is up for re-election this year.
Dunnings' standing as prosecutor remains murky, as state law does not lay the groundwork when it comes to prosecutors who are charged and not yet tried.
The pandering charge is the only potential felony, as a witness alleges the prosecutor induced her into prostitution. Pandering prostitution is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious charge Dunnings faces.
If Dunnings were to resign or leave his seat prior to it expiring, Ingham County Circuit Court judges could select his replacement, the State Journal reports.
In other court news, Dunnings' wife, Cynthia Dunnings, officially filed for divorce Friday, March 18, in Ingham County Circuit Court, according to court records.
City Pulse, a Lansing-based publication, reports Cynthia Dunnings is seeking spousal support and a restraining order to protect "the assets of the marital estate." Dunnings' yearly salary exceeds $132,000, which makes him the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County.
Jackson County judge to preside over Stuart Dunnings cases
JACKSON, MI -- Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren was already assigned to the Stuart Dunnings III case in 55th District Court, and now he'll do the same in 54A District Court.
While Dunnings had a pre-preliminary-exam phone conference Tuesday, March 22, a preliminary exam has not been scheduled, according to court records and a WLNS-TV report.
Judges in Ingham County's 55th District Court in Mason have recused themselves from hearing the case, and the judges from the 54A District Court followed suit, the Lansing State Journal reports.
Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as the Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He has yet to resign from his seat, which is up for re-election this year.
Dunnings' standing as prosecutor remains murky, as state law does not lay the groundwork when it comes to prosecutors who are charged and not yet tried.
The pandering charge is the only potential felony, as a witness alleges the prosecutor induced her into prostitution. Pandering prostitution is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious charge Dunnings faces.
If Dunnings were to resign or leave his seat prior to it expiring, Ingham County Circuit Court judges could select his replacement, the State Journal reports.
In other court news, Dunnings' wife, Cynthia Dunnings, officially filed for divorce Friday, March 18, in Ingham County Circuit Court, according to court records.
City Pulse, a Lansing-based publication, reports Cynthia Dunnings is seeking spousal support and a restraining order to protect "the assets of the marital estate." Dunnings' yearly salary exceeds $132,000, which makes him the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County.
LANSING - Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III on Monday will check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee, according to court records. The reason for treatment is not in the public court files.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings' East Lansing treatment provider sent a letter to the courts indicating that he "is in need of intensive treatment that can best be provided by a residential treatment facility," according to a motion granted Wednesday. That motion also allows out of state travel, which had been prohibited by Dunnings' bond.
The motion didn't disclose the diagnosis Dunnings was seeking treatment for or the facility's name or city, although that information was made available to the judges for review.
Mike Hocking, Dunnings' attorney, couldn't be reached for comment.
The treatment program is 35 days, according to the motion, and the facility is expecting Dunnings' arrival on Monday. His treatment provider said in the letter that the best facility for Dunnings was in Tennessee.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. The charges are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
At a news conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
Stuart Dunnings allowed to leave state, check into residential treatment facility
JACKSON, MI -- Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, who is charged with 15 criminal charges, is being allowed to leave the state and check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee.
Court records show that the case will adjourn for "at least 45 days."
The Lansing State Journal reports Dunnings' regular treatment provider sent a letter indicating to the courts that he "is in need of intensive treatment that can best be provided by a residential treatment facility."
Dunnings originally was prohibited by his bond from leaving Michigan.
Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
The pandering charge is the only potential felony, as a witness alleges the prosecutor induced her into prostitution. Pandering prostitution is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious charge Dunnings faces.
The State Journal reports that the motion didn't publicly disclose what Dunnings was seeking treatment for, or where he was specifically seeking it.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has served as the Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He has yet to resign from his seat, which is up for re-election this year.
His current standing as prosecutor remains murky, as state law doesn't lay the groundwork when it comes to prosecutors who are charged and not yet tried. If Dunnings were to resign or leave his seat prior to it expiring, Ingham County Circuit Court judges could select his replacement.
As for the prosecutor's case, Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren will preside over the cases in 55 and 54A District Court after the respective judges recused themselves.
LANSING — Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III on Monday will check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee, according to court records. The reason for treatment is not in the public court files.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings' East Lansing treatment provider sent a letter to the courts indicating that he "is in need of intensive treatment that can best be provided by a residential treatment facility," according to a motion granted Wednesday that allowed out of state travel, which had been prohibited by Dunnings' bond.
The motion didn't disclose the diagnosis Dunnings was seeking treatment for or the facility's name or city, although that information was made available to the judges for review.
Mike Hocking, Dunnings' attorney, couldn't be reached for comment.
The treatment program is 35 days, according to the motion, and the facility is expecting Dunnings' arrival on Monday. His treatment provider said in the letter that the best facility for Dunnings was in Tennessee.
Dunnings is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty. The charges are the result of a yearlong investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
At a news conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities. Earlier this week McCormick said Dunnings was on indefinite leave.
Dunnings' wife filed for divorce March 18, days after he was charged.
"There has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed," according to the divorce filing, "and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved."
Jeffrey Ray, attorney for Dunnings' wife, told the State Journal on Tuesday that his client "was shocked" at the criminal charges and allegations. He added that Dunnings was served on Tuesday with the divorce papers.
Lansing — A Lansing-area prosecutor charged with prostitution-related crimes has been given approval to travel to a Tennessee treatment center.
The Lansing State Journal says the name of the treatment center is not disclosed in court records. Nor do the records describe the treatment.
The newspaper says Stuart Dunnings III is expected to arrive Monday. The program lasts 35 days.
Dunnings, the Ingham County prosecutor, is charged with hiring prostitutes in three counties. He’s also charged with enticing a woman to become a prostitute, which is a felony.
The 63-year-old Democrat has been prosecutor in the capital area for nearly 20 years.
TUESDAY March 29 —Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III submitted his letter of resignation this morning, effective July 2.
The letter was sent Ingham County Circuit Chief Judge Janelle Lawless, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, and Ingham County Board of Comissioners Chairman Kara Hope.
Until then, Dunnings will be on a medical leave. Last week his lawyers sought permission for him to attend a treatment program in Tennessee. That program is a 35-day inpatient program. What specifically he is seeking treatment for is unclear.
Dunnings is facing criminal charges related to prostitution. He was charged earlier this month with 10 misdemeanor counts of engaging the services of a prostitute, four misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty and one felony count of pandering. The charges came after an extensive investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department. That investigation was triggered by a federal grand jury investigation into trafficking in Lansing.
Dunnnings also said in the letter he will not seek re-election to the post of prosecutor, a political position he has held since 1997 after winning a 1996 election.
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III to resign
LANSING - Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III will resign from his position effective July 2, according to a letter sent to the county.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty.
In the letter, which is dated Tuesday, Dunnings said he'll be on medical leave from his job until July 1, and that he won't seek re-election as the incumbent.
"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney," he wrote in the letter.
Dunnings was arrested March 14. During a press conference that day announcing the charges, both Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and Attorney General Bill Schuette called for Dunnings to resign.
"I think it's something we all felt had to be coming … with this cloud over his head," Wriggelsworth said Tuesday. "It's best for the people of Ingham County and his staff."
Wriggelsworth added that it didn't matter to him whether Dunnings resigned effective Tuesday or in July.
Kara Hope, chairperson of the county Board of Commissioners, told the State Journal earlier this month that she thought Dunnings should resign if the allegations against him were true. She said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the entire county board. A message was left Tuesday afternoon seeking comment from Hope.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.
A message was left seeking comment from Mike Hocking, Dunnings' attorney.
Court dates for Dunnings' criminal cases were pushed back after the judges allowed his bond to be amended to allow for out of state travel. Dunnings was set to check himself into a 35-day residential treatment facility in Tennessee on Monday, according to court records. The reason for treatment is not in the public court files.
According to state statute, Dunnings' replacement will be appointed by Ingham County Circuit Court judges. Chief Judge Janelle Lawless is out of the office this week and could not be reached for comment.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities, which is allowed by statute. Last week McCormick said Dunnings was on indefinite leave.
As of Tuesday, Lansing attorney Patrick O'Keefe, who is a former county prosecutor, is the only person to file paperwork seeking election to the position. The filing deadline for candidates for the August primary election is April 19.
The charges against Dunnings are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
At the news conference announcing the charges, Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
With an annual salary of more than $132,000, Dunnings is the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County government.
Dunnings' wife filed for divorce March 18, days after he was charged.
Stuart Dunnings' Letter of Resignation/Medical Leave
Embattled Ingham County Prosecutor Dunnings to resign
Detroit Free Press
March 29, 2016
http://on.freep.com/1ZIOTcj
LANSING - Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III will resign from his position effective July 2, according to a letter sent to the county.
Dunnings, 63, is facing 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty.
In the letter, which is dated Tuesday, Dunnings said he'll be on medical leave from his job until July 1, and that he won't seek re-election as the incumbent.
"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney," he wrote in the letter.
Dunnings was arrested March 14. During a press conference that day announcing the charges, both Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and Attorney General Bill Schuette called for Dunnings to resign.
"I think it's something we all felt had to be coming … with this cloud over his head," Wriggelsworth said Tuesday. "It's best for the people of Ingham County and his staff."
Wriggelsworth added that it didn't matter to him whether Dunnings resigned effective Tuesday or in July.
Kara Hope, chairperson of the county Board of Commissioners, told the State Journal earlier this month that she thought Dunnings should resign if the allegations against him were true. She said she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the entire county board. A message was left Tuesday afternoon seeking comment from Hope.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.
A message was left seeking comment from Mike Hocking, Dunnings' attorney.
Court dates for Dunnings' criminal cases were pushed back after the judges allowed his bond to be amended to allow for out of state travel. Dunnings was set to check himself into a 35-day residential treatment facility in Tennessee on Monday, according to court records. The reason for treatment is not in the public court files.
According to state statute, Dunnings' replacement will be appointed by Ingham County Circuit Court judges. Chief Judge Janelle Lawless is out of the office this week and could not be reached for comment.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities, which is allowed by statute. Last week McCormick said Dunnings was on indefinite leave.
As of Tuesday, Lansing attorney Patrick O'Keefe, who is a former county prosecutor, is the only person to file paperwork seeking election to the position. The filing deadline for candidates for the August primary election is April 19.
The charges against Dunnings are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
At the news conference announcing the charges, Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
With an annual salary of more than $132,000, Dunnings is the highest-paid elected official in Ingham County government.
Dunnings' wife filed for divorce March 18, days after he was charged.
Ingham County Prosecutor Dunnings plans to resign in wake of prostitution charges
Lansing — Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, who faces multiple criminal charges of engaging with prostitutes, has placed himself on three months paid medical leave and plans to resign from office July 2.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Ingham County officials, Dunnings said he would be taking a medical leave of absence until July 1 and then tender his resignation from office the following the day.
Dunnings, 63, has been off the job for two weeks after being arrested and charged with 15 criminal counts for allegedly having sex with hundreds of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015.
Attorney General Bill Schuette also has charged Dunnings with one count of pandering — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison — for convincing one woman to become a prostitute.
Because he is a countywide elected official, Dunnings is free to take as much paid time off as he wants, Ingham County Commission Chairwoman Kara Hope said.
“He can call it medical leave or whatever he wants and he can collect his paycheck and commissioners are powerless to do anything about it,” Hope said Tuesday.
Dunnings, a Democrat, is paid $132,075 annually and would collect more than $33,000 over the three-month medical leave period he intends to take.
“I don’t know why he’s doing it that way,” Hope said of Dunnings’ delayed resignation.
In addition to resigning on July 2, Dunnings said he won’t be seeking re-election this year after nearly 20 years in office.
“This will further notify you that I will not be filing the necessary paperwork to run as an incumbent for the office of Prosecuting Attorney,” Dunnings wrote in the letter to Hope, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless. “It has been an honor a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney.”
After Dunnings resigns, the Ingham County Circuit Court judges will get to select an interim prosecutor to serve out the remainder of Dunnings’ term this year, Hope said.
Dunnings recently checked himself into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for an unspecified reasons, according to court filings. A federal probe of a human trafficking ring led state and county investigators to Dunnings and his brother, Steven Dunnings, a Lansing-area attorney charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
Hope said she looks forward to Dunnings leaving office “so we can move on.”
Byrum and Schuette’s spokeswoman both declined to comment Tuesday on Dunnings’ resignation.
Stuart Dunnings informs Ingham County he is resigning as prosecutor
Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, shown handcuffed at the Ingham County jail on video, appears for an arraignment at a courtroom in Lansing, Mich., Monday, March 14, 2016. Dunnings, who has been the top law enforcer in Michigan's capital area for nearly 20 years, was charged Monday with hiring prostitutes hundreds of times and committing related crimes, including paying for sex with a woman who wanted help in a child custody dispute.
JACKSON, MI -- Stuart Dunnings III informed Ingham County officials he is resigning as prosecutor effective July 2, according to a letter sent to the county.
Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 261/2 years in prison.
The pandering charge is the only potential felony, as a witness alleges the prosecutor induced her into prostitution. Pandering prostitution is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious charge Dunnings faces.
In the letter, Dunnings states that he will take medical leave through July 1 of this year.
"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney," he wrote.
Dunnings was allowed to leave the state and check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee. It has not been made clear what the disgraced prosecutor is seeking treatment for as he was originally prohibited by his bond from leaving Michigan.
The 63-year-old, a Democrat, has served as the Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. In the concise statement, Dunnings says that he will not file the paperwork to seek re-election as the incumbent.
As for the prosecutor's actual case, Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren will preside over the cases in 55 and 54A District Court after the respective judges recused themselves.
Six witnesses provided affidavits, which detail the husband and father of three's alleged abuse of power and relationships with prostitutes.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office said the 2015 FBI investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings. Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
Human trafficking can't be ignored
Monroe Evening News
March 29, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
An ugly side of Lansing was exposed last week — a side we ignore because it often happens in the shadows and makes us uncomfortable.
Human trafficking "is alive and well in Michigan," says Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
While last week's arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III on charges of pandering and engaging with prostitutes has garnered national attention, trafficking and prostitution are not new phenomena.
In 2013 and 2014, there were 716 arrests for prostitution and human trafficking-related crimes in Michigan.
"I assure you, it's not a victimless crime," says Dr. LaClaire Bouknight, a Lansing physician and chairman of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking Alliance.
It's also not a crime that can be ignored.
Michigan recognizes this and has been addressing it for years.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, when he took office in 2011, established a special unit to prosecute human traffickers.
In 2014, the Legislature passed and Gov. Rick Snyder signed a 21-bill package described at the time as among the toughest in the nation. Included in the package was the formation of the Michigan Human Trafficking Commission within the Attorney General's Office.
Local 6000, United Auto Workers, which represents thousands of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, is working with the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human trafficking among those with whom they come in contact.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline took more than 700 calls from Michigan in 2015 and reported 152 cases of trafficking. That was the eighth-highest in the nation — and a strong reminder there is work yet to be done.
More and better training for educators, physicians, first responders and others to spot potential signs of human trafficking would be valuable. Stronger reporting on human trafficking cases would help elevate the crime's profile as one that will be prosecuted.
The intense scrutiny of the trafficking and prostitution climate in greater Lansing after the arrest of a longtime prosecutor for allegedly breaking the law he swore to uphold could help raise the public consciousness of an issue too many people ignore.
"The reason why it's hiding is because people don't want to see that," said Lansing-area filmmaker Laura Swanson, who is producing a documentary on trafficking.
It's time to see the traffickers. It's time to help trafficking victims. And it's time to demand steep penalties for those convicted of these crimes.
What other editors say
Keep fighting against trafficking
Petoskey News
March 30, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
An ugly side of Lansing was exposed this week. A side we ignore because it often happens in the shadows and makes us uncomfortable.
Human trafficking “is alive and well in Michigan,” says Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.
While the Monday arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III on charges of pandering and engaging with prostitutes has garnered national attention, trafficking and prostitution are not new phenomena.
In 2013 and 2014, there were 716 arrests for prostitution and human trafficking-related crimes in Michigan.
“I assure you, it’s not a victimless crime,” says Dr. LaClaire Bouknight, a Lansing physician and chair of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking Alliance.
It’s also not a crime that can be ignored.
Michigan recognizes this, and has been addressing it for years.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, when he took office in 2011, established a special unit to prosecute human traffickers.
In 2014, the Legislature passed and Gov. Rick Snyder signed a 21-bill package described at the time as among the toughest in the nation. Included in the package was the formation of the Michigan Human Trafficking Commission within the Attorney General’s Office.
UAW Local 6000, which represents thousands of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, is working with the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human trafficking among those with whom they come in contact.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline took more than 700 calls from Michigan in 2015 and reported 152 cases of trafficking. That was the eighth-highest in the nation. And a strong reminder there is work yet to be done.
More and better training for educators, physicians, first responders and others to spot potential signs of human trafficking would be valuable. Stronger reporting on human trafficking cases would help elevate the crime’s profile as one that will be prosecuted.
The intense scrutiny of the trafficking and prostitution climate in Greater Lansing after the arrest of a long-time prosecutor for allegedly breaking the law he swore to uphold could help raise the public consciousness of an issue too many people ignore.
“The reason why it’s hiding is because people don’t want to see that,” said Lansing-area filmmaker Laura Swanson, who is producing a documentary on trafficking.
It’s time to see the traffickers. It’s time to help trafficking victims. And it’s time to demand steep penalties for those convicted of these crimes.
Prosecutor in hooker case to resign in July
Detroit News
March 30, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Lansing – Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, who faces multiple criminal charges of engaging with prostitutes, has placed himself on three months paid medical leave and plans to resign from office July 2.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Ingham County officials, Dunnings said he would be taking a medical leave of absence until July 1 and then tender his resignation from office the following the day.
Dunnings, 63, has been off the job for two weeks after being arrested and charged with 15 criminal counts for allegedly having sex with hundreds of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015.
Attorney General Bill Schuette also has charged Dunnings with one count of pandering – a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison – for convincing one woman to become a prostitute.
Because he is a countywide elected official, Dunnings is free to take as much paid time off as he wants, Ingham County Commission Chairwoman Kara Hope said.
"He can call it medical leave or whatever he wants and he can collect his paycheck and commissioners are powerless to do anything about it," Hope said Tuesday.
Dunnings, a Democrat, is paid $132,075 annually and would collect more than $33,000 over the three-month medical leave period he intends to take.
"I don't know why he's doing it that way," Hope said of Dunnings' delayed resignation.
In addition to resigning on July 2, Dunnings said he won't be seeking re-election this year after nearly 20 years in office.
"This will further notify you that I will not be filing the necessary paperwork to run as an incumbent for the office of Prosecuting Attorney," Dunnings wrote in the letter to Hope, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless. "It has been an honor a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney."
After Dunnings resigns, the Ingham County Circuit Court judges will get to select an interim prosecutor to serve out the remainder of Dunnings' term this year, Hope said.
Dunnings recently checked himself into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for an unspecified reasons, according to court filings. A federal probe of a human trafficking ring led state and county investigators to Dunnings and his brother, Steven Dunnings, a Lansing-area attorney charged with two counts of engaging prostitution.
Hope said she looks forward to Dunnings leaving office "so we can move on."
Byrum and Schuette's spokeswoman both declined to comment Tuesday on Dunnings' resignation.
Ingham County prosecutor resigning
Ann Arbor News
March 31, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com/
Stuart Dunnings III informed Ingham County officials he is resigning as prosecutor effective July 2, according to a letter sent to the county.
Dunnings faces 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes. He faces 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
If found guilty on all charges, the 63-year-old faces 26 1/2 years in prison.
The pandering charge is the only potential felony, as a witness alleges the prosecutor induced her into prostitution. Pandering prostitution is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and represents the most serious charge Dunnings faces.
In the letter, Dunnings says he will take medical leave through July 1.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as Prosecuting Attorney,” he wrote.
Dunnings was allowed to leave the state and check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee. It has not been made clear what the prosecutor is seeking treatment for, as he was originally prohibited by his bond from leaving Michigan.
Dunnings, 63, a Democrat, has served as the Ingham County prosecutor since 1997.
He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. In the concise statement, Dunnings said he will not file the paperwork to seek reelection as the incumbent.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office said the 2015 FBI investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings.
Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
Sexual addiction Treatment for Dunnings also a crafty legal strategy
There are two ways to look at Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III’s departure to an unspecified residential treatment center in Tennessee.
The first is that he clearly needs help with obviously destructive behavior. If the charges hold — and very likely they will — Dunnings has engaged in hundreds of illicit sexual encounters, an incredible lapse for such a public figure. If this isn't what he's seeking treatment for, it ought to be.
Frankly, it's amazing that he wasn't caught sooner.
The second is that Dunnings remains a crafty lawyer already planning for what will likely be a plea bargain on multiple prostitution and pandering charges. For those with resources — money or insurance — the “seeking treatment” tactic is widely practiced as a way to lessen fines or jail time. It's particularly prevalent with celebrities. Robert Downey Jr. is arrested for drugs and heads to a clinic. Golfer John Daly faces alcohol assault charges and soon turns up at a rehab center. Think Lindsey Lohan.
For Dunnings, establishing an “I'm in treatment defense” is no less calculating than his very public get-tough on prostitution proclamations. Who knew he was such an expert? One of the oddities in this case — and, of course, there are many — is the ease with which Dunnings has managed to delay court proceedings so that he can seek out treatment. Prosecutors usually aren't so willing to let abusers enroll in programs to buttress their defense. Call it professional courtesy. The Dunnings case is unfolding in Jackson County because of the obvious conflicts with the Ingham County legal system.
His treatment program notwithstanding, Dunnings will have difficulty shedding his past as he deals with his arrest and the immediate and longer-term consequences.
The very notion of sex-addiction treatment has a hollow ring. Unlike drug, alcohol and even gambling, sex addiction seems more a punch line than a serious condition.
Dunnings, who resigned as Ingham County prosecutor last week, effective July 2, has not identified the facility in Tennessee where he enrolled in a 35- day treatment program. But there is a prominent rehabilitation center about 45 miles west of Nashville called The Ranch that offers a 35-day men's sexual addiction program.
Its program for sexual addiction reflects current thinking about treatment options and offers insight into a problem that is largely unknown to most people.
According to Robert Weiss, a clinical psychotherapist and educator affiliated with The Ranch, treating sexual addiction differs from treatments for other substance abuse.
In an essay titled “Sex Addiction Treatment: Addressing Hypersexual Behavior in a Rehab Setting,” he noted the challenge treating an addiction.
“Whereas abstinence from all mood altering chemicals is the goal in nearly all forms of drug and alcohol treatment, sexual sobriety involves an ongoing commitment to behavior change but not long-term sexual abstinence.
“Much like an eating disorder — where the person with an eating problem still needs to eat, just in a manner that is healthy for that individual—recovering sex addicts work in treatment to co-define (with their treatment team, in written contracts) which of their sexual behaviors are healthy and which of those behaviors work against their individual life, career, family, and relationship priorities.”
Weiss adds that it is a common misconception that addicts in treatment will be fully cured, never again to struggle with problematic sexual behavior. The more likely outcome is an understanding of the difference between appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior, acknowledgment of the consequences, reduction of denial and the development of strategies to prevent relapse and aid lifelong recovery.
Sex addicts entering treatment programs undergo a series of psychiatric, physical and bio-psycho-social-sexual assessments. Next comes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and group therapy to teach addicts ways to deal with compulsive sexual thoughts and behaviors using sponsors, meetings, exercise or other diversions, Weiss writes.
Based on the types of charges leveled against Dunnings, he seems to fit the abuser profile.
The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, a nonprofit multidisciplinary organization dedicated to scholarship, training, and resources for promoting sexual health and overcoming problematic sexual behaviors, lists seven warnings signs of sexual addiction.
The listing includes:
– Multiple sexual partners.
– Cybersex.
– Unsafe sex.
–Frequent one-night stands.
– The use of prostitutes.
–Feelings of shame and guilt.
– Unable to resist impulses to engage in extreme sexual acts.
Many of these turned up in the charges and police reports.
The year-long investigation that snared Dunnings included charges that he used websites like Backpage and Escort Value to solicit prostitutes, paying for sex, often three or four times a week. He is accused of coercing one of his victims into a for-pay sexual relationship after she approached him for help with a child custody issue. During a post-arrest news conference staged by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wigglesworth, there were allegations of a video of one of Dunnings' encounters, that he told one prostitute to call him at his office and other charges of willful neglect of duty for failing to report crimes.
Reckless and destructive. It's the behavior of someone who needs help, but also needs to pay for his crimes.
Judges set process for naming Dunnings' replacement
LANSING - Ingham County's Circuit Court judges have agreed upon a tentative plan for appointing a new prosecuting attorney following the resignation letter of Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings, 63, notified the county by letter March 29 of his plans to resign from office effective July 2.
The letter was sent two weeks after Dunnings was arraigned on 15 criminal charges in three counties, including one felony in Ingham County that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He is charged with pandering, engaging in the services of a prostitute and willful neglect of duty.
Circuit Court Chief Judge Janelle Lawless said the opening for the county's prosecuting attorney will be posted soon and the deadline for applicants to submit interest letters or resumes is May 1. The judges will meet the second week of May to review the candidates, she said, and then decide the next steps in the process.
Lawless said the plan is to make the appointment well before July to give the candidate selected and the office adequate time to prepare.
The judges didn't set the procedure beyond the review of applicants, Lawless said, because "there might be one person who’s the glaring and obvious choice," meaning several interviews aren't necessary, or the judges might want to interview all the candidates.
Lawless said she doesn't think the interviews, if there are any, will be open to the public.
The judges haven't limited their search to applicants interested in seeking the office for the new term, which begins Jan. 1, she said. The judge added that there wasn't a discussion about a preference between internal or external candidates for the appointment.
"The other honest concern about it is this could basically be a six-month appointment," she said, referring to the fact that whoever is appointed to take over the office in July might not be elected in November.
The person who is appointed will take over the office for the final six months of Dunnings' term. As of Wednesday afternoon, four county residents have filed to appear on the primary ballot.
She said the appointee will have to be someone capable of taking on a new commitment for six months, which could include changing where they work, without the guarantee of remaining in that position next year.
Dunnings has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick has assumed his responsibilities, which is allowed by state statute.
The charges against Dunnings are the result of a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office. Information gathered during a federal human trafficking case prompted the local investigation, officials said.
At the news conference announcing the charges, Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over the past several years and used the power of his office to coerce one woman to be paid for sex.
Stuart Dunnings' prostitution rumors 10 years old, sheriff says
LANSING – Rumors and allegations about Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III’s alleged involvement with prostitutes began at least 10 years ago and police had seen Dunnings in public with women who were not his wife long before Attorney General Bill Schuette announced 15 criminal charges against Dunnings on March 14, Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said in an interview Thursday.
But local investigators’ follow-up inquiries into past innuendos about Dunnings, the county’s elected prosecutor since 1997, never yielded any solid information, Wriggelsworth said. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when federal investigators working on a Lansing-area human trafficking case brought information to his department, that the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office could launch a full investigation into the prosecutor.
By the time Dunnings was arrested last month at a Lansing coffee shop and Schuette filed 14 misdemeanors and one felony charge against the 63-year-old, Dunnings had paid at least six different women for sex hundreds times over several years, the Sheriff’s Office alleges in court records.
Dunnings faces up to 20 years in prison on the felony charge, pandering, because one of those women was not a prostitute until Dunnings used the power of his office to coax her into being paid for sex, according to court records.
Dunnings, who is currently on medical leave from his job as prosecutor and reportedly in an unnamed treatment facility in Tennessee, has not pleaded on the charges. One of his attorneys, Lansing’s Mike Hocking, could not be reached for comment. Another of his attorneys, Detroit-based Vincent Toussaint, declined to comment. Dunnings has announced he will resign on July 2.
But years before the arrest, the press conference at Schuette’s office and the national headlines, there was “locker room talk” that Ingham County’s prosecutor was in the sex trade, Wriggelsworth said Thursday. The talk came from people arrested on criminal charges authorized by Dunnings’ office and from individuals caught up in drug raids, the sheriff said.
“I’ve known Stuart personally — great guy, I liked him — so I didn’t take a lot of stock in it just because of the situation that people don’t like getting arrested, they don’t like getting warrants against (them) and so they would say bad things about Stuart Dunnings,” the sheriff said.
Wriggelsworth said his investigators followed up on much of the talk, but Dunnings’ accusers “never could give us anything. It was just chit-chat. It’s just, ‘We hear it from here. We heard somebody talking about it over there.’ It wasn’t something that you could stick a fork in, you just couldn’t.”
Law enforcement — Wriggelsworth wouldn’t specify who or from which agency — saw Dunnings in public with women over the years, though they didn’t know the women were prostitutes, the sheriff said. Lansing Police Department Chief Michael Yankowski said he wasn’t aware of any officers seeing Dunnings with women.
Wriggelsworth said “the word on the street was prevalent,” but it isn’t clear how widespread such accusations were. Although Dunnings lives and works in Lansing and, according to court records, most of the hotels he visited with prostitutes were within the city limits, Yankowski and two of his predecessors said they’d never heard any such rumors.
Yankowski said his agency “had heard rumors about some prostitutes saying that they had connections within the criminal justice system,” but none ever named Dunnings specifically and, like the tips given to the Sheriff’s Office, none of them could ever be substantiated enough to launch a formal investigation.
He said the Sheriff’s Office came to LPD late in the Dunnings investigation and an LPD employee was able to provide names as possible sources of information, which “helped connect some dots.” Yankowski said that was the first he'd heard of the allegations against the prosecutor.
“Through the years, prostitutes and confidential informants say a lot of things, and you have to be very careful to substantiate those allegations,” Yankowski said.
Yankowski's predecessors, Teresa Szymanski, LPD chief from 2010 to 2013, and Mark Alley, LPD chief from 2000 to 2010, also said they'd not heard any rumors against Dunnings.
“I never heard any chatter; I have no idea what Sheriff Wriggelsworth is talking about,” Szymanski said last month.
“I never heard a rumor, and to my knowledge, there was no formal or informal investigations,” Alley said Thursday. “My guess is if there had been one, I probably would have been made aware of it ... All of my dealings with Stuart Dunnings were all very professional. I never got any inclination that there were any issues with him.”
Many people in the county, including Dunnings’ friends, expressed disbelief at the charges.
“Everybody’s surprised,” Lansing real estate developer Joel Ferguson, a longtime Dunnings friend, said late last month when asked about the case. “I’m surprised. Let’s let him go on trial instead of trying him in the newspaper.”
About a year ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation picked up information on Dunnings — it isn’t yet clear what kind of information — as agents built a case against Lansing’s Tyrone Smith, who pleaded guilty last fall to multiple charges after investigators said he recruited several women, including a 17-year-old, into an interstate sex operation.
The information from the Smith case that the FBI brought to Wriggelsworth’s office was the first piece of information investigators knew “was gonna go somewhere,” the sheriff said Thursday.
After several months of investigation, including surveillance of the prosecutor, the sheriff approached Schuette’s office. Several more months of investigation followed before Schuette filed charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Looking back on the years of chatter, Wriggelsworth said his agency’s discoveries “crystallized all those conversations that people have had over the years … It just came to a head now.”
The investigation, in partnership with the FBI, continues, and Wriggelsworth said they’ve picked up solid information through a tip line established by Schuette’s office. He wouldn’t rule out the possibility of additional charges or charges being filed in federal court.
Asked if he regrets that the investigation couldn’t come together sooner, Wriggelsworth said he couldn’t answer.
“You could what-if this forever,” he said.
Dunnings investigation broadened to past criminal cases
LANSING - A month after Stuart Dunnings III was arraigned on 15 prostitution-related charges, the investigation has broadened to include his office’s handling of some past criminal cases, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Thursday.
That fact was one of several new details of the Dunnings investigation that Wriggelsworth revealed in an interview with the State Journal, including the fact that investigators know Dunnings used his position as prosecuting attorney to influence cases connected to the women authorities say he paid for sex hundreds of times.
"There was an advantage for them because he would make life a little easier for them if they were on probation, for example, or those kinds of things," Wriggelsworth said when asked about the allegation in court records that Dunnings told some of the women he was the county prosecutor.
The FBI is continuing to assist with the investigation.
Dunnings is facing a total of 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. The most serious is a felony charge of pandering for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money, according to court records.
"The implications it had on this community, that was what probably was the most shocking thing to me," Wriggelsworth said of the investigation of a well-respected, long-serving county prosecutor. "Prostitutes haven’t changed since before Christ was born. It's pretty much the same kind of seedy business."
As investigators collected new information, the investigation broadened to include how the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office handled some criminal cases, Wriggelsworth said. He added that some of that information came through the tip line created for the investigation and publicized by authorities.
"I wouldn't describe them as a lot," he said when talking about the calls to the tip line. "But we've got some good ones."
His office will continue to investigate tips and send any additional investigative reports to the Attorney General’s Office to decide whether to add new charges, Wriggelsworth said.
"Maybe they will, maybe they won't," he added.
Dunnings' brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings, was also charged as part of the same investigation.
Prior to Wriggelsworth's comments Thursday, the basis for the pandering charge was the only public allegation that Dunnings used his position to either find women or influence a case.
The woman Dunnings allegedly convinced to exchange sex for money told investigators she didn’t initially accept Dunnings’ offer, but later did because she felt she had no choice, that it could help her child custody case and out of fear that he might cause her problems, according to court records.
However, the Sheriff’s Office alleges in an affidavit that, when one of the women was arrested on a drug charge, Dunnings gave her mother money to post bail. The affidavit also alleges Dunnings had one of the women call him at his office.
When asked if the investigation includes looking into how Dunnings might have used his position of power related to the alleged crimes, Wriggelsworth said “it’s all on the table.”
The Dunnings investigation grew from a previously prosecuted sex trafficking investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wriggelsworth said.
He said the FBI is still working with his office on the Dunnings investigation, and while they didn’t feel there was a federal case before Dunnings was charged locally, Wriggelsworth didn’t rule out the possibility of federal charges coming later.
In an email, FBI spokeswoman Jill Washburn said they aren’t the lead investigating agency and as a result "it is not something that we would offer comment on."
Ingham County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick said she has "no knowledge of any current investigation by the sheriff or the Attorney General" or the FBI and investigators have "absolutely not" spoken with her about how the office handled previous cases.
Mike Hocking, one of Dunnings’ attorneys, didn’t return a message seeking comment, and Vincent Toussaint, another one of Dunnings' attorneys, declined to comment.
Dunnings has announced he will resign July 2, and the Circuit Court judges — statutorily responsible for appointing his replacement — plan to name his successor well before he leaves. Dunnings checked himself into a 35-day residential treatment program in Tennessee on March 28, according to court records, and will be on medical leave until July 1.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and McCormick has assumed his responsibilities, which is allowed by state statute.
Wriggelsworth, a Democrat in his 50th year in law enforcement, dismissed the notion that the investigation was politically motivated, noting that his office took the case to Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette.
When Wriggelsworth’s investigators initially brought information to him, he told them to handle the Dunnings investigation like they would any other, although it would require additional sensitivity because of the high-profile subject.
"I took an oath to do my job," he said. "Stuart Dunnings took an oath to do his job. And the chips will fall where they may, and that’s how I look at it."
Sheriff: Stuart Dunnings' prostitution rumors 10 years old
LANSING – Rumors and allegations about Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III’s alleged involvement with prostitutes began at least 10 years ago and police had seen Dunnings in public with women who were not his wife long before Attorney General Bill Schuette announced 15 criminal charges against Dunnings on March 14, Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said in an interview Thursday.
But local investigators’ follow-up inquiries into past innuendos about Dunnings, the county’s elected prosecutor since 1997, never yielded any solid information, Wriggelsworth said. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when federal investigators working on a Lansing-area human trafficking case brought information to his department, that the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office could launch a full investigation into the prosecutor.
By the time Dunnings was arrested last month at a Lansing coffee shop and Schuette filed 14 misdemeanors and one felony charge against the 63-year-old, Dunnings had paid at least six different women for sex hundreds times over several years, the Sheriff’s Office alleges in court records.
Dunnings faces up to 20 years in prison on the felony charge, pandering, because one of those women was not a prostitute until Dunnings used the power of his office to coax her into being paid for sex, according to court records.
Dunnings, who is currently on medical leave from his job as prosecutor and reportedly in an unnamed treatment facility in Tennessee, has not pleaded on the charges. One of his attorneys, Lansing’s Mike Hocking, could not be reached for comment. Another of his attorneys, Detroit-based Vincent Toussaint, declined to comment. Dunnings has announced he will resign on July 2.
But years before the arrest, the press conference at Schuette’s office and the national headlines, there was “locker room talk” that Ingham County’s prosecutor was in the sex trade, Wriggelsworth said Thursday. The talk came from people arrested on criminal charges authorized by Dunnings’ office and from individuals caught up in drug raids, the sheriff said.
“I’ve known Stuart personally — great guy, I liked him — so I didn’t take a lot of stock in it just because of the situation that people don’t like getting arrested, they don’t like getting warrants against (them) and so they would say bad things about Stuart Dunnings,” the sheriff said.
Wriggelsworth said his investigators followed up on much of the talk, but Dunnings’ accusers “never could give us anything. It was just chit-chat. It’s just, ‘We hear it from here. We heard somebody talking about it over there.’ It wasn’t something that you could stick a fork in, you just couldn’t.”
Law enforcement — Wriggelsworth wouldn’t specify who or from which agency — saw Dunnings in public with women over the years, though they didn’t know the women were prostitutes, the sheriff said. Lansing Police Department Chief Michael Yankowski
said he wasn’t aware of any officers seeing Dunnings with women.
Wriggelsworth said “the word on the street was prevalent,” but it isn’t clear how widespread such accusations were. Although Dunnings lives and works in Lansing and, according to court records, most of the hotels he visited with prostitutes were within the city limits, Yankowski and two of his predecessors said they’d never heard any such rumors.
Yankowski said his agency “had heard rumors about some prostitutes saying that they had connections within the criminal justice system,” but none ever named Dunnings specifically and, like the tips given to the Sheriff’s Office, none of them could ever be substantiated enough to launch a formal investigation.
He said the Sheriff’s Office came to LPD late in the Dunnings investigation and an LPD employee was able to provide names as possible sources of information, which “helped connect some dots.” Yankowski said that was the first he'd heard of the allegations against the prosecutor.
“Through the years, prostitutes and confidential informants say a lot of things, and you have to be very careful to substantiate those allegations,” Yankowski said.
Yankowski's predecessors, Teresa Szymanski, LPD chief from 2010 to 2013, and Mark Alley, LPD chief from 2000 to 2010, also said they'd not heard any rumors against Dunnings.
“I never heard any chatter; I have no idea what Sheriff Wriggelsworth is talking about,” Szymanski said last month.
“I never heard a rumor, and to my knowledge, there was no formal or informal investigations,” Alley said Thursday. “My guess is if there had been one, I probably would have been made aware of it ... All of my dealings with Stuart Dunnings were all very professional. I never got any inclination that there were any issues with him.”
Many people in the county, including Dunnings’ friends, expressed disbelief at the charges.
“Everybody’s surprised,” Lansing real estate developer Joel Ferguson, a longtime Dunnings friend, said late last month when asked about the case. “I’m surprised. Let’s let him go on trial instead of trying him in the newspaper.”
About a year ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation picked up information on Dunnings — it isn’t yet clear what kind of information — as agents built a case against Lansing’s Tyrone Smith, who pleaded guilty last fall to multiple charges after investigators said he recruited several women, including a 17-year-old, into an interstate sex operation.
The information from the Smith case that the FBI brought to Wriggelsworth’s office was the first piece of information investigators knew “was gonna go somewhere,” the sheriff said Thursday.
After several months of investigation, including surveillance of the prosecutor, the sheriff approached Schuette’s office. Several more months of investigation followed before Schuette filed charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Looking back on the years of chatter, Wriggelsworth said his agency’s discoveries “crystallized all those conversations that people have had over the years … It just came to a head now.”
The investigation, in partnership with the FBI, continues, and Wriggelsworth said they’ve picked up solid information through a tip line established by Schuette’s office. He wouldn’t rule out the possibility of additional charges or charges being filed in federal court.
Asked if he regrets that the investigation couldn’t come together sooner, Wriggelsworth said he couldn’t answer.
“You could what-if this forever,” he said.
Dunnings investigation broadened to past criminal cases
LANSING - A month after Stuart Dunnings III was arraigned on 15 prostitution-related charges, the investigation has broadened to include his office’s handling of some past criminal cases, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Thursday.
That fact was one of several new details of the Dunnings investigation that Wriggelsworth revealed in an interview with the State Journal, including the fact that investigators know Dunnings used his position as prosecuting attorney to influence cases connected to the women authorities say he paid for sex hundreds of times.
"There was an advantage for them because he would make life a little easier for them if they were on probation, for example, or those kinds of things," Wriggelsworth said when asked about the allegation in court records that Dunnings told some of the women he was the county prosecutor.
The FBI is continuing to assist with the investigation.
Dunnings is facing a total of 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. The most serious is a felony charge of pandering for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him for money, according to court records.
"The implications it had on this community, that was what probably was the most shocking thing to me," Wriggelsworth said of the investigation of a well-respected, long-serving county prosecutor. "Prostitutes haven’t changed since before Christ was born. It's pretty much the same kind of seedy business."
As investigators collected new information, the investigation broadened to include how the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office handled some criminal cases, Wriggelsworth said. He added that some of that information came through the tip line created for the investigation and publicized by authorities.
"I wouldn't describe them as a lot," he said when talking about the calls to the tip line. "But we've got some good ones."
His office will continue to investigate tips and send any additional investigative reports to the Attorney General’s Office to decide whether to add new charges, Wriggelsworth said.
"Maybe they will, maybe they won't," he added.
Dunnings' brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings, was also charged as part of the same investigation.
Prior to Wriggelsworth's comments Thursday, the basis for the pandering charge was the only public allegation that Dunnings used his position to either find women or influence a case.
The woman Dunnings allegedly convinced to exchange sex for money told investigators she didn’t initially accept Dunnings’ offer, but later did because she felt she had no choice, that it could help her child custody case and out of fear that he might cause her problems, according to court records.
However, the Sheriff’s Office alleges in an affidavit that, when one of the women was arrested on a drug charge, Dunnings gave her mother money to post bail. The affidavit also alleges Dunnings had one of the women call him at his office.
When asked if the investigation includes looking into how Dunnings might have used his position of power related to the alleged crimes, Wriggelsworth said “it’s all on the table.”
The Dunnings investigation grew from a previously prosecuted sex trafficking investigation by the Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wriggelsworth said.
He said the FBI is still working with his office on the Dunnings investigation, and while they didn’t feel there was a federal case before Dunnings was charged locally, Wriggelsworth didn’t rule out the possibility of federal charges coming later.
In an email, FBI spokeswoman Jill Washburn said they aren’t the lead investigating agency and as a result "it is not something that we would offer comment on."
Schuette: Dunnings paid for sex 'hundreds of times'
Ingham County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McCormick said she has "no knowledge of any current investigation by the sheriff or the Attorney General" or the FBI and investigators have "absolutely not" spoken with her about how the office handled previous cases.
Mike Hocking, one of Dunnings’ attorneys, didn’t return a message seeking comment, and Vincent Toussaint, another one of Dunnings' attorneys, declined to comment.
Dunnings has announced he will resign July 2, and the Circuit Court judges — statutorily responsible for appointing his replacement — plan to name his successor well before he leaves. Dunnings checked himself into a 35-day residential treatment program in Tennessee on March 28, according to court records, and will be on medical leave until July 1.
Dunnings, a Democrat, has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997. He was last elected in 2012. He is free on bond and McCormick has assumed his responsibilities, which is allowed by state statute.
Wriggelsworth, a Democrat in his 50th year in law enforcement, dismissed the notion that the investigation was politically motivated, noting that his office took the case to Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette.
When Wriggelsworth’s investigators initially brought information to him, he told them to handle the Dunnings investigation like they would any other, although it would require additional sensitivity because of the high-profile subject.
"I took an oath to do my job," he said. "Stuart Dunnings took an oath to do his job. And the chips will fall where they may, and that’s how I look at it."
Editorial: Dunnings investigation must be meticulous
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III is innocent until proven guilty. Just like every other person charged with a crime in the United States.
Yet his arrest on charges of pandering, soliciting prostitution and willful neglect of duty casts a shadow on the work he has done in his more than 18 years in office. And further investigation of his office can’t wait until these charges are adjudicated.
Did some people receive preferential treatment from the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office?
Victims of crimes have a right to know. So do suspects and convicts. And Ingham County taxpayers.
Even the suspicion that cases might not have been handled appropriately by the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office violates the public trust. Dunnings was elected to serve the people – and his behavior, and that of his staff, should be above reproach.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said this week that investigators believe Dunnings used his influence as prosecutor in cases connected to the women he’s charged with soliciting. The Sheriff’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigations must be meticulous in following up those leads – and others – to get the fullest picture possible of the work being done in the prosecutor’s office.
If that results in the reopening of old cases, so be it.
If the investigation results in more charges against Dunnings, so be it.
And if the investigation reveals others knew or were involved in influencing cases, they also should be charged with crimes.
With Dunnings on medical leave and in treatment, it is the responsibility of Lisa McCormick, chief assistant prosecuting attorney who is now leading the office, to make available any and all files requested. She said Thursday she “had no knowledge of any current investigation” and investigators have “absolutely not” spoken with her about previous cases.
McCormick and her colleagues should welcome the review and cooperate with investigators. Their credibility as prosecutors and defenders of justice are at stake.
It will be difficult for the prosecutor’s office to distance itself from the man who has led it for nearly two decades. Citizens will question cases in the past and carry this distrust with them in the future.
That’s why it’s imperative for this investigation to explore every facet of the prosecutor’s office. It will take time to rebuild the public’s trust. It must start with cooperation and transparency.
– An LSJ editorial
6 candidates file for Ingham County prosecutor primaries
LANSING - Six candidates for Ingham County prosecutor have filed paperwork to appear on the ballot for the August primaries to replace Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings was arrested last month after a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the Attorney General's Office and the FBI. He faces 15 prostitution-related criminal charges, including a 20-year felony for pandering for allegedly coercing a woman, who came to him for help with a child custody case, to be paid for sex.
Dunnings announced he will resign his seat effective July 2. The Circuit Court judges will appoint someone to serve the remainder of his term, which expires at the end of the year. The judges haven't limited their search to applicants interested in seeking the office for the new term.
Candidates without Republican or Democratic affiliation — an independent or Green Party candidate, for example — have a July 21 deadline to file. County prosecutors don't receive incumbency designations on ballots.
The pool of candidates for the primary elections will include former assistant prosecutors and one retired administrative law judge.
Two candidates — Billie Jo O'Berry and Monica Stephens — will run in the Republican primary.
Four candidates — Patrick O'Keefe, Brian Jackson, Carol Siemon and Thomas English — will run in the Democratic primary.
"Certainly it shows the intensity of interest, which I think is a good thing," Siemon, D-East Lansing, said of the number of candidates who have filed. She added that she thinks the community is ready to look at a variety of policies and practices related to the criminal justice system.
English said he's excited with the number of candidates who have filed, adding that it will give the voters a chance to find good candidates for the November General Election.
"Trust is something that the public needs to get back from the prosecutor's office," he said. "There's good people in the prosecutor's office, without a doubt."
Dunnings, a Democrat, has been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997, having been last re-elected in 2012. He's currently on medical leave and is reportedly in an undisclosed treatment facility in Tennessee
O’Berry, 60, of Mason, worked for former Ingham County prosecutors Raymond Scodeller and Peter D. Houk, before joining the city attorney’s office.
Jackson, 32, previously worked as an Eaton County prosecutor and in the Lansing city attorney’s office, according to a news release announcing his candidacy.
Siemon, 59, of East Lansing, worked in the prosecutor's office from 1983 through 1995.
O'Keefe, 40, of Mason, has worked as an area defense attorney since leaving the prosecutor's office in 2013.
English, 60, is a retired administrative law judge and former U.S. Army judge advocate general who also was a New Mexico state trooper, according to his resume.
Stephens, of Lansing, wasn't immediately available for comment, and her background wasn't immediately clear.
Newaygo official arraigned on prostitution charges
WHITE CLOUD -- The Newaygo County surveyor, Norman Leo Ochs, was arraigned Monday following his arrest for allegedly soliciting a prostitute.
Ochs, a 76-year-old White Cloud resident, was charged with soliciting an act of prostitution and three counts of engaging the services of prostitutes, said Newaygo County prosecutor Robert Springstead.
The maximum penalty for each charge is 93 days and/or $500 and mandatory AIDS/STD testing.
Police say the incidents occurred during an unspecified two-year period in White Cloud. An investigation into Ochs' alleged activities started in the last two weeks, said Springstead, who received the police reports Monday and authorized the charges.
Ochs' term as surveyor -- an elected position -- is listed as ending on Dec. 31, 2016, absent his resignation or recall. He oversees the county's land remonumentation program, which is funded by resident fees.
County officials cannot remove him from office because the voters elected him, Springstead said. Ochs did file for reelection prior to these current charges, he added.
Stuart Dunnings' 20 years of work mired in controversy
LANSING – The name Dunnings already carried a lot of weight in Ingham County when a 43-year-old Stuart Dunnings III first sought the capital region’s top law enforcement post.
And around the same time he was embarking on what would become a long political career, the man whose criminal case would be linked to Dunnings' downfall stepped into the public eye in a Lansing courtroom.
It was in summer 1996, shortly after Dunnings declared his candidacy for county prosecutor and promised to build upon his father's nearly 50 years of community service in the region, that a 26-year-old Lansing man named Tyrone Smith was convicted of killing someone in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Nearly two decades later, information obtained during a federal investigation into a sex-trafficking ring Smith ran would ultimately land Dunnings in jail, put there by one of his longtime political allies, and facing 15 prostitution-related criminal charges.
But 20 years ago, Smith was just another defendant and Dunnings was the son of Lansing’s first black lawyer, on his way to becoming Michigan’s only black prosecutor.
Wearing his signature bowtie, Dunnings would become an important but controversial public figure, dominating at the ballot box, wielding influence over county courtrooms and helping lead numerous law enforcement initiatives. His more than 19 years as prosecutor will end in July when his resignation, submitted two weeks after his arrest, takes effect.
This story is based mostly on State Journal archives, court records and other documents. Numerous people, including Dunnings' attorneys, family and his chief deputy prosecutor, declined to comment for this story.
Stuart Dunnings III Through The Years
The good Dunnings name
The 10-year incumbent prosecutor, Republican Donald Martin, was weak as the 1996 election approached.
He'd been criticized for a controversial decision to file manslaughter charges against Greg Messenger, a doctor who removed his premature child from life support. An activist group called March for Justice also accused Martin of discriminating against blacks.
Seeing an opportunity, the county Democrats reached out to Stuart Dunnings III.
At the time, Dunnings III handled divorces, custody battles and issues involving domestic assault at the law firm founded by his father, Stuart Dunnings Jr.
The elder Dunnings had been Lansing’s first black attorney when he arrived in 1950. Though unsuccessful in elections, Dunnings Jr. nonetheless made a name for himself by leading the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other organizations, by tackling high-profile cases, and by dabbling in real estate investment. The Lansing Black Lawyers Association, which Dunnings Jr. helped found, is now called the Davis-Dunnings Bar Association. Three of Dunnings Jr.'s children followed him into law.
His firstborn son, Dunnings III, won the 1996 prosecutor's race with 53% of the vote. The new prosecutor vowed to fight "the deterioration of this community" by taking on systemic issues.
It wasn't a position childhood friend Warren Williams ever envisioned for Dunnings, but it did not surprise him.
"(Dunnings) has always been an extremely smart guy, very driven," said Williams, who currently works in Ohio in public relations. "In the legal profession, locally, that's certainly one of the top positions."
Prosecutor Dunnings immediately sought to set himself apart from his predecessor. One of his first acts was to rescind a plea bargain Martin had offered to a court employee facing embezzlement charges. Calling the woman’s actions “a violation of the public trust,” Dunnings got a conviction.
He showed he was responsive to community ills. In 2001, after a major prostitution ring involving underage girls was busted in Lansing, Dunnings brought prostitution cases, previously prosecuted as ordinance violations by Lansing city attorneys, into his office and prosecuted them as state crimes. He impounded johns’ vehicles and slapped repeat offenders, both men and women, with felonies. In the years since, he's taken a strong stance against sex trafficking, saying last year he would "work with police to target the sexual abuse of minors and protect children from human traffickers."
In 2002, after a spike in domestic violence, Dunnings helped create the Domestic Assault Response Team, a partnership between law enforcement and service providers to better serve victims and crack down on abusers. The Capital Area Sexual Assault Response Team was formed two years later.
Dunnings spoke at county high schools and told at least one assistant prosecutor that educating the community is "part of the job." It was one of the three biggest parts of his first campaign platform. In a recent email the State Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Dunnings told the assistant prosecutor there was no need to use vacation time to speak at a career day at her hometown middle school.
The last two years of his office calendar, also obtained through a FOIA request, showed few meetings on most days. He held regular meetings with his assistant prosecutors in charge of special victim or violent crime units. In the months leading up to his arrest, his calendar showed meetings for the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, a meeting about the county jail renovation, and a meeting about a high-profile murder case, among other appointments.
The calendar also shows he often met with victims, attended Rotary lunches, met with other area criminal justice officials and had training sessions.
Dunnings entrenched himself in politics, collecting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from area attorneys, judges, business owners and gubernatorial appointees. He allied himself with Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, a fellow Democrat, and the two campaigned together often.
Dunnings served on the board of the state prosecutors association and did a stint as president of the lobbying organization.
Today, he is Ingham County’s highest-paid public official, making more than $132,000 a year; he also makes money from the real estate business started by his father.
Either as individuals or through the family company, Dunnings Investments, the prosecutor and his siblings own 18 properties in Ingham County that are collectively worth at least $2.2 million, according to county records. They count as tenants the Mason Area Chamber of Commerce, the Lansing NAACP and the accounting firm that manages Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero's all-purpose political fund.
The original law office on Pine Street remains the Dunnings headquarters, housing the family law and real estate firms and the prosecutor’s campaign offices.
The controversies
On Jan. 23, 2005, Lansing Community College professor Carolyn Kronenberg was found beaten, sexually assaulted and barely alive in a classroom. She died a short time later. Police arrested 27-year-old LCC student Claude McCollum, who was was convicted of her murder on Valentine’s Day 2006.
It was around this time, Wriggelsworth later told the State Journal, that police began to hear rumors and allegations of Dunnings’ involvement with prostitutes.
More than a year later, a suspected serial killer named Matthew Macon told police he’d killed Kronenberg. An investigation by police and reporters would later reveal Dunnings’ office and others had mishandled evidence in McCollum’s case. Video showing McCollum in another LCC building when the professor was attacked had never been shown at trial.
Assistant prosecutor, Eric Matwiejczyk, was fired. McCollum settled a $2 million lawsuit with LCC.
Dunnings faced no formal reprimand and the prosecutor's office was dismissed from McCollum's lawsuit. That fall, Dunnings carried 67% of the vote in his fourth re-election bid.
A few weeks before that 2008 vote, Dunnings met with McCollum in an East Lansing church and personally apologized, saying he was “sorry that people believe that we knew you were not guilty and prosecuted you anyway.”
The McCollum case was Dunnings’ most serious scandal, but it wasn’t his only controversial prosecution.
In 2013 and 2014, Dunnings tried to prosecute 20-year-old Sudanese refugee Kosgar Lado on a charge of lying to police, a felony, after Lado wrongly confessed to shooting a man. Lado was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Dunnings ultimately dropped charges, but not before he drew ire in the community and public criticism from lawmakers and the former head of the state prosecutors association. An online petition supporting Lado drew national attention.
During Dunnings' first term, after riots over a Michigan State University basketball loss burned East Lansing, the prosecutor sued the State Journal and other media outlets in an attempt to obtain unpublished photos and footage of the riots, a case he ultimately lost in the Michigan Supreme Court.
Three times, Dunnings ruled police shootings justified.
Dunnings survived every controversy, partly because of the Dunnings name and the work he’d done, but also because he ran as a Democrat in a Democratic town for an office where incumbency is advantageous.
In 2012, Dunnings won what will likely be his last election by his largest margin ever, carrying 70% of the vote.
By then, Smith had been released after serving 15 years in prison for murder and, according to the U.S. Justice Department, already establishing an interstate sex-trafficking ring that involved numerous women, including a 17-year-old girl.
The prostitution charges
In early 2015, the FBI brought to Wriggelsworth’s office information they had picked up while investigating Smith for human trafficking. It isn’t yet clear what type of information was shared, but authorities have said it came from witnesses in the federal case and not Smith himself. Smith was sentenced in federal court on May 11 to 25 years in prison.
Over many months, police identified five prostitutes Dunnings had paid for sex, according to court records. They identified a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, who came to Dunnings for help with a child custody case, but authorities allege in court records she was coerced by the prosecutor to accept money for sex.
Authorities allege he shared one woman with his brother, Steven, who still works out of the Dunnings headquarters on Pine Street. Steven Dunnings is facing two misdemeanor charges of engaging the services of a prostitute.
On March 14, Dunnings was arrested at a Lansing coffee shop and later arraigned in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties with a total of 15 criminal charges: one felony for turning the woman into a prostitute and 14 misdemeanors for paying for sex and ignoring his statutory duty to prosecute crimes.
The Dunnings family name was scarred. It quickly became clear his political career would soon end, as would his marriage.
"During the past years, (Dunnings) has squandered, wasted the family's assets and otherwise spent frivolously outside the marriage and has rendered the parties' savings and investments at great risk and loss," the attorney for Cynthia Dunnings, the prosecutor's wife of 38 years and the mother of his three children, wrote in a motion in their divorce case.
According to court records and other documents, Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times since at least 2010, including $600 every other week to one of the women he had sex with, and also paid bail money for another and bought gifts and paid bills for others.
Cynthia Dunnings filed for divorce days after her husband was arrested and at the time of the filing, her attorney said she "was shocked like everyone else" at the criminal charges and allegations.
Since then, she has moved for exclusive use of the couple's home on the city's west side and spousal support of $2,000 a month through the divorce proceeding and an "appropriate amount" once the divorce is final. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for June.
Dunnings hasn't been home since March 18, his wife said in an April 25 filing in the divorce case. His bond in the criminal case was amended so he could check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for 35 days. The reason for the treatment wasn't specified in court records.
Dunnings notified the county in a March letter that he will resign from office effective July 2, and will remain on medical leave until then. Former state senator Gretchen Whitmer has been appointed interim prosecutor and will take over in July for the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends Dec. 31.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is prosecuting the Dunnings case, has said he'll send notification of the charges against Stuart and Steven Dunnings to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.
Williams, Dunnings' childhood friend, said he was "initially shocked" when he heard about the charges and allegations, which relate to things he never thought Dunnings would be associated with.
But there was one aspect of the allegations that rang true for Williams, it was the mention in court records and news stories that Dunnings paid the women's bills, helped one pay for methadone treatment and helped bail one out of jail.
"That’s Stuart," he said. "He really is a truly a compassionate person. I think that's a side of him that some folks didn't get to see."
Williams knows Lansing well. He was a TV news anchor here and also a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. He once helped run a Lansing political campaign. While he lived here, he battled a cocaine addiction, but said he's been clean since 1997.
Although Williams now lives in Ohio and hasn't spoken with Dunnings since 2010, he's kept in touch with people in Lansing. There are many who are staunch supporters, Williams said, but some have suggested Dunnings leave the area.
"He is as rooted in Lansing as anyone," Williams said. "And has had a commitment to Lansing. I think that he ought not be judged just on the current situation, based on the current charges. I think you have to look at the totality of the man and his life."
Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have made any public comments on the case. Dunnings' next court date, a pre-exam conference, is scheduled for June 7.
A 14-year-old girl and the 'ongoing battle' with sex trafficking
LANSING – On a frigid February night in 2015, a young girl with many secrets bolted across the parking lot of a Mason apartment complex.
Her mother chased her, but fell in the snow. She didn’t see her daughter get into a car and drive away with a man she met online.
For two days, the girl was stowed away in an apartment on Michigan State University’s campus while her family searched for her. The man took provocative photos of her. She was offered for sex on Craigslist and BackPage.com, according to MSU Police Department reports the State Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Then he raped her.
She was 14.
This is sex trafficking, a centuries-old problem widely recognized only in the last 20 years. Now it's reaching new places and new lives because of the Internet.
The FBI in Michigan worked 220 sex trafficking, or forced prostitution, cases last year. Michigan cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center — there were 62 through the first three months of 2016 — have increased each year since 2012. Law enforcement officials said it's likely most prostitutes are forced.
Police reports and court records show trafficking and prostitution happen in cities such as Detroit and Lansing, but also in small towns such as Mason and on MSU’s campus. Johns come from urban Detroit but also rural Clinton County. They are men with criminal pasts, but also public officials and students.
Experts say just as there’s no community immune from the crime, there’s no demographic — age, race, gender, religion, economic class — not at risk of being victimized. Vulnerability is the uniting characteristic.
It’s a problem thrust into the local spotlight by recent high-profile sex-trafficking cases against Lansing’s Tyrone Smith and Christopher Bryant. The federal investigation into Smith’s case led to the March 14 arrest and 15 prostitution-related charges against longtime Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III.
And it’s an ongoing problem, police said.
“I’m sure there are rings going on right now in Lansing,” said Ted Docks, the agent who leads the FBI’s Lansing office. “I think there’s other Christopher Bryants, Tyrone Smiths in our area, as well as other areas.”
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, whose office has worked on all of the recent local sex-trafficking cases, declined to be interviewed for this story, saying he didn’t want to jeopardize ongoing investigations.
‘Now you can run away online’
For about a week in February 2015, the 14-year-old Mason girl communicated with a 23-year-old Lansing man named Jordan Ireland through the social networking apps Whisper and Kik, according to the police reports. She also had a profile on the site MeetMe.com, where she claimed she was 18.
Her family was unaware she was on those sites, they would later tell police.
On Feb. 20, 2015, Ireland and a friend, a graduate student at MSU, picked the young girl up in that snowy parking lot where her mother lost sight of her. According to police reports, Ireland and the friend took the girl back to the friend’s apartment at Spartan Village. People were drinking alcohol and Ireland drank cough syrup to get high, but the teen did not drink or do drugs.
That is how many trafficking cases start, police said — girl meets boy online.
The Internet has connected people with perpetrators they may never have met otherwise, and allowed perpetrators to reach into small towns they may never have visited, Docks said.
“The Internet touches those folks now,” he said of trafficking in general, not the Mason girl’s case in particular. “As opposed to ... running away to the movie theater up the street, now you can run away online. And someone can give you all the articulation of a better hope and dreams and all those things.”
The girl and her family declined to be interviewed for this story. The State Journal does not identify victims of sexual assault. The State Journal chose not to identify the MSU student because he could not be reached for comment and was not charged with a crime.
Sometime on Feb. 21, a friend sent Ireland a link to an online story about the missing girl. The article gave her real age. Late in the evening on Feb. 21, someone used the MSU student’s laptop to post ads featuring the girl’s provocative photos online, asking for “generous guys near East Lansing" to come over. Minutes after posting the ads, someone used the same computer to search for information on teen prostitution.
Ireland told police the MSU student posted the ads. When police asked the MSU student about it, he asked for a lawyer and wouldn’t answer any more questions.
At least one man came to the apartment, Ireland told police, but left before doing anything with the girl because the would-be john worried he’d walked into a police sting.
That night, Ireland raped the girl while she was sleeping. Later, the MSU student drove her home to Mason.
Ireland is now in prison, at least until 2022, on multiple charges related to the rape.
MSU police sought child pornography, human trafficking and other charges against the MSU student, but Ingham County prosecutors denied the request because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the student, and not Ireland, had posted the ads. Prosecutors were unwilling to strike a deal with Ireland for testimony against the student, according to police reports.
The student has since graduated and works for a banking firm in the Baltimore area.
Trafficking "is a concern for all law enforcement," said Capt. Doug Monette, the MSU police spokesman. "The communities that surround campus, as well as on campus. It should be on everyone's radar and investigated."
“It took decades for that mindset to change, and I think that’s what you’re seeing now with human trafficking and prostitution,” Price said. “Slowly but surely, people are starting to realize that prostitution is a form of trafficking and these women are being forced by someone in the background that’s profiting off of it.”
Price said there are communities whose residents and officials think trafficking doesn't affect them, but tips will flow in once police there are trained in the signs of trafficking and the questions to ask. All State Police troopers are so trained, he said, and a handful of minors were recovered during traffic stops last year. Efforts are under way to make human trafficking lessons part of police academies.
"Oftentimes, at training, as you’re presenting the information, you can see light bulbs going on in the room of people actually recognizing or understanding, ‘Wow, I think I may have actually come across this in the past and that’s what this was,’” said Kelly Carter, an assistant Michigan attorney general on that agency's human trafficking unit, which trains police and community groups on the issue.
Public awareness means more potential jurors will understand the difference between prostitution and trafficking and more traffickers will be held to account, Carter said.
Michigan passed its first human trafficking laws in 2006, and they were updated in 2014.
One of the most helpful pieces of that legislation was a measure allowing police to petition courts to place prostitutes in shelters instead of arresting them, Price said. Before, police had to arrest victims just to get them off the streets, he said.
Reddy said law enforcement must focus on the demand side of the sex industry.
"As long as we have johns, we’re going to have prostitution," she said. "So until we can figure out how to eradicate that end of it, it’s going to be an ongoing battle."
Local police agencies, however, continue to arrest more women than men. Across Michigan, State Police data shows 383 women were arrested throughout 2013 and 2014, and 333 men were arrested. In Lansing over the last three years, police arrested 37 women and 12 men.
"The Lansing Police Department recognizes that in most situations there are numerous underlying issues that lead individuals down a path of prostitution," Lansing Police Chief Mike Yankowski said in a written statement. "The department also works cooperatively with the criminal justice system and community partners to make sure we’re offering reasonable opportunities for diversion, treatment, and counseling programs."
“The victim-centered approach is the gold standard we're all seeking to accomplish in these sort of cases,” Carter said. “There are still a lot of people who need to learn more about the issue.”
Michigan still lacks enough services for the victims, Price said, especially residential housing. Domestic violence shelters often can’t take trafficking victims because of funding restrictions, for example.
“So where will they go?” he said. “That is where we’re definitely behind in Michigan.”
In addition, police said they need businesses often associated with sex trafficking — hotels and online classified websites, for example — to be vigilant for signs they’re being used for trafficking. And police said they need more public awareness and for people to report anything suspicious to law enforcement.
“Your instinct is always on target,” Reddy said.
Both police and advocates said local agencies need more resources to tackle the complex issues surrounding trafficking.
‘It takes somebody brave’
Another reason prosecutors chose not to prosecute the MSU student in that 2015 case was because the girl didn’t want charges brought against him, according to the records.
A cooperative victim can be key in a sex-trafficking case, Price said, speaking generally and not about the MSU case specifically. That’s why law enforcement agencies have taken a “victim-centered” approach in trafficking cases. It can be a time-consuming effort, building trust with the victims and corroborating their stories “so they’re not attacked in court,” he said.
Carter said “we want our prosecution to be victim-centered, not victim-based," because testifying against a trafficker can often add to a victim's trauma.
“It takes somebody very brave, and I think that’s the key, is they have to be brave and you have to convince them that they’re brave,” said the FBI's Reddy. “And it’s not something that happens within five, 10, 24 hours. It’s a process.”
The quick part is the traffickers' arrest and the victims’ placement in a shelter or treatment program. It could be months or a year until a trial starts, when they might have to testify about what happened to them. The Mason girl managed to get away in a matter of days, but some victims are trafficked for years.
Two victims in Smith’s case were trafficked for at least a year, according to court records, with one being with him for nearly two. Other victims, including some in Bryant’s case, spent days or months in forced prostitution.
Sex rings become communities. Bryant called his the “Money Team.” Smith called his the “New Stars.”
“We’re taking away their safety,” Reddy said of victims. “That’s how they perceive that. The safest place that they know in that point in time (is with the trafficker). So it’s very hard to convince them that, ‘No, we’re actually going to help you and not hurt you’ and bring them along to see that.”
Victims pulled from trafficking rings are without income, often have drug addictions and might have lost contact with their families, Docks said. Victims have had "their whole world changed in every way, shape or form," Carter said. Sometimes recovered victims will return to traffickers within hours, Reddy said.
There are no simple solutions to end trafficking. Short- and long-term services for victims, greater community awareness and more training and resources for law enforcement are important, but it will take a “pillared-village approach” to eradicate trafficking, Docks said.
“We are here — the FBI — to protect, and in a sense to lead you through, give you that confidence to let you know you are heroes and that this is something that we’re taking very seriously,” Docks said. “And that we’re not only going to leave no stone unturned to find the perpetrator, we’re all trying to find those victims also.”
20 stings, 49 arrests: A look at Lansing prostitution
LANSING - A man walked into a spa on Lansing's south side on an early February morning last year and paid $40 for a 30-minute massage.
Moments later, a woman entered the room wearing "short, tight, red lingerie" and 15 minutes into the massage, they negotiated the price of at least one sex act.
The undercover Lansing police officer signaled his team to make an arrest.
It was the second prostitution arrest at Lansing Accupressure Spa in as many months, according to 350 pages of police reports obtained by the Lansing State Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request. Those reports, along with court records, offer a glimpse into prostitution and sex trafficking in Greater Lansing, an issue shoved into the spotlight by the March 14 arrest of longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III on multiple prostitution-related charges.
One woman arrested at the spa last year was from Florida. The other told police she was from Korea originally but had moved to Lansing from Colorado just two days prior. Police seized $760, though a ledger of five meetings showed only $252 should have been in the drawer. All of those are red flags signalling possible human trafficking.
Records show the Lansing police investigation ended when the two women pleaded guilty to misdemeanor prostitution charges in 54A District Court. Lansing Police Public Information Director Robert Merritt said the information was passed along to a federal agency.
Prostitution is a low priority for Lansing police. They are more focused on violent crimes and guns, especially since a majority of the sex trade has shifted from street corners to websites such as Backpage.com, Merritt said.
"We're not getting calls or the community demand to take action," he said. "It's put the enforcement demand way down."
Yet police would find more if they looked more, said Jeannie Kennedy, an Elsie woman who once was trafficked in Las Vegas and later worked as a prostitute in Michigan. Anywhere sex is sold — on the street, on a pole, on a massage table — there’s a chance you'll find trafficking, she said.
"It's a sick, sad industry," she said, "whether she’s voluntarily getting into it or she’s forced into it."
Lansing could be prime real estate for the sex trade, straddling two major interstates between Michigan’s two largest cities and home to numerous conventions that bring thousands of out-of-towners traveling alone, said state senator and anti-trafficking advocate Judy Emmons, R-Sheridan.
Prostitution is so prevalent here, police were able to arrest 11 men over the course of about six hours in one July 2014 sting, according to Lansing police reports. On any given day, there are dozens of women advertising their "companionship" on the Lansing section of Backpage.com.
Ingham County prosecution logs, also obtained by a FOIA request, show at least 140 prostitution-related cases have been brought to court since 2010, eight of every 10 of them from Lansing. In most cases, defendants pleaded to misdemeanor charges.
Yet, time and again, women as young as 19 and as old as 56 told police they sold themselves into a dangerous life out of desperation.
There was the mother of three who said she sold her body to pay her bills. Another to support a five-year heroin addiction. The 22-year-old student who said it was the only way she could support herself. The woman who said she’d once been attacked by a client and now carried a Taser to every rendezvous. The woman who said the trade takes her regularly between Lansing and Lafayette, Indiana.
Many of the men, who ranged in age from 20 to 63, came from places such as Detroit, Haslett, Leslie and Grand Rapids before being arrested in Lansing police stings. It wasn’t clear why those men were in town, because the police reports were heavily redacted.
"The more we can address sex trafficking, the more you’re going to address those other issues that degrade communities, like drugs and violent crime," said Sarah Prout Rennie, executive director of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence. "And we should care. These are people … who have been forced into a life of exploitation."
‘He picked me up and never let me go’
In 2006, Kennedy traveled alone to Las Vegas as part of a Jobs Corps program. Her first day there, a man pulled up beside her in a new Mercedes, a pretty girl in the seat next to him, and offered her a ride downtown.
"He picked me up and never let me go," she said.
First, he took her shopping. Held her hand. Told her she was beautiful. Then, "he loaded me up full of so much cocaine it was disgusting," Kennedy said, and he told her she had to sell her body to repay him. After three days, she reached out to a friend in Michigan, who helped her get home.
She’d escaped the man, but not the life. Over the next several years, she danced at strip clubs and continued selling sex until about three years ago, when she found religion and left prostitution for good.
"I had such a deception about who I was and what I would allow to happen to me after" the experience in Las Vegas, said Kennedy, today a 31-year-old mother of four who works with a domestic violence task force in Shiawassee County.
"When you’re trying to get a victim out of that lifestyle," she said, "you have to redo the whole self-awareness."
That’s a job organizations typically serving victims of domestic and sexual violence are trying to tackle.
It’s a natural fit because survivors of prostitution and trafficking often are physically or sexually abused, and even those who aren’t suffer similar pains and have similar needs, advocates said. They often need therapy to address trauma and reclaim a sense of self. They may need help with addiction. They often need help with housing and employment, because pimps or traffickers controlled their income.
But there are needs specific to prostitution and trafficking. Meeting those can be a challenge, in part because advocates said they’ve only recently made headway in convincing communities and law enforcement of the horrors of the trade. In the not-too-distant past, actions like Dunnings’ alleged crimes might have been dismissed as harmless skirt-chasing, said Tonya Avery, executive director of the Owosso-based Safe Center shelter.
Erin Roberts, executive director at the End Violent Encounters shelter in Lansing, said her organization was only recently funded by the state to provide some services to sex assault victims. But her shelter is limited to domestic violence victims because of strings attached the dollars that pay for it. Services for men who’ve been trafficked are especially lacking, Roberts said.
Emmons, the state senator, said police agencies need more money and training, especially in digital investigations.
And Avery said shelters need to work more on coordinated data collection, to measure the scope of the problem. Safe Center has sheltered prostitutes and trafficking victims, but it’s hard to say how many because that’s not a question shelters have typically asked, Avery said.
It’s an especially daunting task because the Internet is constantly expanding the battlefield.
Social media has created an international targeting ground where young women and men are wooed, coerced or threatened. Men who could never bring themselves to drive down Kalamazoo Avenue might be willing to place an order online, where women are sold alongside car parts and collectibles.
‘A victim right there in the center’
A 23-year-old woman with a years-long heroin addiction took a cab to a south Lansing hotel on a Saturday night in July 2013. She didn’t know an undercover police officer had responded to her ad on Backpage.com.
After she was arrested, the woman told police she was from Howell but moved to Lansing a week earlier. She had a friend she referred to as a pimp or manager, who took half her profits.
In the span of a few hours at the hotel that night, police made three arrests, all women. One woman, a 32-year-old, told police she doesn’t have a pimp, but has sex for money once a day to take care of herself. She cried while talking with police.
Another woman advertised an "Ultimate Experience" special for $85 and told police after she was arrested that she has sex for money to pay her bills.
Two women told police they had pimps, according to the reports. Merritt said follow-up investigation was done, but didn't lead to additional arrests. Merritt said undercover police are "on a mission to get the girl that came," and follow-up investigations rarely net any additional charges. Supposed pimps will deny knowing the women. It becomes a "he said, she said" situation.
"Some will say just about anything to steer the guilt away from them," Merritt said, adding that police once disproved a woman’s claim she was working for the FBI.
But Roberts, of EVE, said people rarely prostitute themselves without something — drugs, poverty, abuse — hanging over their heads.
"That’s a crime that has a victim right there in the center," she said.
Police do respond to community complaints. The reports show Lansing officers conducted 14 street stings, three online stings and three stings at businesses such as Lansing Accupressure over the last three years.
Posing as prostitutes and johns, undercover police work almost exclusively along Kalamazoo Street, an area known as "the stroll" for the women frequently walking there.
In those stings, police picked up a man who was apparently deaf and negotiated a sex deal by writing on a clipboard. Another offered to meet an undercover officer on a street corner near a bar. They picked up a woman who wanted to do the deed in a cemetery and another who gave an undercover officer directions to her home.
It’s a costly endeavor, involving fake hookers or johns, surveillance teams and uniformed patrol officers. For online stings, add the cost of at least two hotel rooms for a night.
That’s a lot of resources for what are typically misdemeanor arrests resulting in fines and a couple months in jail. Prosecution logs show many women reoffend shortly after pleading in court.
"The community deserves us to be out there on the violent crime and to be safer," Merritt said. Gun violence has decreased more than 40% in the last two years.
‘Don’t feel like you’re alone’
A year after Lansing police used the Super 8 in south Lansing for an online prostitution sting, a 17-year-old girl waited in Room 201 for a man to come and pay her for sex. She’d been advertised as a 23-year-old who goes by "Snow Angel.'
She didn’t even post that ad. It was posted for her by someone involved with a Lansing-based sex ring exposed in October 2014 partly because of a tip the girl’s brother sent to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Three Lansing people were later convicted. Two were sentenced in state court. The ringleader, Christopher Bryant, was sentenced in federal court in Grand Rapids.
Testimony from five victims in Bryant’s trial reads like a real-life horror story and offers a glimpse of the trauma that may be behind those misdemeanor prostitution charges.
According to testimony, Bryant discussed selling the 17-year-old for $1,000 to another man he had been operating the sex-trafficking ring with, recruited one woman near the downtown Lansing bus station, pimped out the mother of his child and beat and raped her one night after she didn’t make any money. He sold women for sex in Detroit, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Saginaw, Battle Creek, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Testimony showed Bryant had acted as both of what FBI Special Agent James Hardie testified are the two most common kinds of pimps: the "gorilla pimp" who rules by force and beatings, and the "finesse pimp" who makes victims think they are in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship and preys on weaknesses.
Bryant and the mother of his child went to Arizona to start a new life. He was violent, but the woman stayed because she loved him.
"I didn't want my son to grow up without a father," she testified.
Prosecution of prostitution
140 prosecution-related crimes have gone to court in Ingham County since 2010. Here's a look at what happened in those cases.
But on the Greyhound trip to Phoenix, he yelled and cussed. Once they got to the city, he told her to walk the streets.
"I followed him to where he wanted me to go, because I didn't know what else to do," she testified.
Dunnings, the prosecutor, turned a blind eye to similar horrors while paying multiple women for sex over several years, Attorney General Bill Schuette alleged. Police say one of his prostitutes would be beaten by her pimp if she didn’t respond to calls or texts. Another had been imprisoned in her pimp’s house and was once beaten so severely she could barely walk.
Information from a federal investigation of another Lansing-based sex-trafficking ring ultimately led to Dunnings’ arrest, police say in court records. The head of that ring, Tyrone Smith, will be sentenced in federal court next week.
Knowing that every woman walking the streets or posting salacious ads online could be living through such hell is one of the most important weapons in the battle against trafficking, said Kennedy, the former prostitute. Everyone should learn the signs of trafficking, individuals should learn how they might be vulnerable and how to make themselves less so.
And everyone should know help is available.
"We’re out here," Kennedy said. "We’re out here speaking for you. Just hold on, we’re coming for you. Don’t feel like you’re alone."
Whitmer chosen for interim Ingham County prosecutor
LANSING - Former state Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer will temporarily replace Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III and said a search for wrongdoing in the office might be necessary in light of the prostitution-related criminal charges Dunnings faces.
The Ingham County Circuit Court judges said in a news release Wednesday they had unanimously chosen Whitmer, a Democrat, to serve from Dunnings' official resignation date, July 2, through Dec. 31, the end of his current term. Dunnings, also a Democrat, is currently on medical leave and said in his March 29 resignation letter he will not return to the office.
The 63-year-old prosecutor, first elected in 1996, was arrested March 14 and charged with one felony and 14 misdemeanors after Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid multiple women for sex hundreds of times over several years. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the felony charge, pandering, after a yearlong investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office found he coerced a woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex, according to court records.
Dunnings also used the power of his office to influence cases connected to the women he paid for sex, such as making probation easier on them, Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth told the State Journal.
Whitmer said in a phone interview Wednesday she would spend the next several weeks reaching out to assistant prosecutors and other law enforcement officials to learn the ins and outs of the office and would also explore a review for potential improprieties.
"The task is to earn back the confidence of the public and the integrity of the office, and so I think those are natural questions I'll want to get an answer to," she said.
Calling Whitmer "a trusted former elected official in Ingham County with a background in public service," the judges chose Whitmer over six other applicants. She bested 55th District Court Magistrate Mark Blumer, retired district court judge Thomas Brennan Jr., Lansing attorney Bernard Finn, retired administrative law judge Thomas English, Assistant Lansing City Attorney Billie Jo O'Berry, and Mary Bowen, whose position was unclear because she couldn't be reached for comment.
The application window closed May 1. No public interviews were held.
Whitmer was a 28-year-old attorney at the firm Dickinson Wright when she was elected to the state House in 2000. She moved up to the Senate after the 2006 election and in 2011 became minority leader, the first woman to lead a caucus in that chamber. She was term-limited in 2014 but has remained active, teaching college students about gender and the law and advocating for a women’s health nonprofit. She returned to Dickinson Wright last fall.
Voters in November will elect a new prosecutor to a four-year term that starts Jan. 1. Whitmer, widely rumored to be a candidate for governor in 2018, has not filed to run in that election. Four Democrats — English, Patrick O'Keefe, Brian Jackson and Carol Siemon — and two Republicans — O'Berry and Monica Stephens — are competing in the Aug. 2 primary for their party's nomination to the fall general election.
Prostitution, trafficking 'a widespread phenomenon'
LANSING — For all the shock in seeing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III in cuffs, the prostitution-related crimes he's been accused of are all too common, advocates say.
Dunnings, the 63-year-old lawyer who’s been Ingham County’s elected prosecutor for the past 19 years, was charged Monday with one felony and 14 misdemeanors after a yearlong investigation found he’d paid for sex hundreds of times with multiple women in three counties, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
Dunnings could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
The sensationalism of such charges against a leading law enforcement official garnered national headlines. Yet thousands of women and girls are quietly, sometimes violently, manipulated and abused into selling their bodies for sex every year, advocates said. And men and women from all kinds of occupations take advantage of these women or coerce them into prostitution.
“I think this is a very widespread phenomenon,” said Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for the Washington-based Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. “We see just a lot of different demographics and context when it comes to players in trafficking.”
“I assure you, it’s not a victimless crime,” said Dr. LaClaire Bouknight, a Lansing physician and chairwoman of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking Alliance. “Many of the pimps are very violent. They’re controlling the women with drugs, threats, threats to harm their families, and I don’t consider that victimless at all.
“It’s not a happy life,” she added. “It’s not a Julia Roberts story.”
‘Human trafficking is alive and well’
The charges against Dunnings follow several horrific cases in the capital city:
* The investigation against Dunnings began after the FBI passed on information obtained in a federal human trafficking case against Lansing’s Tyrone Smith, who pleaded guilty last fall to multiple charges after investigators said he recruited several women, including a 17-year-old, into an interstate sex operation.
* Last year in Ingham County, three people, including a then-17-year-old girl, were convicted of multiple crimes in a sex ring that allegedly included girls as young as 15.
* In 2014, two men were convicted of raping and robbing multiple women who advertised as escorts on Backpage.com, where Dunnings is alleged to have met some of the women he paid for sex.
Agencies across Michigan reported 307 arrests for prostitution and human trafficking-related crimes in 2013, and 409 arrests the following year, according to the most recent available statistics from the Michigan Incident Crime Reporting database.
Twenty-one of those arrests were women 18 years old or younger, including one reported to be 13 or 14 years old. Six males 18 or younger were arrested, according to the database maintained by the Michigan State Police.
Arrests were made in urban communities around metro Detroit and rural counties in northern Michigan such as Alpena and St. Ignace. They were made in impoverished areas such as Benton Harbor and tony towns like St. Clair Shores.
The database includes 26 cases in those years from Lansing.
Those numbers do not tell the whole story.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center, which runs a trafficking hotline, took more than 700 phone calls from Michigan and reported 152 cases of trafficking in the state last year, at least 52 of which involved minors. Trafficking also includes forced labor, but most of those cases involved sex trafficking.
That was the eighth-highest number of cases in the nation.
“Human trafficking is alive and well in Michigan,” Walsh said.
‘People don’t want to see that’
Prostitution and sex trafficking — which is prostitution with some sort of coercion involved — can fly under the radar for years and go missing from the statistics, advocates say.
In an affidavit filed with the charges against Dunnings, the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department alleges the prosecutor paid for sex multiple times a week as far back as 2010, while simultaneously prosecuting sex crimes, collecting campaign donations and winning elections by large margins.
“The reason why it’s hiding is because people don’t want to see that,” Laura Swanson, a Lansing-area filmmaker who’s finishing up a documentary about trafficking in Michigan, said of prostitution and trafficking in general. “I think we’ve been told that a victim looks a certain way. When you don't see that, then you’re not likely to call it out.”
The Internet, where women are advertised alongside sports equipment and puppies, has pushed it even further out of sight.
The move from street corners to the Web has made enforcement and sting operations more elaborate and difficult to accomplish than simply putting an officer undercover as a prostitute, Lansing police Public Information Director Robert Merritt said. Online stings usually require several departments.
Merritt said gun violence and violent crimes are a higher priority for Lansing police.
Bouknight, the Lansing physician, said pimps and traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people: runaways, foster children, people with histories of abuse or even the offspring of prostitutes. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is disproportionately represented, she said.
Recruiters — sometimes the pimp, sometimes the trafficked are forced to recruit new prostitutes — may go to the mall, for example, and prowl, Bouknight said. They’ll find a girl and tell her how pretty she is, gauge her self-confidence, and move in if she seems vulnerable.
Some women are coerced by force, kept on the line with a supply of drugs, or blackmailed because of compromising photos they've posted online or sent to someone they thought they loved, advocates said. Others are bought gifts and treated like girlfriends before being pulled into prostitution. Dunnings faces a felony charge because, according to the affidavit, he coaxed a woman to be paid for sex after she came to him for help with a custody matter. He also paid for food, rent and drug treatment for the women he also paid for sex, court records allege.
For her documentary, called “Break the Chain,” Swanson spent time with a Michigan woman who ran away from home when she was 13 and met a man whom she thought was interested in a romantic relationship. The man ended up forcing her to become a prostitute.
The misconception, Swanson said, is that the prostitutes have chosen their occupation or have been kidnapped. The vast majority are merely vulnerable women seeking a better life, who are approached by someone willing to provide one, she said.
“That opportunity seems to be the right one at the time,” Swanson said. “You have no other reason not to trust that individual.”
For the victims, the scars are lifelong, and not all of them are physical. The women Dunnings allegedly slept with had bruises from being beaten by their pimps and track marks on their arms from frequent use of intravenous drugs, according to the affidavit, but the trafficked are also emotionally abused and carry that trauma with them long after they escape the life.
“You have to look beneath the surface,” said Walsh, of the Resource Center. “The reality of a situation may not be what instantaneously meets the eye.”
‘Knowledge is incredibly empowering’
Key to stopping the problem, the advocates say, is awareness.
Michigan has made human trafficking a priority. Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of laws in fall 2014 that created two boards focused on the issue and both Schuette and federal law enforcement have cracked down.
The United Auto Workers Local 6000, which represents thousands of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, has reached out to the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human trafficking among those applying for public assistance.
But more can be done.
Bouknight said schools should look for consistently truant children. Doctors, hospitals and abortion clinics should look for young pregnancies or frequent pregnancies and abortions. Police and others should look closer at young people who are frequently arrested for shoplifting, because some prostitutes are forced to do that to have nice clothes for their clients.
Walsh said the most important thing is for community members everywhere to report what they see so victims can get help and perpetrators can be charged.
“Having the knowledge is incredibly empowering in trafficking,” she said.
Ex-lawmaker Whitmer named interim Ingham County prosecutor
LANSING — A former high-ranking state lawmaker will serve as Ingham County prosecutor for six months once the current prosecutor resigns over charges that he hired prostitutes.
Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat from East Lansing, was appointed by the county's circuit judges Wednesday. She will succeed Stuart Dunnings III, who's resigning effective July 2 after being charged in March with paying for sex, including with a woman who wanted help in a child custody dispute.
Voters will elect a permanent prosecutor in November. Whitmer, who isn't running, says she's honored to help restore people's trust in the prosecutor's office.
Whitmer served in the Legislature for 14 years, including as Senate minority leader from 2011 through 2014. The 44-year-old lawyer has been mentioned as a potential future gubernatorial or attorney general candidate.
Gretchen Whitmer named interim Ingham County prosecutor
Lansing — Ingham County Circuit Court’s judges on Wednesday named former Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer as the county’s new prosecutor following the pending resignation of Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings, who faces multiple criminal charges of engaging with prostitutes, placed himself on three months paid medical leave in March and submitted a letter of resignation that is effective July 2.
Whitmer, D-East Lansing, will take over as prosecutor for the remainder of the year.
“The public has high expectations for how this office should be run and I can promise that my own expectations are even higher,” Whitmer said Wednesday in a statement. “There’s a great deal of work ahead to get us to that point, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
For Whitmer, the appointment puts her back in public office after she was term-limited from the Senate at the of 2014 following 14 years in the Legislature. She spent the last four years of her tenure as minority leader.
Whitmer has not ruled out running for governor or attorney general in 2018.
Four Democrats and two Republicans have filed to run for Ingham County prosecutor in the Aug. 2 primary.
Dunnings, 63, has been off the job since he was arrested March 14 and charged with 15 criminal counts for allegedly having sex with hundreds of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015.
The most severe charge Dunnings faces is a felony for pandering for allegedly convincing one woman to become a prostitute. That charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings, a Democrat, is paid $132,075 annually and will collect more than $33,000 over the three-month medical leave period he intends to take.
Because he is a countywide elected official, Dunnings is free to take as much paid time off as he wants, Ingham County Commission Chairwoman Kara Hope told The Detroit News in March.
Man gets 25 years for sex ring linked to Stuart Dunnings
GRAND RAPIDS — A Lansing man was sentenced Wednesday to more than two decades in prison for operating a sex-trafficking ring that local officials said is connected to the charges Stuart Dunnings III, Ingham County's prosecutor, now faces.
Tyrone Smith, 46, pleaded guilty in November to three counts of sex trafficking in federal court. As part of the plea deal, Smith was facing between 15 and 25 years in federal prison. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jonker. Smith was facing life in prison if convicted at trial.
During the hearing, one of Smith's victims spoke.
Standing in a federal courtroom with loved ones there to support her, she told Smith, the man who trafficked her and beat her, to remember what he had done.
She told him to remember how they first met, how appreciative she was that he gave her a place to live during the winter, even her own room.
She told him to remember how she thought she loved him, how he promised to only keep half of the profits from her prostitution, how she didn’t have to start until she was ready. And she told him to remember the abuse.
"Once the physical abuse started, it never ended," she said.
She told to Smith remember the times he threatened to kill her, how he told her where he’d leave her body.
She told him she will be different from him — that he is someone who subtracts from the world — and work to make sure others don’t do what he did.
"I’ve become a strong woman," she said. "I am very capable. I am very bright. … I will add to this world."
Information obtained during the investigation of Smith led state authorities to charge Dunnings with 15 prostitution-related charges. None of that information came from Smith himself, his attorney, Madelaine Lane, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Hessmiller told Jonker Wednesday during the sentencing.
Lane told Jonker that Smith fears that while in prison he’ll be targeted for retribution for suspected cooperation with authorities because of the media coverage related to Dunnings' case and his ties to it.
Dunnings was arrested March 14 on the prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony for, officials said, using his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. During the press conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said information obtained during the federal investigation of Smith led local law enforcement to Dunnings.
"The federal-state law enforcement team identified numerous women associated with this charged sex trafficker as present or former prostitutes," according to the affidavit that led to Dunnings' charges. "Interviews of those persons led to additional persons being identified as present or former prostitutes."
Smith spoke during the hearing and told Jonker he takes responsibility for his actions and apologized to the victims, at least one of whom was in the courtroom, to his family and to the community.
"If anyone thinks that prostitution is a victimless crime, it is not," Smith said.
A sentencing memorandum filed last week by the U.S. Attorney's Office details how between December 2012 and June 2015 Smith recruited the women and advertised them for sex online.
"He recruited vulnerable girls and women – many of whom came from abusive relationships, unstable backgrounds, and addiction – who were easy to lure and control with drugs, food, a place to stay, and a combination of affection and violence," Hessmiller wrote in the memorandum.
She told Jonker Wednesday that while Smith might have apologized for his actions, if it wasn't for law enforcement he wouldn't have stopped running the sex-trafficking ring and abusing the women.
The memorandum also revealed the way Smith abused the women.
It describes an instance when he "heated a metal spoon on the stove" and pressed it to a woman’s eye as punishment for being disloyal. The woman suffered temporary loss of vision and “continues to experience irritation from the burn,” according to the memorandum.
"Smith held a knife to another woman’s throat, and another time pressed a pillow over her mouth while holding a screwdriver to her face and threatened to gouge out her eye, only to be interrupted by the landlord," Hessmiller wrote in the memorandum.
Smith’s attorney asked Jonker to sentence her client to the low end of the plea range, saying he’s 46 years old, had a rough childhood and has tried to maintain positive relationships with his family.
Smith previously served time in state prison for second-degree murder.
Smith was indicted on seven counts. Four of them were dismissed Wednesday as part of the plea deal.
Jonker sentenced Smith Wednesday to 25 years in prison on two of the counts, and 10 years in prison on a third count. The sentences will be served at the same time, and Jonker also sentenced Smith to 10 years of supervised release and $20,000 in restitution to one of the victims so she can continue therapy.
Prison for man who ran sex-trafficking ring tied to Ingham County Prosecutor
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A convicted murderer who ran a prostitution ring that later led to criminal charges against Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will spend 25 years in federal prison.
Tyrone Smith, 46, of Lansing was sentenced Wednesday, May 11, by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker, who said people need to know that such crimes occur in their communities.
Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking and one count of transporting for prostitution. He previously spent 12 years in prison for second-degree murder for a 1996 killing in Ingham County.
He operated a sex-trafficking business from at least December 2012 to June 2015, during which time he ran a prostitution house in Lansing and took women and a minor to Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit and Chicago for commercial sex.
Authorities said he preyed on women who were vulnerable, abused and drug-addicted, recruiting them to work for his prostitution label called New Stars. A 17-year-old girl was among the females trafficked.
He lured them with food and a place to stay. He maintained control over the victims using violence, threats and a steady stream of crack cocaine and heroin.
Last year's FBI investigation into Smith revealed that Dunnings allegedly was a client of the sex-trafficking ring. The prosecutor announced plans to resign in July after he was charged with 15 criminal counts across three counties for patronage of prostitutes.
Assistant United States Attorney Tessa Hessmiller said Smith pocketed roughly $1,500 a day earned by the women who worked for him.
He didn't tolerate disloyalty. One of the victims attempted to leave Smith and used photographs he took to try and attract her own paying customers. Hessmiller said Smith responded to the woman's online ad, broke into the home where she was staying and dragged the woman by her hair from room to room.
Smith took the woman back to his prostitution house, where he made a minor fight her as he recorded it.
"He also recorded the woman apologizing for 'being disloyal to 'the family,'" Hessmiller wrote in the sentencing memorandum. "He heated a metal spoon on the stove, pressed it to the woman's eye, and threatened to use it on her face. The woman temporarily lost vision in her eye and continues to experience irritation from the burn."
In another incident, another victim said Smith held a pillow over her mouth while holding a screwdriver to her face. He threatened to gauge her eye out but was interrupted by the landlord.
The teen victim was beaten for trying to leave with a cell phone that contained customer information. She was hospitalized for bruises and cuts to her face, a concussion and other injuries. Smith admitted that he reconnected with the teen when she was out of the hospital and continued arranging sex dates for her.
Authorities said Smith took advantage of the minor's history of severe sexual abuse and manipulated her with what she perceived as affection.
The sentencing memorandum also describes times when Smith forced women to beat other prostitutes who worked for him.
A victim who spoke at Wednesday's sentencing said she initially felt fortunate that Smith took her in off the streets in the winter and made her feel special. She said he became extremely violent and regularly hit her. Smith was ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution to cover the cost of her future counseling, which he will pay with prison wages.
His conviction resulted from a joint investigation involving the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff's Department, East Lansing Police and Michigan State Police.
Smith is the third person to be prosecuted federally for sex trafficking in West Michigan. His case comes after a man was sentenced to 30 years prison in 2014 and another who received a 40-year sentence last year.
Man who ran sex-trafficking ring sent to federal prison
Grand Rapids Press, The (MI)
May 14, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
A convicted murderer, who ran a prostitution ring that later led to criminal charges against Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, will spend 25 years in federal prison.
Tyrone Smith, 46, of Lansing, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker, who said people need to know such crimes occur in their communities.
Smith pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking and one count of transporting for prostitution.
He previously spent 12 years in prison for second-degree murder for a 1996 killing in Ingham County.
He operated a sex-trafficking business from at least December 2012 to June 2015, during which time he ran a prostitution house in Lansing and took women and a minor to Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit and Chicago for commercial sex.
Authorities said he preyed on women who were vulnerable, abused and drug-addicted, recruiting them to work for his prostitution service, called New Stars. A 17-year-old girl was among those trafficked.
He lured them with food and a place to stay. He maintained control over the victims using violence, threats and a steady stream of crack cocaine and heroin.
Last year's FBI investigation into Smith revealed Dunnings allegedly was a client of the sex-trafficking ring. The prosecutor announced plans to resign in July, after he was charged with 15 criminal counts across three counties for patronage of prostitutes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tessa Hessmiller said Smith pocketed about $1,500 a day earned by the women who worked for him.
He didn't tolerate disloyalty. One of the victims attempted to leave Smith and used photographs he took to try and attract her own paying customers. Hessmiller said Smith responded to the woman's online ad, broke into the home where she was staying and dragged the woman by her hair from room to room.
Smith took the woman back to his prostitution house, where he made a minor fight her as he recorded it.
"He also recorded the woman apologizing for 'being disloyal to "the family,"'" Hessmiller wrote in the sentencing memorandum. "He heated a metal spoon on the stove, pressed it to the woman's eye, and threatened to use it on her face. The woman temporarily lost vision in her eye and continues to experience irritation from the burn."
In another incident, another victim said Smith held a pillow over her mouth while holding a screwdriver to her face.
He threatened to gouge her eye out but was interrupted by the landlord.
The teen victim was beaten for trying to leave with a cellphone that contained customer information. She was hospitalized for bruises and cuts to her face, a concussion and other injuries. Smith admitted he reconnected with the teen when she was out of the hospital and continued arranging sex dates for her.
Authorities said Smith took advantage of the minor's history of severe sexual abuse and manipulated her with what she perceived as affection.
The sentencing memorandum also described times when Smith forced women to beat other prostitutes who worked for him.
A victim who spoke at Wednesday's sentencing said she initially felt fortunate Smith took her in off the streets in the winter and made her feel special. She said he became extremely violent and regularly hit her.
Smith was ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution to cover the cost of her future counseling, which he will pay with prison wages.
His conviction resulted from a joint investigation involving the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff's Department, East Lansing Police Department and Michigan State Police.
Smith is the third person to be prosecuted federally for sex trafficking in West Michigan. His case comes after a man was sentenced to 30 years prison in 2014 and another who received a 40-year sentence last year.
Complete coverage of criminal charges against Stuart Dunnings III
LANSING - On March 14, 2016, longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was arrested and charged with a total of 15 prostitution-related crimes in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
A months-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Michigan Attorney General's Office found Dunnings had paid multiple women for sex hundreds of times over several years, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
On Aug. 2, 2016, Dunnings pleaded guilty in Ingham County to a lesser felony, misconduct in office, and to one count of engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor, in exchange for the other charges being dropped. He was sentenced on Nov. 22 to one year in jail followed by two years of probation. He reported Nov. 25 to the Clinton County Jail, where he will serve his sentence to avoid any risks or conflicts in Ingham County.
Photo Gallery - Stuart Dunnings III through the years
LANSING – The name Dunnings already carried a lot of weight in Ingham County when a 43-year-old Stuart Dunnings III first sought the capital region’s top law enforcement post.
And around the same time he was embarking on what would become a long political career, the man whose criminal case would be linked to Dunnings' downfall stepped into the public eye in a Lansing courtroom.
It was in summer 1996, shortly after Dunnings declared his candidacy for county prosecutor and promised to build upon his father's nearly 50 years of community service in the region, that a 26-year-old Lansing man named Tyrone Smith was convicted of killing someone in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Nearly two decades later, information obtained during a federal investigation into a sex-trafficking ring Smith ran would ultimately land Dunnings in jail, put there by one of his longtime political allies, and facing 15 prostitution-related criminal charges.
But 20 years ago, Smith was just another defendant and Dunnings was the son of Lansing’s first black lawyer, on his way to becoming Michigan’s only black prosecutor.
Wearing his signature bowtie, Dunnings would become an important but controversial public figure, dominating at the ballot box, wielding influence over county courtrooms and helping lead numerous law enforcement initiatives. His more than 19 years as prosecutor will end in July when his resignation, submitted two weeks after his arrest, takes effect.
This story is based mostly on State Journal archives, court records and other documents. Numerous people, including Dunnings' attorneys, family and his chief deputy prosecutor, declined to comment for this story.
The good Dunnings name
The 10-year incumbent prosecutor, Republican Donald Martin, was weak as the 1996 election approached.
He'd been criticized for a controversial decision to file manslaughter charges against Greg Messenger, a doctor who removed his premature child from life support. An activist group called March for Justice also accused Martin of discriminating against blacks.
Seeing an opportunity, the county Democrats reached out to Stuart Dunnings III.
At the time, Dunnings III handled divorces, custody battles and issues involving domestic assault at the law firm founded by his father, Stuart Dunnings Jr.
The elder Dunnings had been Lansing’s first black attorney when he arrived in 1950. Though unsuccessful in elections, Dunnings Jr. nonetheless made a name for himself by leading the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other organizations, by tackling high-profile cases, and by dabbling in real estate investment. The Lansing Black Lawyers Association, which Dunnings Jr. helped found, is now called the Davis-Dunnings Bar Association. Three of Dunnings Jr.'s children followed him into law.
His firstborn son, Dunnings III, won the 1996 prosecutor's race with 53% of the vote. The new prosecutor vowed to fight "the deterioration of this community" by taking on systemic issues.
It wasn't a position childhood friend Warren Williams ever envisioned for Dunnings, but it did not surprise him.
"(Dunnings) has always been an extremely smart guy, very driven," said Williams, who currently works in Ohio in public relations. "In the legal profession, locally, that's certainly one of the top positions."
Prosecutor Dunnings immediately sought to set himself apart from his predecessor. One of his first acts was to rescind a plea bargain Martin had offered to a court employee facing embezzlement charges. Calling the woman’s actions “a violation of the public trust,” Dunnings got a conviction.
He showed he was responsive to community ills. In 2001, after a major prostitution ring involving underage girls was busted in Lansing, Dunnings brought prostitution cases, previously prosecuted as ordinance violations by Lansing city attorneys, into his office and prosecuted them as state crimes. He impounded johns’ vehicles and slapped repeat offenders, both men and women, with felonies. In the years since, he's taken a strong stance against sex trafficking, saying last year he would "work with police to target the sexual abuse of minors and protect children from human traffickers."
In 2002, after a spike in domestic violence, Dunnings helped create the Domestic Assault Response Team, a partnership between law enforcement and service providers to better serve victims and crack down on abusers. The Capital Area Sexual Assault Response Team was formed two years later.
Dunnings spoke at county high schools and told at least one assistant prosecutor that educating the community is "part of the job." It was one of the three biggest parts of his first campaign platform. In a recent email the State Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, Dunnings told the assistant prosecutor there was no need to use vacation time to speak at a career day at her hometown middle school.
The last two years of his office calendar, also obtained through a FOIA request, showed few meetings on most days. He held regular meetings with his assistant prosecutors in charge of special victim or violent crime units. In the months leading up to his arrest, his calendar showed meetings for the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, a meeting about the county jail renovation, and a meeting about a high-profile murder case, among other appointments.
The calendar also shows he often met with victims, attended Rotary lunches, met with other area criminal justice officials and had training sessions.
Dunnings entrenched himself in politics, collecting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from area attorneys, judges, business owners and gubernatorial appointees. He allied himself with Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, a fellow Democrat, and the two campaigned together often.
Dunnings served on the board of the state prosecutors association and did a stint as president of the lobbying organization.
Today, he is Ingham County’s highest-paid public official, making more than $132,000 a year; he also makes money from the real estate business started by his father.
Either as individuals or through the family company, Dunnings Investments, the prosecutor and his siblings own 18 properties in Ingham County that are collectively worth at least $2.2 million, according to county records. They count as tenants the Mason Area Chamber of Commerce, the Lansing NAACP and the accounting firm that manages Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero's all-purpose political fund.
The original law office on Pine Street remains the Dunnings headquarters, housing the family law and real estate firms and the prosecutor’s campaign offices.
The controversies
On Jan. 23, 2005, Lansing Community College professor Carolyn Kronenberg was found beaten, sexually assaulted and barely alive in a classroom. She died a short time later. Police arrested 27-year-old LCC student Claude McCollum, who was was convicted of her murder on Valentine’s Day 2006.
It was around this time, Wriggelsworth later told the State Journal, that police began to hear rumors and allegations of Dunnings’ involvement with prostitutes.
More than a year later, a suspected serial killer named Matthew Macon told police he’d killed Kronenberg. An investigation by police and reporters would later reveal Dunnings’ office and others had mishandled evidence in McCollum’s case. Video showing McCollum in another LCC building when the professor was attacked had never been shown at trial.
Assistant prosecutor, Eric Matwiejczyk, was fired. McCollum settled a $2 million lawsuit with LCC.
Dunnings faced no formal reprimand and the prosecutor's office was dismissed from McCollum's lawsuit. That fall, Dunnings carried 67% of the vote in his fourth re-election bid.
A few weeks before that 2008 vote, Dunnings met with McCollum in an East Lansing church and personally apologized, saying he was “sorry that people believe that we knew you were not guilty and prosecuted you anyway.”
The McCollum case was Dunnings’ most serious scandal, but it wasn’t his only controversial prosecution.
In 2013 and 2014, Dunnings tried to prosecute 20-year-old Sudanese refugee Kosgar Lado on a charge of lying to police, a felony, after Lado wrongly confessed to shooting a man. Lado was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Dunnings ultimately dropped charges, but not before he drew ire in the community and public criticism from lawmakers and the former head of the state prosecutors association. An online petition supporting Lado drew national attention.
During Dunnings' first term, after riots over a Michigan State University basketball loss burned East Lansing, the prosecutor sued the State Journal and other media outlets in an attempt to obtain unpublished photos and footage of the riots, a case he ultimately lost in the Michigan Supreme Court.
Three times, Dunnings ruled police shootings justified.
Dunnings survived every controversy, partly because of the Dunnings name and the work he’d done, but also because he ran as a Democrat in a Democratic town for an office where incumbency is advantageous.
In 2012, Dunnings won what will likely be his last election by his largest margin ever, carrying 70% of the vote.
By then, Smith had been released after serving 15 years in prison for murder and, according to the U.S. Justice Department, already establishing an interstate sex-trafficking ring that involved numerous women, including a 17-year-old girl.
The prostitution charges
In early 2015, the FBI brought to Wriggelsworth’s office information they had picked up while investigating Smith for human trafficking. It isn’t yet clear what type of information was shared, but authorities have said it came from witnesses in the federal case and not Smith himself. Smith was sentenced in federal court on May 11 to 25 years in prison.
Over many months, police identified five prostitutes Dunnings had paid for sex, according to court records. They identified a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, who came to Dunnings for help with a child custody case, but authorities allege in court records she was coerced by the prosecutor to accept money for sex.
Authorities allege he shared one woman with his brother, Steven, who still works out of the Dunnings headquarters on Pine Street. Steven Dunnings is facing two misdemeanor charges of engaging the services of a prostitute.
On March 14, Dunnings was arrested at a Lansing coffee shop and later arraigned in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties with a total of 15 criminal charges: one felony for turning the woman into a prostitute and 14 misdemeanors for paying for sex and ignoring his statutory duty to prosecute crimes.
The Dunnings family name was scarred. It quickly became clear his political career would soon end, as would his marriage.
"During the past years, (Dunnings) has squandered, wasted the family's assets and otherwise spent frivolously outside the marriage and has rendered the parties' savings and investments at great risk and loss," the attorney for Cynthia Dunnings, the prosecutor's wife of 38 years and the mother of his three children, wrote in a motion in their divorce case.
According to court records and other documents, Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times since at least 2010, including $600 every other week to one of the women he had sex with, and also paid bail money for another and bought gifts and paid bills for others.
Cynthia Dunnings filed for divorce days after her husband was arrested and at the time of the filing, her attorney said she "was shocked like everyone else" at the criminal charges and allegations.
Since then, she has moved for exclusive use of the couple's home on the city's west side and spousal support of $2,000 a month through the divorce proceeding and an "appropriate amount" once the divorce is final. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for June.
Dunnings hasn't been home since March 18, his wife said in an April 25 filing in the divorce case. His bond in the criminal case was amended so he could check into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for 35 days. The reason for the treatment wasn't specified in court records.
Dunnings notified the county in a March letter that he will resign from office effective July 2, and will remain on medical leave until then. Former state senator Gretchen Whitmer has been appointed interim prosecutor and will take over in July for the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends Dec. 31.
Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is prosecuting the Dunnings case, has said he'll send notification of the charges against Stuart and Steven Dunnings to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission.
Williams, Dunnings' childhood friend, said he was "initially shocked" when he heard about the charges and allegations, which relate to things he never thought Dunnings would be associated with.
But there was one aspect of the allegations that rang true for Williams, it was the mention in court records and news stories that Dunnings paid the women's bills, helped one pay for methadone treatment and helped bail one out of jail.
"That’s Stuart," he said. "He really is a truly a compassionate person. I think that's a side of him that some folks didn't get to see."
Williams knows Lansing well. He was a TV news anchor here and also a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. He once helped run a Lansing political campaign. While he lived here, he battled a cocaine addiction, but said he's been clean since 1997.
Although Williams now lives in Ohio and hasn't spoken with Dunnings since 2010, he's kept in touch with people in Lansing. There are many who are staunch supporters, Williams said, but some have suggested Dunnings leave the area.
"He is as rooted in Lansing as anyone," Williams said. "And has had a commitment to Lansing. I think that he ought not be judged just on the current situation, based on the current charges. I think you have to look at the totality of the man and his life."
Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have made any public comments on the case. Dunnings' next court date, a pre-exam conference, is scheduled for June 7.
Attorney Discipline Board review could follow Dunnings' criminal cases
LANSING – A decision on whether Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III and his brother Steven will lose their law licenses or face discipline could have to wait until after their criminal cases are resolved.
On March 14, the same day criminal charges were filed against the Dunnings brothers for allegedly paying women for sex, Attorney General Bill Schuette also sent notification of the charges to the state Attorney Grievance Commission, Schuette spokesperson Andrea Bitely said last week.
The commission investigates complaints against lawyers and can file formal charges with the Attorney Discipline Board, a separate entity which can impose fines and suspend or revoke law licenses.
Alan Gershel, grievance administrator at the commission, said last week that commission rules forbid him from saying whether any investigations are open or even confirming a complaint had been filed.
However, when the commission and criminal courts have the same case, the commission often lets the criminal case play out before taking action, he said. He was speaking generally about the commission’s practices and not about the Dunnings' cases specifically.
There some exceptions, he said in an email to the State Journal: "For example, if we are concerned that the public may be at risk if the attorney continues to practice law notwithstanding an ongoing criminal investigation, we may elect to take action more quickly."
Attorneys for Stuart and Steven Dunnings didn't return messages seeking comment.
Based on the two most recent annual reports released by the Attorney Discipline Board, Stuart Dunnings is more likely than Steven Dunnings to be disbarred.
In 2013 and 2014, 17 Michigan attorneys were disciplined by the board for felony convictions. Nine of those attorneys lost their state law licenses. In the same time frame, 21 attorneys were disciplined for misdemeanor convictions, and none were disbarred.
Stuart Dunnings was arrested March 14 and charges with 15 prostitution-related charges, including a felony for allegedly using his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Authorities were led to Dunnings by information received from witnesses in a federal sex-trafficking case.
Steven Dunnings was also charged as a result of the local investigation. He's facing two misdemeanor counts of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to 93 days in jail if convicted.
Five attorneys between 2013 and 2014 were suspended for more than three years due to felony convictions and three received suspensions less than three years. Most attorneys who were convicted of misdemeanors received reprimands from the discipline board. Traffic offenses involving alcohol were among the most common criminal offenses resulting in discipline, according to the reports.
Stuart Dunnings joined the Michigan Bar in 1980, and has served as the county's prosecutor since 1997. In March he submitted his letter of resignation, which takes effect in July. Former state senator Gretchen Whitmer has been appointed interim prosecutor and will take over in July for the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends Dec. 31.
Steven Dunnings joined the bar in 1984 and works in a private practice.
On March 14, the same day criminal charges were filed against the Dunnings brothers for allegedly paying women for sex, Attorney General Bill Schuette also sent notification of the charges to the state Attorney Grievance Commission, Schuette spokesperson Andrea Bitely said last week.
The commission investigates complaints against lawyers and can file formal charges with the Attorney Discipline Board, a separate entity which can impose fines and suspend or revoke law licenses.
Alan Gershel, grievance administrator at the commission, said last week that commission rules forbid him from saying whether any investigations are open or even confirming a complaint had been filed.
However, when the commission and criminal courts have the same case, the commission often lets the criminal case play out before taking action, he said. He was speaking generally about the commission’s practices and not about the Dunnings' cases specifically.
There some exceptions, he said in an email to the State Journal: "For example, if we are concerned that the public may be at risk if the attorney continues to practice law notwithstanding an ongoing criminal investigation, we may elect to take action more quickly."
Attorneys for Stuart and Steven Dunnings didn't return messages seeking comment.
Based on the two most recent annual reports released by the Attorney Discipline Board, Stuart Dunnings is more likely than Steven Dunnings to be disbarred.
In 2013 and 2014, 17 Michigan attorneys were disciplined by the board for felony convictions. Nine of those attorneys lost their state law licenses. In the same time frame, 21 attorneys were disciplined for misdemeanor convictions, and none were disbarred.
Stuart Dunnings was arrested March 14 and charges with 15 prostitution-related charges, including a felony for allegedly using his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Authorities were led to Dunnings by information received from witnesses in a federal sex-trafficking case.
Steven Dunnings was also charged as a result of the local investigation. He's facing two misdemeanor counts of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to 93 days in jail if convicted.
Five attorneys between 2013 and 2014 were suspended for more than three years due to felony convictions and three received suspensions less than three years. Most attorneys who were convicted of misdemeanors received reprimands from the discipline board. Traffic offenses involving alcohol were among the most common criminal offenses resulting in discipline, according to the reports.
Stuart Dunnings joined the Michigan Bar in 1980, and has served as the county's prosecutor since 1997. In March he submitted his letter of resignation, which takes effect in July. Former state senator Gretchen Whitmer has been appointed interim prosecutor and will take over in July for the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends Dec. 31.
Steven Dunnings joined the bar in 1984 and works in a private practice.
Prostitution charges won't affect Steven Dunnings' role with Housing Commission
LANSING -- An attorney charged with two misdemeanor counts of engaging in services of a prostitute will continue to work for the Lansing Housing Commission, representing the agency in landlord-tenant matters, said Patricia Baines-Lake, the commission's executive director.
Steven Dunnings was charged March 14 as result of a local investigation which also resulted in 15 prostitution-related charges against his brother, former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings. One of the charges Stuart Dunnings faces is a felony for allegedly using his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex.
If convicted, Steven Dunnings faces up to 93 days in jail. Court records show he represented the housing commission in a case that ran from April 28 to May 26 in Lansing's 54-A District Court. It was a matter regarding non-payment of rent, with a tenant of South Washington Park, 3200 S. Washington Ave., as the defendant. Court records show a judge found the defendant in default of $451.
"Our position is that he is accused and he’s not convicted," Baines-Lake said Tuesday of Steven Dunnings' status. "And in America, you're innocent until proven guilty."
Messages left with Steven Dunnings and Lawrence Shulman, his attorney, weren't returned. Baines-Lake said there hasn't been discussion within the commission's board members about replacing Dunnings with another attorney for landlord-tenant matters since the charges were announced by the state Attorney General's Office.
Steven Dunnings has an active law license and works in a private practice. He joined the bar in 1984. Asked how much Dunnings is paid to be the commission's landlord-tenant attorney, Baines-Lake said he receives "customary fees" for those kinds of services.
The Lansing State Journal filed this week a Freedom of Information request with the Lansing Housing Commission and City of Lansing for copies of bills and invoices from Dunnings for his legal services since Jan. 1, 2015. Baines-Lake said Dunnings became the commission's landlord-tenant attorney "before 2009," the year she became the commission's executive director. She said last month the agency has 833 rental units in various locations across the city.
A decision on any action against Steven or Stuart Dunnings law licenses or other discipline might not be made until the criminal cases are resolved.
On March 14, the same day criminal charges were filed against the Dunnings brothers, Attorney General Bill Schuette also sent notification of the charges to the state Attorney Grievance Commission. Alan Gershel, a grievance administrator for the commission, wrote Tuesday in an e-mail to the LSJ that he couldn't confirm whether there are any grievances filed against Steven Dunnings because of "strict non-disclosure requirements."
Contacted this week by the LSJ, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) official in a Detroit field office said he wasn't aware the prostitution charges Steven Dunnings faces and his landlord-tenant attorney role with the housing commission. Dunnings' role isn't a concern unless he gets convicted of the crimes, said Mike Polsinelli, HUD's Detroit field office director.
“We would not step in during the period where he’s presumed innocent until proven guilty," Polsinelli said of Dunnings.
HUD officials are evaluating the status of a recovery agreement that mandates reforms for the agency and its financial practices. The agreement with HUD stems from an audit of the commission conducted by HUD that was published Dec. 16 on HUD's website.
Human trafficking fight plagued by bad data, as well as bad guys
Bay City Times
June 9, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Human trafficking has inspired nothing less than a franchise of Hollywood action movies and recently led to charges against the Ingham County prosecutor. But it may remain as one of the least-understood crimes in the current culture.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette convened a commission on it in 2011, which sparked a package of legislation. Even so, most people probably couldn't define what, exactly, constitutes human trafficking, despite explanatory phrases like "modern slavery."
Is it about prostitution? Kidnapping? Workers in a field? In a restaurant? Does it have anything to do with the T-shirts selling for an almost unbelievably low price at a fast-fashion emporium? And how bad is the problem?
The answers are yes, no, maybe and we really don't know. It's complicated.
Bridgette Carr is a University of Michigan Law School professor who has spent her career advocating for victims of human trafficking. She founded a human-trafficking legal clinic at U-M. She knows as much about the topic as anyone else you'd find in the state. And when you ask her the scope of the problem in Michigan, she shrugs.
"We don't know," she said. "We're not unique in Michigan. It happens here, but I don't know that it happens more here than anywhere else in America."
That's due to misconceptions about the crime as well as honest differences about what constitutes trafficking, both among the public and in law enforcement.
Prostitution, for example, is commonly known as the world's oldest profession, but authorities sometimes differ on when it rises to human trafficking. That determination increasingly requires police and prosecutors to consider whether a prostitute has voluntarily joined the sex trade, or is working under threat of violence, or in return for promised gains that never materialize. Prostitute or sex trade worker? Victim or perp?
So too, a foreign national who enters the country illegally may be guilty of one crime, but an individual who capitalizes on that person's secrecy to extort work from him or her is guilty of human trafficking.
Resources abound to sort through these questions, and lawmakers grapple with addressing them, but human trafficking remains a fairly novel concept to the public, falling somewhere on a continuum from the "white slavery" panics of the early 20th Century to modern concerns about illegal immigrants.
Advocates like Carr are trying to change minds. Public officials like Schuette are trying to adjust policy. Law enforcement is trying to keep up.
Yet the issue itself remains mired in questionable, even fake, numbers. The contention that Michigan ranks second in the country in human trafficking cases is repeated often in the news media. It isn't supported by any available data, said Carr. Nor is it verified that sex trafficking spikes around the time of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, or at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, two more claims made regularly by credulous media voices.
At its essence, human trafficking is forcing a person a work under force, fraud or coercion. It can take many forms, from prostitution performed under the influence of a sweet-talking pimp (some pimps police with their fists, some with lies) to an undocumented-immigrant domestic servant working for little or no wages and living in fear of deportation. Victims – and sometimes perpetrators – may be innocent teenagers or experienced criminals, topless dancers or agricultural workers picking vegetables.
"There is no typical case," said Carr. "It is so varied. There are some commonalities: How vulnerable people can be, through lack of education and family support; perpetrators who are willing to make the choice; consumers and bystanders willing to look the other way.
"But that is not the conversation we often hear around this."
Too taken with 'Taken'
The conversation we do hear is encapsulated in what Carr said is the No. 1 question she's asked when she speaks to the general public: "Will my daughter be safe when she goes on spring break?"
And for that, you can probably blame Liam Neeson.
The success of the actor's "Taken" films put human trafficking into the public eye, but in doing so postulated that young women are routinely ID'd at airport taxi stands or shopping malls, kidnapped, shot full of drugs and then peddled to rich men who pay high prices for them. And that, said Carr, is simply not typical.
"'Taken' was a double-edged sword for the human trafficking world," said Samantha Vardaman, senior director of Shared Hope International, a victims advocacy group based in Vancouver, Wash. "It put the word on the map, but skewed the look of what it really is."
A more common sex trade victim, Carr and Vardaman said, would be a woman of any age, living a life full of poor choices or simple bad luck, stuck with a pimp who may beat her, control her access to the drugs she's addicted to, or simply string her along with a series of empty promises. She may not even realize she's been trafficked, and she may return to her trafficker after she's been freed.
"Something bigger and scarier happens in the trafficking world when stories like (the "Taken" myth) are told," Carr said. "If you don't match that origin story -- if you're poor, black, made bad choices, used drugs, are homeless, etc. -- then you are just a prostitute. (The kidnapped young woman from the movies) is a victim, (but the more common, often less sympathetic women) are a prostitute. That translates into how law enforcement treats my clients."
The result: When a woman is treated as a criminal rather than a victim, she is less likely to be offered shelter or other resources to help her exit a life she may not have freely chosen, Carr said.
Three little words
Jane White is a retired Lansing police officer who today is director of the Human Trafficking Task Force at Michigan State University (not to be confused with the Human Trafficking Commission, convened by Schuette). Like Carr, she decries the sensationalism directed at the sex-trade part of human trafficking. The three magic words in trafficking are simple:
"Want. A. Job," White said. It's enough to attract both the ambitious and desperate, followed by the promise of some gain down the road – money, usually, but sometimes more ambiguous promises of love, commitment, family. Activists say that trafficking happens when the promise isn't fulfilled.
Victims are sometimes physically restrained from leaving their captors, but often not, said Sgt. Ed Price of the Michigan State Police. A smuggled housemaid, dishwasher or other worker may be in the country illegally, and reluctant to go to the police for any reason.
"Migrants or restaurant workers may be treated badly, not getting paid what they were promised, but they're making something, and sending it back home," said Price. "They won't come forward. They have too much to lose."
And how many there may be is impossible to say, although numbers abound. The Washington Post's Fact Checker column devoted several stories in 2015 to verifying commonly cited numbers in speeches, appeals and other communication, and found nearly all were "fishy," "dubious" or just plain "false."
No, there very likely aren't 100,000 U.S. children in the sex trade, the ones who are don't become victims at 13 (on average), and human trafficking is not a $9.5 billion business in the U.S. – that's a guess based on more guesses.
Tackling an octopus
The numbers may be fishy, but the work of both the MSU-based task force and the attorney general's commission was necessary, Carr said, to get victims' advocates and law enforcement talking about the problem and how to address it.
Human trafficking laws were first passed in Michigan in 2006, and amended in 2010 and 2014, Carr said. They were based on federal laws, but because prostitution is not a federal crime, "they didn't 'talk to' our prostitution laws very well."
To Carr, White and other advocates, laws concerning prostitution need to recognize that many, if not most, individuals involved are working under some form of force, fraud or coercion, the standard for human trafficking. An early debate on the attorney general's commission was about how to treat 16 and 17 year olds arrested for prostitution; because 16 is the age of consent for sexual activity in Michigan, any juvenile younger than that was never charged with that crime, but older teens could be.
Carr said victims' advocates want all 16 and 17 year olds arrested for prostitution to be legally presumed to have been coerced into the trade, with the legal burden placed on prosecutors to show otherwise. But others contend coercion should be an affirmative defense, meaning the defendants themselves would have the burden of showing that they were forced or tricked into sex for pay. In the end, the commission compromised, Carr said; 16- and 17-year-olds arrested for prostitution are now presumed to be victims if they successfully complete a court-ordered program as part of their sentence.
"So they're not victims because they've been exploited, they're victims if they comply (with the court)," said Carr. "We had some really hard conversations, but those of us at the table understood it wasn't going to be perfect for anybody."
Other laws that came out of the commission allowed for medical and psychological treatment for victims, for minors to be referred to the Department of Human Services, for victims to be able to sue their captors, as well as other changes that treat many such workers with more compassion. The reforms were enough to boost Michigan's ranking for protecting trafficking victims by Shared Hope International from an F to a B.
Better records, better understanding
The ability of anti-trafficking advocates to get buy-in from law enforcement may be mainly a matter of consciousness-raising, said Price, the MSP sergeant, who draws a parallel between trafficking and domestic violence. For years, physical violence between a couple or within a family was either ignored or accepted, and victims got little help breaking away from their assailants. And it took more years for police and others to understand and learn how to deal with both victims and perpetrators.
It was only in 2013 that a separate federal data code for human trafficking was added to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the primary means for criminal activity to be tracked for data purposes, Price said. Where before a pimp beating or threatening a woman working for him might be classified as assault, it can now be called trafficking.
As awareness spreads among law enforcement and others, Price said, a clearer picture of the problem should emerge, as the new trafficking code begins to sort the data accordingly.
"Right now the only numbers I trust are from my own task force," he said.
Police aren't the only ones who need to be educated. Price said utility workers, building inspectors, hotel staff, doctors, nurses and others who work or come in contact with trafficking-prone businesses should know the signs.
"If you go into a business, maybe a nail salon, and see beds set up, you need to ask yourself, 'Why are people sleeping here? Why can't they leave?'" Price said.
Jurors will also need convincing, said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, whose office handles trafficking cases in Michigan that involve interstate business operations.
"They might think, 'Why didn't she run away? She wasn't chained to the floor,'" McQuade said. "But you talk to the victims, and learn they began their relationship with their captors as teenagers. It's a grooming process. It's very easy for young people to get caught up in this." Teens may think they're running away with an older boyfriend, but "he (gets) all the money, she does all the work."
Technology complicates the problem. The classified-ad website Backpage.com, is often cited as a contributor to sex trafficking, with its city-specific and voluminous ads for escorts, but it has prevailed in court in the past, winning dismissal of a suit brought by three women who claimed it facilitated their trafficking as underage prostitutes.
A libertarian pushback
Maggie McNeill isn't convinced more protection is needed. An on-and-off sex worker in Seattle -- a term she prefers to prostitute -- she said she believes newfound concern over trafficking is media-driven catnip, primarily a scare tactic to raise money and spread anti-sex work hysteria. She cites the case of Somaly Mam, a Cambodian advocate for victims who traveled the world, telling hair-raising tales of young women sold into sex slavery, tales that have fallen apart under scrutiny.
McNeill first exchanged sex for money a couple months after her 18th birthday, describing it as empowering and a decision she made entirely on her own. She's 49 now, and says she can count the number of underage prostitutes she's come across in her time in the business on one finger, although some of her friends have admitted to doing so before they turned 18.
But McNeill, recently part of a New York Times Magazine cover story asking whether it's time to legalize prostitution, sees sex work as an affirmative choice that women can and should be able to make without being presumed to be victims.
"I find it fascinating that in this post-feminist age, we have such a low regard for women's volition and agency," McNeill said. "We want to believe that a woman can't make a pragmatic decision (to work in the sex trade), that a man must be behind it."
Part of the solution, part of the problem
White, at MSU, wishes the conversation around trafficking was less about sex and more about what she sees as the complicity of the rest of the world in forced or unfair labor.
"When you can buy five blouses for $60, what does that tell you about the people who made them? The chocolate industry uses child slave labor. Does the global issue impact me? Yes, it does," White said. "These are supply-chain issues. This should be taught in business schools."
Carr said she agrees, but cautions against making any blanket assumptions about the business, or victims.
"In dealing with trafficking, I'm always willing to be surprised. If someone had come to me and said, 'I am being forced to be a prostitute by the Ingham County prosecutor,'" -- one of the allegations against Stuart Dunnings III, who stepped down after being charged with patronizing prostitutes, as well as trafficking one of them -- "I might not have believed it," Carr said.
"Some things are stranger than fiction."
Dunnings camp remains silent on prostitution charges
JACKSON - Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was absent Wednesday from his first court hearing since his March 14 arraignment on 15 prostitution-related criminal charges and his attorney continued a now three-month silence on the case.
In a brief conference in the chambers of Jackson District Judge Michael Klaeren, two assistant attorneys general and Dunnings' lawyer scheduled a preliminary exam for Aug. 2 to determine if there's enough evidence to proceed to trial on a 20-year felony and multiple misdemeanors Dunnings faces in Lansing's 54A District Court. A pretrial conference on misdemeanor charges the prosecutor faces in Mason's 55th District Court will happen at the same time. Klaeren is handling the Ingham County cases because Ingham County judges disqualified themselves after Dunnings was charged.
Dunnings did not attend the conference. Vincent Toussaint, a Detroit-based attorney hired by Dunnings, would not comment after the hearing.
Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have made any public comments since March 14, when the prosecutor was arrested and charged in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties with a total of 15 crimes, including the felony, pandering, after Attorney General Bill Schuette alleged the prosecutor used his position of authority to coerce one woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex. He faces misdemeanor charges of engaging the services of a prostitute and neglect of duty.
Dunnings, 63, has been Ingham County's elected prosecutor since 1997. He is currently on "medical leave" from his job as prosecutor and has announced he will retire July 2.
He also faces misdemeanors in Clinton County, where no court hearing is scheduled until September, and in Ionia County, where Dunnings is scheduled to appear for a status conference later this month.
The Ingham County Sheriff's Office, tipped off last year by an FBI unit investigating a Lansing sex trafficking case, determined Dunnings had paid at least six women for sex since 2010, according to court records. Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth told the State Journal in April that rumors of Dunnings' involvement with prostitutes go back a decade, though police had been unable to confirm any rumors until the FBI tip. Current and former Lansing police chiefs, however, told the State Journal they'd never heard such rumors.
Ingham County Circuit Court judges have named former state senator Gretchen Whitmer as interim prosecutor for a term ending Dec. 31. The November election will determine who will replace Dunnings for the next four years.
Dunnings' brother, Lansing attorney Steven Dunnings, was also charged as a result of the sheriff's investigation. He faces two counts of engaging the services of a prostitute in 54A District Court. A court date has not been scheduled in Dunnings' case.
Both brothers could face the suspension or loss of their law licenses as a result of the criminal charges. Steven Dunnings does legal work for the Lansing Housing Commission.
Gretchen Whitmer sworn in as Ingham County Prosecutor
Former State Senator Gretchen Whitmer reacts to being sworn in as Ingham County Prosecutor. She will serve for six months and isn't on the ballot for the permanent position. She replaces Stuart Dunnings III who was arrested in March.
VIDEO BY DAVE WASINGER/LANSING STATE JOURNAL
Whitmer 'looking forward' to starting as prosecutor
LANSING - Former state lawmaker Gretchen Whitmer, who takes over as Ingham County prosecutor next month, said she's willing to fire staff if they knew about Stuart Dunnings III's alleged criminal acts and worked to keep them secret.
Whitmer, who took the oath of office this morning, will officially take over as the county's prosecutor on July 2. She said she'll then begin an internal review of the office for any improprieties linked to her predecessor. That review will include conversations with staff and "point blank" questions.
"I don't think it's going to come as a surprise that the core of my questions are did anyone know what was going on and were any cases compromised because of it," she said in a recent interview with the State Journal.
Whitmer, who has been speaking with staff in the prosecutor's office, with defense attorneys, and with other county officials since her appointment was announced on May 12, said she has not yet heard of any specific issues in the office.
Dunnings, 63, was arrested March 14 and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, including a felony for using his position to coerce a women to be paid for sex, according to court records. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He announced on March 29 that he will resign July 2, and is currently on "medical leave" from his job as prosecutor.
In the wake of those charges, "morale has taken such a hit" in the prosecutor's office, Whitmer told the State Journal. "They can't wait to get Stuart's name off the door."
She added that reduced morale and lost trust from Dunnings' arrest was felt by other prosecutors' offices in other counties, and some prosecuting attorneys have offered their support as she transitions into the temporary position.
After the swearing-in ceremony today, Whitmer said restoring confidence in the office, "turning a page" and supporting the assistant prosecutors are among her top priorities.
The Michigan GOP, meanwhile, criticized the fact that Whitmer was chosen by Ingham County judges in a closed-door meeting and accused Whitmer of using the appointment to pad her resume before running for governor in 2018.
'The next chapter'
While Whitmer said she's willing to fire staff if they were involved with Dunnings' alleged criminal acts, she told the State Journal she's not entering the office looking to make an example of anyone or with her own agenda. Her goal is to make sure the office is a "well-run, professional organization" for the next prosecuting attorney, who will be elected in November and take office in January.
She'll only make significant policy decisions or reorganizations if it's in the department's best interest in the long term, she said.
"I think that there's a lot of really high-caliber attorneys on the front lines," she said. "And I am really looking forward to getting to know them and to work with them and to support the work they're doing where they need it."
The feeling is mutual.
Lisa McCormick, chief assistant prosecuting attorney, has been running the office since Dunnings' arrest and said she and the other prosecutors and staff are excited to work with Whitmer through the end of year.
"We're welcoming her into the office," McCormick said. "We're excited to start the next chapter. She's been amazing, fabulous to work with so far."
Part of preparing for that next chapter included ordering the new letterheads, documents and signage that will bear Whitmer's name. McCormick said they hope to have all of the necessary materials by July 2, and officials tried to be fiscally responsible because they'll have to do it all over again for the elected prosecutor.
Whitmer said one area she might make significant changes is in the way the office handles sexual assault and domestic violence cases, where she said she's been told there's "quite a bit of room for improvement."
"We have an assistant prosecuting attorney who's eager to put some new ideas on the table on how we might improve that particular side of what we do," Whitmer said. "So I'm really looking forward to putting some flesh on that skeleton."
She said they'll look at what prosecutors in other counties have done that works and look to implement policies or practices that make sense for Ingham County.
Political 'gamesmanship'
Whitmer was one of seven people who expressed interest in serving the remainder of Dunnings term. She was unanimously chosen from among that group by the Ingham County Circuit Court judges.
Six candidates — two Republicans and four Democrats — will be on the August primary ballots, competing for the chance to win their party's nomination to the November general election. Whitmer isn't among them and said she isn't seeking the office beyond 2016.
The selection process that ended with Whitmer's appointment wasn't open to the public.
Michigan GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel called on Whitmer to release emails she exchanged with the judges and to explain why she was chosen.
"She's the one who has taken on the mantle and said she wants to restore trust in a community where trust has been breached," McDaniel said. "Why not be forthcoming? Start the trust by being open and transparent."
McDaniel added: "“The taxpayers are going to be funding for her to build her resume as she openly admits she’s preparing to run for governor.”
Whitmer has said she is actively considering a bid for governor but isn't expected to formalize her decision until early next year.
Asked if she would release correspondence with the judges, Whitmer said she there were no emails and the process for appointing a replacement, which is set in statute, was followed.
"I think it's just gamesmanship and it's ridiculous," she said of the GOP. "I think it's the unfortunate kind of politics that make people lose faith in all public servants. And so I'm ready to turn the page."
Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Janell Lawless said there was no correspondence with Whitmer, other than her resume. She said the court didn't plan on releasing any documents related to the process but there was no "backdoor deal."
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan prosecutor who is resigning after being charged with hiring prostitutes hundreds of times and paying for sex with a woman who wanted help in a child custody dispute is seeking county retirement benefits.
The Lansing State Journal reports (http://on.lsj.com/28Ngpl3 ) Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has applied for the benefits.
County officials say they can't calculate what Dunnings might receive because he has several options. Jennifer Mausolf, spokeswoman for the Municipal Employees' Retirement System of Michigan, says the organization doesn't release retirees' personal information.
Dunnings in March submitted a letter of resignation, effective July 2. He took a paid medical leave and isn't seeking re-election.
He's awaiting hearings in three counties on whether cases go to trial. Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have publicly commented since his arraignment.
LANSING — Stuart Dunnings III, who will end a two-decade career as Ingham County prosecutor next week while trying to stay out of prison himself, has applied for county retirement benefits.
It isn't clear how much Dunnings might receive. Jennifer Mausolf, spokeswoman for the Municipal Employees' Retirement System of Michigan, said the organization does not release personal information about retirees. County officials said they can't calculate what Dunnings will receive because he has several options through MERS that would affect his final payout.
But his benefits could be significant. His nearly 20 years as the county's elected prosecutor, coupled with his more than $132,000 annual salary — he's the county's highest-paid employee — would increase his benefits through the county's defined-benefit pension plan.
Taxpayers have chipped in different amounts over Dunnings' long career, but the county currently pays $2,829 a month for each elected official on the pension plan, said Travis Parsons, the county's human resources director.
Dunnings has paid different amounts over the years, also, but is currently paying 9.66% of his salary, Parsons said.
Dunnings is not entitled to payouts for any unused vacation time or other severance because he is an elected official, county Controller/Administrator Tim Dolehanty said.
After winning five elections by wide margins, Dunnings will resign July 2 as he faces a total of 15 prostitution-related crimes in three counties, including a 20-year felony for allegedly coercing a woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex.
Dunnings' wife filed for divorce after the prosecutor's March 14 arrest. Depending on the final terms of the divorce, she could be entitled to a share of his pension.
In all three counties, Dunnings the prosecutor is still awaiting preliminary examinations to determine if Attorney General Bill Schuette has enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have publicly commented since his arraignment in March. Vincent Toussaint, a Detroit attorney hired by Dunnings, declined on Tuesday to comment for this story.
Former legislator Gretchen Whitmer was appointed by county judges to serve the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends Dec. 31. Six candidates are competing to succeed Dunnings as the elected prosecutor for a four-year term starting Jan. 1.
Lansing — A Michigan prosecutor who is resigning after being charged with hiring prostitutes hundreds of times and paying for sex with a woman who wanted help in a child-custody dispute is seeking county retirement benefits.
The Lansing State Journal reports Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has applied for the benefits.
County officials say they can’t calculate what Dunnings might receive because he has several options. Jennifer Mausolf, spokeswoman for the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan, says the organization doesn’t release retirees’ personal information.
Dunnings in March submitted a letter of resignation, effective July 2. He took a paid medical leave and isn’t seeking re-election.
He’s awaiting hearings in three counties on whether cases go to trial. Neither Dunnings nor his attorneys have publicly commented since his arraignment.
Eyes wide shut
How could Dunnings’ staffers, authorities not have known?
With Gretchen Whitmer the new county prosecutor and disgraced Stuart Dunnings III, “retired,” his sordid prostitution and coercion case enters a new and politically fraught phase for him and others, inside and outside of Ingham County's political establishment.
Whitmer wants to know who in the Prosecutor's Office knew about Dunnings’ reckless romps with prostitutes in three mid-Michigan counties. She says she's willing to fire those who knew about their boss's criminal escapades and did nothing.
If she's serious, heads will roll.
Presuming that the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office is even marginally competent, how is it possible that its dozens of lawyers deeply enmeshed in the region's crimes and courts knew nothing about Dunnings’ frequent visits with prostitutes?
Certainly he wasn't discreet.
At the time of his arrest in March, law enforcement officials said Dunnings had paid for sex hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015, solicited prostitutes using websites like Back Page and Escort Vault — sometimes three or four times a week — and was, in fact, videotaped by one of the prostitutes. The most serious charge is prostitution-pandering, a felony, alleging that he coerced a woman who came to him for help with a child custody case to have sex with him.
Yet, no one in the Prosecutor's Office knew about any of this. Seriously!
Certainly, informing on a politician as dishonest — and as powerful — as Dunnings was risky. Even hinting at his activities was likely to bring retribution. But prosecutors operate as the county's chief law enforcement officials. Their role and responsibilities are special. As is their mission. The department proclaims that it “reviews, authorizes and prosecutes violations of felony and misdemeanor criminal laws of the State of Michigan committed within Ingham County.”
Clearly, not all of them. Whitmer needs to put some hard questions to Dunnings’ second in command, Lisa Mc- Cormick. The Dunnings scandal tarnishes her reputation as a law enforcement official and manager. Were staff members willing to confide suspicions to McCormick? Did they trust that their conversations would be treated confidentially or was she perceived as Dunnings' stooge? Dunnings is blazing a trail of sex with prostitutes in her jurisdiction and she's unaware?
Of course, if the professional staff is so clueless that it didn't stumble across Dunnings' years of prostitution activities, Whitmer has another challenge – cleaning house, and thoroughly.
Then there's the Sheriff's Department, also apparently clueless about Dunnings.
Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wigglesworth acknowledged that there had been “chatter” over the years about Dunnings and prostitutes. He told the Lansing State Journal that the rumors started about 10 years ago. But no arrests.
Wrigglesworth's department, 155 sworn officers and civilians, has investigators, full policing powers, and a jail full of criminals that it can squeeze for information. There are plenty of prostitution arrests in the county, surely ample opportunity to question those in custody and follow up on leads.
That is, if you want to.
The entire Dunnings episode is enmeshed in mid-Michigan politics. There is the long standing relationship between Wrigglesworth, who has been county sheriff for 28 years and Dunnings, first elected in 1996.
Their departments are bookends in the law enforcement business — arrests and prosecution. One hand washes the other. Perhaps just a bit too cozy.
It wasn't until a federal government initiated a human trafficking investigation that Dunnings' activities merited attention from local law enforcement. The FBI provided information that prompted a year-long investigation that led to the arrest.
How embarrassing for the Sheriff’s Department that a team of investigators from outside the region, unfamiliar with the community and its criminals, were the ones to discover that the county's top law enforcement officer up to his neck, well, maybe not his neck, in prostitution-related crimes.
Dunnings has pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanors and felony charge. Before his resignation, which happened officially on Friday, he had placed himself on medical leave, likely entering a sexual addiction treatment program. He did not attend a preliminary hearing last week in Jackson County where the criminal case is being handled to avoid conflicts with Ingham County agencies and officials.
The trial will be in Jackson — that is, if there's a trial.
In his 20 years as prosecutor, Dunnings has demonstrated that he relishes the “hardass” power that comes with the job. As prosecutor he had wide latitude in deciding how laws would be enforced in Ingham County, who got legal breaks and who didn't.
In short, he's in an ideal position to track the sins of powerful people — politicians, lobbyists, government officials, educators. Lansing isn't all that clean a city.
A plea bargain avoids a lot of messiness. It keeps a lot of secrets secret. It avoids raising the obvious questions about the failures of the Prosecutor's Office and the Sheriff's Department. Dunnings may not have much leverage as his case unfolds, but he has some. And no doubt plans to use it.
Allegations against Dunnings raised in four local cases
Convicted pimp says his case is tainted by Dunnings' prostitution charges
LANSING – Two defendants and an attorney in three separate criminal cases have raised new allegations against former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, creating conflicts for his former office.
Ingham County Prosecutor Gretchen Whitmer declined to say more than that the allegations raised the possibility of connections to the 15 prostitution-related criminal charges filed against Dunnings in March. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is prosecuting Dunnings, also declined to comment on the nature of the allegations or whether they had become part of the ongoing investigation into the former prosecutor.
Ingham County prosecutors recused themselves from the three cases where new allegations were raised. Schuette's office is now handling two of those cases, spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said. Assistant attorneys general are now working the case against Jonathan Purnell, who is appealing a 2015 sex-trafficking conviction to the Michigan Supreme Court, and the case against Antwan Winbush, who is facing three weapons charges in Ingham County Circuit Court.
The third case, in which Aaron Griffin is appealing criminal sexual conduct charges, still is being reviewed for assignment either to an assistant attorney general or to a prosecutor in another county, Bitely said.
After Dunnings' arrest on March 14, multiple defense attorneys said his handling of cases should be reviewed, but these are the first cases where Dunnings' former office has recused itself.
Ingham County prosecutors also recused themselves from a Michigan Children's Protective Services case because of new allegations against Dunnings, Whitmer said. She would not name the case because it involves children.
Purnell, who is serving at least five-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty last year to sex trafficking charges, claims in an appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court that Dunnings was "overzealous" in his case because of the former prosecutor's "thoughts regarding girls."
"If you're accused of what I'm accused of, how can you accuse me?" Purnell said Tuesday during a phone interview from the Carson City Correctional Facility.
Winbush's attorney, Frederick Blackmond, told an assistant prosecutor there might be a connection between Dunnings' case and his client's case, Whitmer said. Blackmond declined to comment because his client's case is still active.
Griffin made numerous allegations after his conviction, including ineffective defense counsel and something relating to Dunnings, Whitmer said. Griffin, 45, of Lansing, pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct and accosting children for immoral purposes and was sentenced in January 2015 to 25 to 40 years in prison. He's asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to consider his case.
Griffin's appeals attorney, Tracie Gittleman, said she wasn't aware of the allegations and hadn't received notice that the case was now being handled by the Attorney General's Office.
Dunnings, who was Ingham County's elected prosecutor for 20 years before resigning on July 2, was arrested March 14 and charged with a total of 15 crimes in three counties after Attorney General Bill Schuette claimed Dunnings paid multiple women for sex "hundreds of times" over several years. Dunnings faces up to 20 years in prison on a felony charge, pandering, after a year-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office revealed he coerced one woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex, according to court records.
As has been the case since Dunnings' arraignment, his attorney declined to comment.
Purnell first appealed his conviction in March, but the Michigan Court of Appeals denied his application as untimely. Dunnings was not mentioned in that first appeal, which claimed only that Purnell received ineffective assistance of counsel in Ingham County and should have been allowed to change his guilty plea.
Asked in the phone interview why he hadn't included the Dunnings accusation before, Purnell said his court-appointed appellate attorney had written the application without speaking to him.
That attorney, William Branch, said on Monday that he did speak to Purnell long before writing the brief and only learned of the Dunnings connection when county prosecutors told him in April they would recuse themselves from the case.
Purnell appealed to the Supreme Court on June 6 without an attorney. He said Tuesday his family is seeking an attorney for him.
In his handwritten application to the state's highest court, Purnell also claimed Dunnings was biased because the prosecutor had relationships with the victims in his case.
"How can you … prosecute when you are involved romantically with the victims," Purnell wrote to the justices. "Jealousy is a factor on the prosecutors' behalf to be unfair and unjust in this case."
Purnell said Tuesday he wouldn't offer further details about that allegation without an attorney.
"I said what I said in the brief," he told the State Journal. "You ask the question, it's already answered in a sense."
That is the first claim of any link between Dunnings and Purnell. Ingham County detectives started investigating Dunnings after the FBI passed on information obtained during a federal investigation into a separate sex-trafficking ring involving Lansing's Tyrone Smith.
Five victims were identified in Purnell's case, but Purnell did not mention any specific women in his allegations. None of the six alleged victims in Dunnings' case have been publicly identified by name.
Along with Purnell, two others were sentenced last year for their roles in the same sex-trafficking ring: Mariah Haughton was sentenced to up to 20 years in state prison. Christopher Bryant was sentenced to up to 40 years in federal prison.
Bryant's convictions were upheld last month by a federal appeals court. He did not mention Dunnings in his appeal.
Haughton has not appealed.
6 take aim at restoring trust after Dunnings' arrest
LANSING - The field of candidates for the Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney primaries would look vastly different if it wasn't for the March arrest of Stuart Dunnings III.
The arrest's impact on the prosecutor's office, specifically the trust residents lost, will be a major issue for the county's first new elected prosecutor in 20 years.
The field of candidates includes two former county assistant prosecutors, defense attorneys, a city attorney, an assistant attorney general and a former federal prosecutor. Some have been practicing law for more than 30 years, others fewer than 7 years. There are four candidates running in the Democratic primary and two in the Republican primary.
The candidates are vying to replace Gretchen Whitmer, who was appointed to serve Dunnings' final six months in office. Dunnings is facing 15 prostitution-related charges and resigned this month. Whitmer has said she plans to conduct an internal review of the office for any improprieties linked to her predecessor.
It's among the reasons why Carol Siemon, D-East Lansing, said Whitmer's time as prosecutor will do a lot toward restoring the trust. Siemon served as an assistant prosecutor in the office for 11 years, including several as the head of the juvenile division.
Siemon worked in the prosecutor's office before Dunnings was elected and said if she's elected she'll quickly start meeting with staff, prosecutors and local law enforcement.
"Trust is something that you build over time," she said. "(Residents) will see that over time."
Defense attorney Patrick O'Keefe, who was hired by Dunnings after spending time in the Kent County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, said a connection to the community is key toward restoring the trust.
O'Keefe, D-Mason, left the prosecutor's office in late 2013 and has since worked as a defense attorney in the area.
"I feel that one of the things that was a problem with Mr. Dunnings was that he stopped staying connected to the community," the 41-year-old attorney said. "So I think it's important that the community knows their prosecutor is their lawyer."
To restore trust in the office, the next prosecutor needs to acknowledge that trust has been broken, but not just in the office and its former leader, said 32-year-old Brian Jackson, a Democrat and local defense attorney.
"I notice and I hear and I see through friends and family and clients that the criminal justice system is broken and failing," he said, adding that too much time and money is spent incarcerating and prosecuting people. "I want to see Ingham County safe but also want to see families kept together."
Candidates said their own reputations, built in Ingham County over time, and holding people in and outside the office accountable will help restore the trust.
Many mentioned the importance of transparency.
Among them was Thomas English, 60, of Williamston. The Democrat and former federal prosecutor in New Mexico said the public and the media have a right to know what's going on in the office and in the courtroom.
The next elected prosecutor won't be able to spend all their time working to repair the harm Dunnings' alleged misconduct might have done. They'll need to lead a busy office that handles more than a thousand criminal cases each year.
"The main thing the people have to know is the prosecutor has many responsibilities to balance," O'Berry said. "I am able to multitask. You have to be able to multitask."
O'Berry, a Lansing city attorney who has unsuccessfully sought local judicial seatsin the past, said if elected she'll look into the way the office reviews cases before deciding whether to issue charges. She added that she will look for ways to shift some misdemeanor cases back to local municipalities and work to educate the community on certain crimes, like sex trafficking and its prevalence, which Dunnings' arrest put into the spotlight.
"You can’t believe how many people don't know (how prevalent it is)," she said. "Knowledge is key for stemming criminal activity. The chief law enforcement officer has a responsibility to inform the community."
O'Berry was the only candidate who questioned why rumors about Dunnings and prostitutes, which some have said go back 10 years, weren't investigated more thoroughly. She said people need to know they'll be shielded from retaliation if they bring wrongdoings or misconduct to light.
Monica Stephens, who works in the Attorney General's Office in Detroit, said her priority if elected would be justice, and keeping the victims involved in and aware of developments in their cases.
"Victims will be a high priority in my office," she said.
Stephens, a Republican, said there's no potential conflict with her office prosecuting other elected officials and has no involvement in or knowledge of the Dunnings investigation. She works on Michigan Children's Protective Services cases and previously worked elderly people.
"That's pretty much been my aim in my career, to seek out those in vulnerable positions and see how can I serve," she said.
Several candidates mentioned the prosecutor's role in preventing or reversing a school-to-prison pipeline. They voiced support for legislation that would raise the minimum age of adult defendants from 17 to 18, but still give prosecutors the ability to charge someone younger than 18 as an adult if they felt the circumstances warranted it.
"If you involve them in the criminal justice system at a young age they’re more likely to be a repeat offender," Jackson said.
He added that the prosecutor and their office should recognize and address racial and economic disparities in the system. Prosecutors should seek restorative justice options for defendants with mental health and addiction issues, Jackson said.
The prosecutor’s role is "multifaceted," Siemon said, and when reviewing cases the office should thinking about what's needed, not just if they can put someone in jail.
Siemon has worked as a training coordinator for the state's prosecutors association and most recently she as a consultant with Public Policy Associates. She said the country and state incarcerate too many people, and the financial costs of minor infractions can cause difficulty for low-income residents.
"Who are we locking up that does not need to be locked up?" she said. "We need to examine that."
English, the former federal prosecutor and administrative law judge who's also former New Mexico state trooper, said his office would take a proactive approach and be involved in every aspect of the criminal justice system.
He said he was planning to run even before Dunnings was charged.
"I've always looked for challenges," English said, "and that’s what led me down this path."
As costs of incarceration continue to increase and a state Supreme Court decision last year gave judges more discretion when it comes to sentences, O'Keefe said good relationships between prosecutors and defense attorneys will ensure that sentences will be just, but also fair. He pointed to his time as a prosecutor and defense attorney as a benefit.
"Sentence disparities could become a serious issues if we don't work hard to ensure that we’re doing everything we can to sentence people appropriately," O'Keefe said.
About the candidates
The Democrats
Thomas English, 60, of Williamston, is a retired administrative law judge and former U.S. Army judge advocate general who also was a New Mexico state trooper and a federal prosecutor. He joined the Michigan bar in 2005. Go to www.voteforenglish.com for more information.
Brian Jackson, 32, of Lansing, is a local defense attorney who previously worked in the Eaton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. He joined the bar in 2013. Go to www.votebrianjackson.com for more information.
Patrick O'Keefe, 41, of Mason, has worked as an area defense attorney since leaving the prosecutor's office in 2013 after after six years, having previously worked in the Kent County Prosecuting Attorney's Office for four years. O'Keefe joined the bar in 2003. Go to www.okeefeforjustice.com for more information.
Carol Siemon, 59, of East Lansing, has worked on child welfare issues for the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, the State Court Administrative Office and the Office of Children's Ombudsman. She worked for the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office from 1983 through 1995. Go to www.carolsiemonforprosecutor.com for more information.
The Republicans
Billie O'Berry, 60, of Mason, started her law career working for former Ingham County prosecutors Raymond Scodeller and Peter D. Houk, whom she called role models, before joining the city attorney’s office. She was an adjunct law professor at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School for 16 years. O'Berry joined the bar in 1985. Go to www.billieoberry.com for more information.
Monica Stephens is an assistant attorney general who works on Michigan Children's Protective Services cases and formely worked as an assistant prosecutor in Jackson County. Stephens joined the bar in 2010. Go to www.monicastephens.com for more information.
Report on the Status of the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office
LANSING, MI (WLNS) – When former state lawmaker Gretchen Whitmer accepted the interim appointment of Ingham County Prosecutor back in May, she said she did it with one goal in mind, “to restore the great trust and confidence that the people of Ingham County should have in the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office after the resignation of Stuart J. Dunnings III.”
In an 11-page report released Friday, Whitmer said the criminal allegations against the former Ingham County Prosecutor, did not affect the office or the compromise the cases it worked on.
Since her appointment in May, Whitmer conducted more than 100 meetings and interviews with staff in the prosecutor’s office, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette and his team, every law enforcement agency in Ingham County, and a number of defense attorneys and judges.
Employees in the prosecutor’s office were not aware of Mr. Dunning’s conduct leading to the current allegations against him. Staffers said Mr. Dunnings was frequently absent from the office and was generally available via cell phone. One staff member referred to him as an “absentee landlord.”
Because of a “gag-order,” which is a judge’s order that a case may not be discussed in public, Whitmer said the Michigan Attorney General’s Office was unable to share information about specifics regarding Mr. Dunnings’ alleged crimes, but said it became immediately apparent that assistant prosecutors were never asked to compromise a case or look the other way and handled all cases with the utmost care.
She said this is important because investigating agencies would have been legally and ethically obligated to act if they thought there were improprieties at the Prosecutor’s Office that would affect the outcomes of cases.
The report said that when the charges against Dunnings III were first announced, many local law enforcement agencies reviewed cases to ensure that no case was compromised. None cited a concern.
Whitmer said she has full confidence that any problem that had existed with Mr. Dunnings in office, left with him.
Two cases were brought to the attention of Whitmer out of concern, but not because of any wrongdoing of Assistant Prosecutors or conduct of the office. The county has recused itself from People v. Purnell, to determine if there was any connection to Mr. Dunnings’ charges, because of new allegations against him.
In closing, she said: “Based on all of my interviews, I found no evidence that any Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys or staff member’s conduct was compromised by Mr. Dunnings’ alleged illegal conduct. I will work to continue to preserve and enhance that reputation through an open dialogue in our community to ensure the public can have the same confidence in the office that I now have.”
Whitmer said moving forward, while the criminal case against Mr. Dunnings continues, the Ingham County Prosecutors Office will continue to work and cooperate with investigating agencies.She said the office will also make use of the recusal process if there’s a legitimate question of conflict that arises in a particular case.
In her efforts to proactively benefit people in Ingham County, Whitmer has established a dedicated Domestic Violence unit. An assistant prosecutor has been assigned to review and prosecute all felony domestic violence cases in Lansing.
She has also requested that the Ingham County Board of Commissioners expand the Diversion Program to increase efforts toward rehabilitating first time offenders.
Cases unaffected by Dunnings' alleged crimes, Whitmer says
Dunnings was 'absentee landlord' in office, report claims
LANSING – The alleged wrongdoing of longtime Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III did not infect the office or the cases it worked, Dunnings' successor reported Friday.
One employee in the prosecutor's office was interviewed by investigators about an undisclosed case, but it's unclear if that case is related to the Dunnings investigation and "the employee's conduct does not appear to be at issue," Gretchen Whitmer, the former lawmaker appointed to replace Dunnings on July 2, said in an 11-page report.
The county also had recused itself from three criminal cases and a Michigan Children's Protective Services case because of new allegations against Dunnings, Whitmer reported, but those allegations were unrelated to any conduct by assistant prosecutors or the office.
Assistant prosecutors "were never asked to compromise a case or look the other way," she said in the report. "More importantly, they would not have stood for that type of conduct."
Area law enforcement agencies had reviewed cases they handled for potential improprieties, but "none citied a concern," she said.
After more than 100 meetings with her staff, with law enforcement agencies, with defense attorneys and with judges, "I have full confidence that any problem that had existed in this office, left with Mr. Dunnings," Whitmer said.
Whitmer said she has been conducting interviews since she was appointed in May.
Whitmer conceded in the report that she was unaware of many specifics about Dunnings' alleged crimes because of a so-called "gag order" that prevented the Michigan Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting Dunnings, from sharing information. But she felt confident there was no evidence of wrongdoing by assistant prosecutors because law enforcement would be "legally and ethically obligated to act if they thought there were improprieties … This did not occur."
Andrea Bitely, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Schuette, said the office could not comment because of the pending case against Dunnings.
The State Journal was unable to reach Dunnings' attorneys for comment on this story.
The recusals
The State Journal first reported last week that the county had recused itself from four cases because of new allegations against Dunnings. But Whitmer's report included new details:
In the case against Jonathan Purnell, who is appealing a 2015 conviction on human trafficking charges, Whitmer reported that an assistant prosecutor had read the affidavit in Dunnings' case and thought it might involve some of the same women in the Purnell case. Previously, it was only known that Purnell had raised the possibility of connections to Dunnings.
Punell told the State Journal in an interview Tuesday at the Carson City Correctional Facility that he had no specific information that the victims in his case were connected to Dunnings, though he "wouldn't be surprised" if they were. He did, however, say that he had information on three other women who had told him they had relationships with Dunnings.
On the eve of the trial against Antwan Winbush, who is facing three weapons charges in Ingham County Circuit Court, his attorney reported that Winbush had information about Dunnings doing favors for a prostitute and her family. The nature of Winbush's allegations wasn't previously known.
In the third criminal case, in which Aaron Griffin is appealing criminal sexual conduct charges, Griffin made nonspecific allegations about Dunnings being unethical, but the county recused itself because officials were unaware what role Dunnings played in Griffin's case.
Prosecutors have provided no information about the CPS case because it involves children.
Whitmer also reported a previously unknown questionable case. A judge told her that Dunnings had attended the proceedings in a civil case, which was unusual for the prosecutor. In a phone interview, Whitmer said the judge did not remember the specific case and there was no allegation of wrongdoing, only the oddness of Dunnings' presence in the audience.
In the phone interview, Whitmer said that case was not the CPS case from which the county had recused itself. CPS cases are handled in civil court.
Whitmer said in the report her office will continue to recuse itself from cases in which legitimate questions of conflict are raised.
'Absentee landlord'
It might have been difficult for Dunnings to influence cases because he was rarely involved with the day-to-day operations of the office, Whitmer reported.
Dunnings was "generally available via cell phone," but one staffer called him an "absentee landlord" who largely left his chief assistant prosecutor, Lisa McCormick, to run things. The door to his executive suite at the downtown Lansing offices "remained closed and people had to knock to gain entry to the vestibule staffed by Mary Greener," Dunnings' executive assistant, Whitmer reported.
Greener, the employee closest to Dunnings, was laid off when Whitmer took office because Whitmer wanted her own executive assistant. Greener has told the State Journal she will not answer questions.
Dunnings' office was located in a distant corner, with a nearby elevator, its own bathroom and an egress stairwell, so "it was unusual to happen upon Mr. Dunnings even when he was in the office," Whitmer said in the report. One veteran staffer said she would not see Dunnings for weeks at a time.
His official calendar, obtained by the State Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request, confirms Dunnings was frequently out of the office attending meetings and visiting schools.
Staffers said they were unaware Dunnings was being investigated, and one staffer called the day of his arrest "the Monday of infamy."
Moving forward
Whitmer was appointed by the county's circuit court judges to serve the remainder of Dunnings' term, which ends on Dec. 31. She is not running in this year's election to determine who will take office for a four-year term beginning Jan. 1.
Six candidates — four Democrats and two Republicans — are competing in the Aug. 2 primary election. In November, voters will pick a new prosecutor for the first time since 1996.
Still, Whitmer said in the report she will be active during her brief tenure.
She's already established a special domestic violence unit and has asked Ingham County commissioners to expand the office's diversion program for first-time offenders. She also said she'll work to have parole denied for Don Miller, who was imprisoned in the 1970s for a string of Lansing-area murders. And she said she'll work with the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan on strategy for the lame-duck session of the Legislature.
Prosecutor candidates seek to move beyond Dunnings
In March of this year, long-time Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was arrested on 15 prostitution-related charges. He resigned in disgrace July 2, leaving the post open for the first time in 20 years.
Interim Ingham County Prosecutor Gretchen Whitmer has concluded that officials in that office were unaware of Dunnings’ alleged activities. But she acknowledged the criminal investigation and prosecution prevented some staff from speaking to her.
On Tuesday, Ingham county voters will decide on one of four Democrats and one of two Republicans who will square off in November. The Democrat is likely to be elected.
Vying for the position are Democrats Thomas English, 60; Brian Jackson, 32; Patrick O’Keefe, 33; and Carol Siemon, 59. The Repubicans are Billie Jo O’Berry, 60, and Monica Stephens. All but Stephens sat down for interviews last week.
Of those interviewed, three said they did not believe staff or assistant prosecutors would have known about Dunnings’ alleged illegal activities. Jackson and O’Keefe both worked for Dunnings and have contacts in his office. They said that they had no reason to believe officials knew.
“I have some cordial relationships with people, but at no point did any conversation come up, so all I would be able to do is speculate,” Jackson said.
He called the charges against Dunnings a “shock” and a “surprise.”
“I think that integrity is in the process of being restored by interim prosecutor Whitmer,” O’Keefe said. He also said he would not do an investigation.
Siemon said she agreed with Whitmer’s assessment and believed those employed in the office had been unfairly tarnished by the revelations.
But English said he’s not so sure.
“Should they have known?” He asked. “Absolutely. Attorneys are bound as officers of the court. In the dealings of a prosecutor’s office — dealing with informants, dealing with witnesses, dealing with these people — I find it difficult to believe that somebody didn’t know.”
He stopped short of pledging for a formal review and investigation, but said he expects if elected “the truth will come out” during interviews and conversations with staff as part of the transition.
O’Berry said she saw Dunnings’ appearance decline over the last year, but she chalked it up to “physical issues.” She said she believed that some in the Prosecutor’s Office would have known about Dunnings’ alleged activities or should have been concerned at least. She leaves her most vocal criticisms, however, for Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wrigglesworth, a Democrat, and his staff.
She said she has heard in neighborhoods that it was common knowledge that sex workers referred to Dunnings as their “friend.”
“That’s the responsibility of the Sheriff ’s Office to investigate rumors,” she said. “If that agency is not going to investigate, nobody did.”
Wrigglesworth has said his department was aware of “locker room talk” alleging Dunnings’ involvement with sex workers, but he was unable to verify any of those allegations for over a decade.
The candidates seek to oversee the agency that has a budget of just over $7.1 million and employs over 50 people. The office prosecutes crimes brought to it from 13 different local and state law enforcement agencies. It works closely with the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and other federal agencies.
Whitmer’s review found Dunnings was often absent from the office. She reported that he did not use parking available under the Veteran’s Memorial Courthouse, either. She reported prosecutors seeking direction from him had to call his cellphone and that many long-time employees felt like he did not know who they were. He was, she concluded, an absentee manager.
The charges and arrest of Dunnings are not the first time the office of prosecutor has been the source of controversy. The last time Ingham County’s top law enforcement post was up for grabs was 20 years ago. The office under Donald Martin was in chaos and under the gun for prosecuting Dr. Gregory Messenger, a dermatologist from East Lansing, with the murder of his premature baby.
Messenger was found not guilty and in 1996, Martin, a Republican, lost a bid for re-election to a bow-tied attorney from a prominent family.
It was the rise of Stuart Dunnings III.
But 20 years later, Dunnings has resigned and the office is under a cloud once again. He weathered a controversy in which his office prosecuted and convicted the wrong man for a murder in 2006, which allowed serial killer Matthew Macon to continue a series of brutal rapes and murders through 2007.
All of the candidates seeking to succeed Dunnings said such controversial prosecution would not happen under their leadership, noting that they would “follow the evidence.”
For the candidates, justice is not “just trying to win,” as O’Keefe said, but finding solutions.
That’s why the candidates each support the specialty court systems in Ingham County. There is a special court for Veterans run out of East Lansing’s 54-B District Court; a drug court run out of the 55th District Court in Mason; and special juvenile justice initiatives in the juvenile court system — which are funded by a special juvenile justice millage which is up for renewal.
Underlying that support for those specialty courts is the idea of justice. The dictionary defines that as “just behavior or treatment,” but City Pulse asked the candidates how did they define justice.
Siemon said her definition grew out of a strong sense of social justice — protecting the weak, particularly children, in society.

“You treat people with dignity,” she said. To achieve that, you “listen and hear” what their concerns are.
O’Berry, the Republican, said justice “boiled down” to holding people accountable for their actions, while Democrat O’Keefe said justice was “being fair.”
“It’s to speak out and be an advocate for the crime victim and to be fair to the accused,” he said.
Jackson said justice was a matter of helping each party in a case “be the best that they can be.”
“It’s not necessarily a conviction, and it’s not necessarily letting somebody off the hook,” he said. “It’s rebuilding those relationships.”
The office of prosecutor is a potent one. It decides which laws are enforced and how. With the continuing controversy over medical marijuana dispensaries in Lansing, City Pulse asked the candidates their take.
English, Jackson, O’Keefe and Siemon all said they wanted to see the state act immediately to give guidance and clarity on a poorly written law. O’Berry said it is her belief the current dispensaries are operating illegally and she would support a move to investigate them and “enforce the law.”
Despite that pledge, O’Berry said at the end of the day, she believes in “personal freedom” and would therefore support a voter driven initiative to legalize marijuana.
But English, Jackson, O’Keefe and Siemon, were much more supportive of overall legalization, each immediately saying yes when asked if they supported it.
Neither Republican lists any endorsements on their websites. Jackson also does not list any endorsements on his website. English has been endorsed by retired Brig. Gen. Michael McDaniel, who led the city’s probe into how the Lansing Board of Water & Light handled the 2013 ice storm crisis, and Ingham County Drain Commissioner Patrick Lindemann, a Democrat. O’Keefe counts among his supporters former Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley and Lansing City Council President Judi Brown Clarke, while Siemon counts Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero and East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows among her supporters.
Those endorsements are not necessarily translating to campaign cash, however. Fundraiser and expense reports filed Monday show English and Siemon each have loaned their campaigns at least $30,000. O’Keefe loaned his campaign $4,305, while Jackson’s and Stephens’ campaigns list $1,400 loans from the respective candidate.
O’Berry loaned her campaign $3,195 but did not report it properly, said Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum.
Siemon, with her $30,000 loan, had the highest fund raising, reporting $46,317.43. She has $10,565 on hand. O’Keefe raised $39,576.32, with $4,393.59 cash on hand. English meanwhile reported $36,786.36, including a $32,272.27 loan, with a negative cash on hand of $27,142.80. Jackson reported $12,281 in funds raised, and $567.27 cash on hand.
On the GOP side, the funds are significantly lower. Stephens reported $5,225 in funds raised, with $2,313 cash on hand. O’Berry reported $5,356 in funds raised, with $1,863 cash on hand.
Those reports also revealed that 29 percent of Jackson’s funds came from out of state, mostly in donations of $100 or less. O’Keefe spent $27,8266 on consulting fees for Grassroots Midwest, which has been tied to the controversial mailings and robocalls in last year’s City Council elections. O’Keefe has said he was unaware of the organization’s history. The Democrat also took a $100 donation from Gov. Rick Snyder’s former chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore.
Of note in the GOP primary, Stephens accepted $4,711 in in-kind donations from the Rev. Ira Combs, a controversial antigay minister from Jackson.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings accepts plea deal
Dunnings, 63, was arrested March 14 and faces 15 prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony for allegedly using his position to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. Dunnings, who was first elected prosecutor in 1996, resigned.
Schuette's office: Dunnings violated trust of community
Attorney General Bill Schuette's spokeswoman said that Stuart Dunnings III violated the trust of the community and that the deal was important that he receives the justice that he deserves.
Video by Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal
Ex-Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings Enters Guilty Plea In Felony Criminal Case
LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that ex-Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings has pleaded guilty to felony Misconduct in Office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and to a charge of soliciting a prostitute. Schuette originally charged the sitting prosecutor on March 14, 2016, driving Dunnings from office, following investigations by the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff and Michigan Attorney General’s office into an unrelated Mid-Michigan human trafficking case and leads resulting from that case.
DRIVEN FROM OFFICE: AFTER FELONY GUILTY PLEA, SCHUETTE SEEKS PRISON SENTENCE
Dunnings, who resigned from office after Schuette filed charges, was originally to have his preliminary exam conference today. Instead, Dunnings entered the guilty plea to the new felony charge of Misconduct in Office, which carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, following negotiations with the Department of Attorney General. Dunnings also entered a guilty plea to one count of Engaging the Services of a Prostitute, a 93-day misdemeanor that carries a maximum fine of $500 and mandates collection of the defendant’s DNA upon conviction for entering into the CODIS database.
Schuette’s office announced it intends to seek a prison sentence for Dunnings on the charge of Misconduct in Office, a decision that will be made by the court at a later date. Felony Misconduct in Office carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
LAW LICENSE TO BE SUSPENDED; SCHUETTE SUPPORTS PERMANENT SUSPENSION
Additionally, while Dunnings’ law license will be automatically suspended due to the felony plea, Schuette said he is sending a letter to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission notifying them of the felony plea. Schuette supports a permanent suspension of Dunnings’ ability to practice law in the State of Michigan.
The plea was entered this afternoon before Judge Michael J. Klaeren of the 12th District Court in Jackson. Judge Klaeren is currently acting as a judge of the 54-A District Court.
GOALS: ACHIEVE JUSTICE AND PROTECT VICTIMS
While some of the March 14th charges were dropped as part of this agreement, Schuette said he has a strong concern about re-victimizing women involved in a potential trial and sought to protect them and their families from further publicity, while ensuring that justice is done in this case. This is why the original charges were amended today to include the felony Misconduct in Office charge that carries a five-year maximum prison sentence, and one charge of prostitution.
Schuette’s office intends to seek a term of incarceration at sentencing.
“The system in Michigan is not rigged. We have one system of justice and the rules apply to all,” said Schuette. “Today we are one step closer to accountability for the defendant, justice for victims, and a chance to restore the public trust tarnished by a public servant who only served himself.”
CASE BACKGROUND
The charges against Stuart Dunnings grew out of a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring which took place in 2015. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan filed federal charges in that case against human trafficking ring leader Tyrone Smith in July 2015. On May 16, 2016, Tyrone Smith was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for sex trafficking young girls and women, including one minor.
Following the federal investigation into Smith, members of the Michigan Attorney General’s office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Ingham County Sheriff’s Office jointly conducted an additional investigation based on information provided by witnesses in the federal investigation of Smith, which led to Dunnings. That resulted in evidence that Stuart Dunnings, the then-Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney, engaged in commercial sex numerous times with multiple women in three counties (Ingham, Clinton and Ionia) from 2010 – 2015.
Furthermore, evidence showed that Dunnings also allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one, resulting in the original charge of Pandering, a 20-year felony. In order to achieve justice and avoid victimizing the victim and her family, this charge is being dropped at this time. The defendant instead pleaded guilty to Misconduct in Office, a felony which carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Lansing, Mich. — A man who served as prosecutor in Michigan’s capital for nearly 20 years pleaded guilty Tuesday to misconduct in office in a prostitution investigation that grew out of a human-trafficking probe and forced him to quit.
Stuart Dunnings III pleaded guilty to a felony as well as a misdemeanor, soliciting a prostitute, in a deal that dismisses 14 other charges in three counties.
“We are one step closer to accountability for (Dunnings), justice for victims, and a chance to restore the public trust tarnished by a public servant who only served himself,” said Attorney General Bill Schuette, who will seek a prison sentence.
Dunnings, who was Ingham County prosecutor, declined to comment after the court hearing in Jackson.
In a letter in March to Ingham County officials, Dunnings said he would take a medical leave of absence until July 1 and then tender his resignation from office the following the day. Dunnings recently had checked himself into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for an unspecified reasons, according to court filings.
Gretchen Whitmer, a former Senate Democratic Leader, became Ingham County's interim prosecutor on July 2.
In addition to resigning, Dunnings had said he wouldn’t seek re-election this year after nearly 20 years in office.
"This will further notify you that I will not be filing the necessary paperwork to run as an incumbent for the office of Prosecuting Attorney," Dunnings wrote in the letter to Hope, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless. "It has been an honor a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as prosecuting attorney."
Authorities pursued Dunnings based on information first gathered during a human-trafficking investigation by the FBI. He was accused of hiring prostitutes in three counties and inducing a woman to become a prostitute.
Dunnings, 63, was arrested at a coffee shop in March. He subsequently took a paid medical leave, sought unspecified treatment in Tennessee and officially resigned in July.
Coincidentally, he pleaded guilty on the day of Michigan’s primary election in which four Democrats and two Republicans are trying to advance to the fall election in the county prosecutor’s race.
Dunnings pleads guilty to felony charge, Schuette to press for prison
JACKSON – Four months and 19 days after he appeared on video conference from the Ingham County jail and on the same day voters cast ballots for a new county prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III walked into a Jackson County courtroom and pleaded guilty to a felony.
It was his first court appearance since March 14, when the now former county prosecutor was charged. Officials have said a year-long investigation and information received during a federal sex-trafficking investigation with Lansing ties led to Dunnings’ arrest.
Dunnings, 63, was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. During the March 14 press conference announcing charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over several years.
He also said Dunnings used his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex, which was the basis for the most serious charge and the only felony — pandering, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings pleaded guilty today to a new charge of misconduct in office, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. As part of the plea deal, the Attorney General’s Office agreed to dismiss the remainder of the charges, including the 20-year pandering felony.
Schuette's office was willing to allow Dunnings to plead to a lesser felony so that victims in the case did not have to testify, said Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office.
Dunnings will be sentenced at a later date. The case is in Ingham County Circuit Court, but could go to another county if circuit judges in Ingham County recuse themselves.
Dunnings's case will be randomly assigned to an Ingham County judge, and each judge will decide on their own whether or not to recuse themselves, Ingham County Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless said Tuesday. If all of the judges recuse themselves, the State Court Administrator's Office would assign the case to a judge in another county.
Dunnings pleads guilty to felony charge, Schuette to press for prison
JACKSON – Four months and 19 days after he appeared on video conference from the Ingham County jail and on the same day voters cast ballots for a new county prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III walked into a Jackson County courtroom and pleaded guilty to a felony.
It was his first court appearance since March 14, when the now former county prosecutor was charged. Officials have said a year-long investigation and information received during a federal sex-trafficking investigation with Lansing ties led to Dunnings’ arrest.
Dunnings, 63, was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties. During the March 14 press conference announcing charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over several years.
He also said Dunnings used his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex, which was the basis for the most serious charge and the only felony — pandering, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Dunnings pleaded guilty today to a new charge of misconduct in office, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. As part of the plea deal, the Attorney General’s Office agreed to dismiss the remainder of the charges, including the 20-year pandering felony.
Schuette's office was willing to allow Dunnings to plead to a lesser felony so that victims in the case did not have to testify, said Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office.
Dunnings will be sentenced at a later date. The case is in Ingham County Circuit Court, but could go to another county if circuit judges in Ingham County recuse themselves.
Dunnings's case will be randomly assigned to an Ingham County judge, and each judge will decide on their own whether or not to recuse themselves, Ingham County Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless said Tuesday. If all of the judges recuse themselves, the State Court Administrator's Office would assign the case to a judge in another county.
Schuette said in a statement he'll press to send Dunnings to prison.
"The system in Michigan is not rigged," he said in a statement. "We have one system of justice and the rules apply to all."
Both Dunnings and his attorney declined to comment after the hearing.
Bitely said her office will request a judge sentence Dunnings to “years of prison,” but declined to elaborate. She added that it was important that Dunnings pleaded to a felony charge.
“Mr. Dunnings violated the trust of this community, hurt folks in Lansing (and) hurt people across Ingham County,” she said after the hearing. “And on Election Day we’re here moving beyond, recreating public trust for citizens of Ingham County.”
The investigation, conducted by Schuette's office, the Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the FBI, identified six women authorities alleged Dunnings paid for sex. The women haven't been identified in court records.
Dunnings arrived to court more than 30 minutes before the hearing started. He sat alone in the back row wearing a dark pinstriped suit, a yellow shirt and red tie. He spoke little during the hearing, other than entering his guilty plea and acknowledging his rights.
His attorney, Vincent Toussaint, laid the factual basis for guilty pleas on both charges. Dunnings simply responded with, “That’s correct.”
"On advice of counsel, I have no comment," Dunnings said after the hearing. He left the courthouse and got into a car that was waiting across the street.
Dunnings' law license, which he earned in 1980, will be immediately suspended, Bitley said after the hearing. The Attorney General’s Office will also press for Dunnings to lose his license permanently.
Dunnings, who was first elected as the county's prosecutor in 1996, resigned from the office July 2, although he had been on medical leave since shortly after his arrest. Former state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer was appointed to serve the remainder of his term, which expires at the end of this year.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III pleaded guilty to two prostitution-related charges in a deal with attorneys from the Attorney General's office. Video by Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal
Whitmer isn't seeking the position beyond the end of this year. Six candidates — four Democrats and two Republicans — were on the primary ballot Tuesday. Two will advance to the November general election.
Whitmer conducted an internal investigation and said last month that she determined Dunnings' alleged misconduct did not infect the office or the cases it worked.
However, the office has recused itself from three criminal cases and a Michigan Children's Protective Services case after new allegations against Dunnings were raised.
Those cases are now being handled by the Attorney General's Office, prosecutors said.
Dunnings' brother, Steven Dunnings, was also charged as a result of the investigation. He's facing a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute and is scheduled for a plea hearing later this month, according to online court records.
What's next
Stuart Dunnings III, 63, will be sentenced on a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to five years in prison.
No sentencing date has been set. The case will be assigned to an Ingham County Circuit Court judge, but could go out of the county if the local judges recuse themselves.
Prosecutor charged with multiple counts of engaging prostitutes takes plea agreement
JACKSON, MI - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings accepted a plea agreement, tossing out the 15 charges against him for engaging prostitutes and neglect of office Tuesday afternoon.
Dunnings accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and one count of soliciting a prostitute in the Jackson County District Court, Aug. 2.
Standing next to defense attorney Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings said very little aside from "guilty" when asked how he pleaded.
According to the plea agreement, Dunnings pleads guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which is an amended version of his original pandering charge, one count of soliciting a prostitute in return for dropping the remaining 13 charges.
Dunnings originally faced 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015, according to Attorney General Bill Schuette's Office.
He was charged with 10 counts of engaging a prostitute, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of felony prostitution and pandering. The 15 counts are spread across Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Jackson County District Court Judge Michael Klaeren presided over the cases in 55 and 54A District Court after the respective judges recused themselves.
Dunnings' arrest stemmed from a federal investigation of a human trafficking ring that took place in Michigan in 2015. Tyrone Smith, the ring leader, pleaded guilty on three counts of sex trafficking young girls and women.
Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
Further federal investigation into Smith led to Ingham County's top prosecutor.
Evidence surfaced upon further investigation that Dunnings allegedly paid for sex on hundreds of occasions between 2010 and 2015.
It was later found that the prosecutor allegedly introduced a woman into becoming a prostitute.
Dunnings, who is a Democrat, has served as Ingham County's top prosecutor since 1997. He won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He was at the tail-end of his fifth term when the charges were announced March 14.
He later announced he would be resigning from his position effective July 1 and chose not to seek re-election.
Given the unusual circumstances of the case, a circuit court judge and sentencing date has not been set at this time.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office intends to seek a maximum prison sentence of five years for the misconduct in office charge, according to a release.
In accepting the felony plea agreement, Dunnings' licence to practice law in the state of Michigan is automatically suspended.
The Attorney General's Office will be sending a letter to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission notifying them of the felony plea and is pursing a permanent suspension of Dunning's licence, according to a release.
Ex-prosecutor pleads guilty in prostitution investigation
Detroit News
August 3, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
A man who served as prosecutor in Michigan's capital for nearly 20 years pleaded guilty Tuesday to misconduct in office in a prostitution investigation that grew out of a human-trafficking probe and forced him to quit.
Stuart Dunnings III pleaded guilty to a felony as well as a misdemeanor, soliciting a prostitute, in a deal that dismisses 14 other charges in three counties.
"We are one step closer to accountability for (Dunnings), justice for victims, and a chance to restore the public trust tarnished by a public servant who only served himself," said Attorney General Bill Schuette, who will seek a prison sentence.
Dunnings, who was Ingham County prosecutor, declined to comment after the court hearing in Jackson.
In a letter in March to Ingham County officials, Dunnings said he would take a medical leave of absence until July 1 and then tender his resignation from office the following the day. Dunnings recently had checked himself into a residential treatment facility in Tennessee for an unspecified reasons, according to court filings.
Gretchen Whitmer, a former Senate Democratic Leader, became Ingham County's interim prosecutor on July 2.
In addition to resigning, Dunnings had said he wouldn't seek re-election this year after nearly 20 years in office.
"This will further notify you that I will not be filing the necessary paperwork to run as an incumbent for the office of Prosecuting Attorney," Dunnings wrote in the letter to Hope, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and Chief Circuit Court Judge Janelle Lawless. "It has been an honor a privilege to serve the citizens of Ingham County as prosecuting attorney."
Authorities pursued Dunnings based on information first gathered during a human-trafficking investigation by the FBI.
He was accused of hiring prostitutes in three counties and inducing a woman to become a prostitute.
Dunnings, 63, was arrested at a coffee shop in March. He officially resigned in July.
Fix - Behind Dunnings’ plea: politics and rigged justice
Bernie Sanders is talking about income inequality when he growls that “the system is rigged,” but his complaint is just as valid for the “justice” system.
Tuesday's court hearing allowing former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III to plead to a single prostitution-related misdemeanor and a common law charge of misconduct in office highlights a criminal justice system riddled with politics and favors.
The explosive prostitution charges against Dunnings, orchestrated by Attorney General Bill Schuette and Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, and announced in March with Donald Trump-like fanfare, largely disappeared as the plea bargain process unfolded. The original pandering charge, based on Dunnings' luring a woman into prostitution, was a felony that carried a possible 20-year prison term. The plea transformed this crime into the common-law misconduct crime, with a maximum of just five years’ incarceration.
The episode raises two disturbing possibilities. One is that Schuette and Wriggelsworth vastly overstated Dunnings’ extracurricular sexual activities for a “Gotcha” event that they never really had the goods to prosecute. The other is that from the very beginning the fix was in and that larger political interest is best served by a compliant — make that, silenced — Dunnings.
Either way, a rigged system, not the way it works for you or me. No date has yet been set for sentencing. The plea hearing was in the Jackson County Court House.
The March 16 Schuette-Wriggelsworth news conference was a full-bore takedown of Dunnings and his illicit behavior. The charges were one count of prostitution/pandering, a felony (20 years in prison/no stated fine); 10 counts of Engaging in the Services of Prostitution, misdemeanors (93 days in jail/$500 fine per count); and four counts of Willful Neglect of Duty, a misdemeanor (1 year, $1,000 fine per count). He was charged in Ingham, Ionia and Clinton counties. The yearlong investigation leading to the charges was conducted by the Attorney General's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ingham County Sheriff's Department.
Characterizing Dunnings' criminal activities, Schuette stated that the county prosecutor “allegedly paid for commercial sex (engaging in prostitution) hundreds of times in three counties (Ingham, Clinton and Ionia) with multiple women, between 2010 and 2015. “Furthermore, evidence showed that Dunnings also allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one.”
It was all detailed in a packet of criminal complaints by Ingham County Detective/Sergeant Amber Kenny-Hinojosa, who flanked Schuette and Wriggelsworth during the press conference, and validated by Matthew Schneider and William Rollstin (a one-time candidate for Oakland County circuit judge) of the Attorney General’s Criminal Division.
With the fanfare and hype accompanying the Dunnings charges, one would expect that Schuette and Wriggelsworth would have a solid case. Apparently not.
For Schuette, taking down Dunnings provided another PR opportunity, another chance to burnish his law and order credentials in anticipation of a run for governor in 2018.
He larded the charging documents with campaign literature like praise of his human trafficking enforcement prosecution unit. “Human trafficking is a crime that puts people, in this case young women, into situations where they are endangered and where they are manipulated and brutalized,” Schuette said, adding that he has “made fighting this crime a priority.”
Rings sort of hollow, considering that Schuette cited hundreds of Dunnings’ commercial sex encounters in three counties and investigators detailed 10 very specific incidents. At plea time, all of it distilled into engaging the services of a prostitute and the common law misconduct.
For the Ingham County Sheriff's Department, the charges allowed it to get ahead of what has been a particularly embarrassing episode.
It wasn't until the federal government launched a human trafficking investigation in the Sheriff Department's backyard that it actively looked into Dunnings’ activities.
Wriggelsworth has acknowledged that his department had been hearing “chatter” about Dunnings for years. The feds' findings made it impossible to ignore the “chatter,” and the result was the billboard of charges that could have put Dunnings in prison for a decade, but won't. Schuette said Tuesday he will push for a sentence that includes prison.
For Dunnings, the plea deal is a relatively soft landing compared with what could have been. The agreement effectively eliminated potentially embarrassing disclosures that could have surfaced during discovery and a trial. After 20 years in office in the sensitive office of state capital prosecutor, Dunnings has heard the sort of chatter that Wriggelsworth chose to ignore.
“The system in Michigan is not rigged,” Schuette commented on the Dunnings deal. “We have one system of justice and the rules apply to all.”
Convict's claims about Dunnings 'meritless,' AG says
LANSING – A convicted sex trafficker offered no evidence that Stuart Dunnings III is somehow connected to his case, the Michigan Attorney General's Office said in urging the Michigan Supreme Court to disregard the claims.
Dunnings, who was Ingham County's prosecutor for 20 years before resigning on July 2, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a prostitution-related felony that could land him in jail for up to five years.
Dunnings pleads guilty to felony charge, Schuette to press for prison
Lansing's Jonathan Purnell, appealing his 2015 conviction on sex trafficking charges, alluded in a June 6 appeal to the Supreme Court that Dunnings was "involved romantically with the victims" in his case and that Dunnings made decisions in the case based on jealousy.
The same day Dunnings pleaded guilty in his case — which was investigated and prosecuted by Attorney General Bill Schuette's office — the attorney general filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to toss Purnell's appeal because his claims are "meritless" and "based on pure speculation and conjecture.
"He does not identify, by name or otherwise, any victims or witnesses common to himself and Dunnings," the brief reads. "He has not shown that his case was any more connected to Dunnings than any other criminal prosecution in Ingham County … His seemingly moral argument has no basis in law or fact and does not entitle Purnell to any relief from this court."
Complete coverage: Criminal charges against Stuart Dunnings III
Purnell did not raise the possibility of connections to Dunnings during his trial in Ingham County Circuit Court, nor in his application to the Michigan Court of Appeals earlier this year, another reason Schuette's office told justices they should ignore his claims.
In an interview last month at the Carson City Correctional Facility, Purnell told the State Journal he initially didn't believe at least three women who told him they were involved with the prosecutor. He changed his mind after learning that Dunnings was arrested on March 14 and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes.
Purnell is not the only defendant to claim connections to the former prosecutor. Schuette's office is handling two other criminal cases and a civil Michigan Children's Protective Services case because Ingham County prosecutors recused themselves as defendants alleged connections to Dunnings.
Purnell, 29, was sentenced to at least five-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to the sex-trafficking charges. He faces at least another decade behind bars on an assault charge after he got into a fight in jail. His earliest release date is March 2030.
Dunnings, 63, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a felony misconduct in office charge after he admitted to coercing a woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex. He also pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He'll be sentenced at a later date and faces up to five years in prison.
Dunnings had faced up to 20 years in prison on a pandering charge for coercing that woman to be paid for sex, but the more serious felony was dismissed as part of a plea deal.
He also faced a total of 14 misdemeanors in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties after a yearlong investigation by Schuette's office, the Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the FBI determined Dunnings paid multiple women for sex "hundreds of times" over several years, Schuette said the day of Dunnings' arrest. All but one of those misdemeanors were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Dunnings' plea also means there will be no potentially revealing courtroom testimony about the specific findings of that investigation or the women Dunnings was accused of paying for sex. None of the women were identified in court records.
Investigators were tipped off to Dunnings by information the FBI obtained during an investigation into a sex-trafficking case against Lansing's Tyrone Smith, a Lansing man convicted of running a sex-trafficking ring separate from the one Purnell was convicted of helping to run.
Former Ingham County prosecutor takes plea deal
Jackson Citizen Patriot (MI)
August 4, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings accepted a plea agreement Tuesday—eliminating some of charges against him for engaging prostitutes and neglect of office.
According to the deal, Dunnings pleaded guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which is an amended version of his original pandering charge, and one count of soliciting a prostitute in return for dropping the remaining 13 charges.
Standing next to defense attorney Vincent Toussaint in Jackson County District Court during Tuesday’s proceedings, Dunnings said little aside from “guilty” when asked how he pleaded.
Dunnings originally faced 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015, according to Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office.
Dunnings was charged with 10 counts of engaging a prostitute, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of felony prostitution and pandering. The 15 counts stem from incidents in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
Jackson County District Judge Michael Klaeren presided over the cases after the local judges from Ingham County’s 55th and 54A district courts recused themselves.
Dunnings’ arrest came after a federal investigation of a human trafficking ring in 2015. Tyrone Smith, the ring leader, pleaded guilty on three counts of sex trafficking young girls and women.
Smith, who previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
Further federal investigation into Smith led to Ingham County’s top prosecutor.
Evidence surfaced that Dunnings allegedly paid for sex on hundreds of occasions between 2010 and 2015.
It later was found he allegedly introduced a woman to prostitution.
Dunnings, a Democrat, had served as Ingham County prosecutor since 1997. He won re-election in 2012 with 70 percent of the vote. He was near the end of his fifth term when the charges were announced March 14.
He later announced he would resign from his position July 1 and not seek re-election.
Given the unusual circumstances of the case, a circuit court judge and sentencing date has not been set at this time.
The attorney general intends to seek a maximum prison sentence of five years for the misconduct in office charge, according to a news release.
In accepting the felony plea agreement, Dunnings’ license to practice law in the state is automatically suspended.
The Attorney General’s Office will notify the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission of the felony plea, and is pursuing a permanent suspension of Dunning’s license, according to the news release.
Gretchen Whitmer, a former Michigan Senate Democratic leader, is serving as interim Ingham County prosecutor.
Democrat Carol Siemon and Republican Billie Jo O’Berry are competing for the position of Ingham County prosecutor in the November election.
Ex-Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings Enters Guilty Plea In Felony Criminal Case
LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that ex-Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings has pleaded guilty to felony Misconduct in Office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and to a charge of soliciting a prostitute. Schuette originally charged the sitting prosecutor on March 14, 2016, driving Dunnings from office, following investigations by the FBI, Ingham County Sheriff and Michigan Attorney General’s office into an unrelated Mid-Michigan human trafficking case and leads resulting from that case.
DRIVEN FROM OFFICE: AFTER FELONY GUILTY PLEA, SCHUETTE SEEKS PRISON SENTENCE
Dunnings, who resigned from office after Schuette filed charges, was originally to have his preliminary exam conference today. Instead, Dunnings entered the guilty plea to the new felony charge of Misconduct in Office, which carries a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, following negotiations with the Department of Attorney General. Dunnings also entered a guilty plea to one count of Engaging the Services of a Prostitute, a 93-day misdemeanor that carries a maximum fine of $500 and mandates collection of the defendant’s DNA upon conviction for entering into the CODIS database.
Schuette’s office announced it intends to seek a prison sentence for Dunnings on the charge of Misconduct in Office, a decision that will be made by the court at a later date. Felony Misconduct in Office carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
LAW LICENSE TO BE SUSPENDED; SCHUETTE SUPPORTS PERMANENT SUSPENSION
Additionally, while Dunnings’ law license will be automatically suspended due to the felony plea, Schuette said he is sending a letter to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission notifying them of the felony plea. Schuette supports a permanent suspension of Dunnings’ ability to practice law in the State of Michigan.
The plea was entered this afternoon before Judge Michael J. Klaeren of the 12th District Court in Jackson. Judge Klaeren is currently acting as a judge of the 54-A District Court.
GOALS: ACHIEVE JUSTICE AND PROTECT VICTIMS
While some of the March 14th charges were dropped as part of this agreement, Schuette said he has a strong concern about re-victimizing women involved in a potential trial and sought to protect them and their families from further publicity, while ensuring that justice is done in this case. This is why the original charges were amended today to include the felony Misconduct in Office charge that carries a five-year maximum prison sentence, and one charge of prostitution.
Schuette’s office intends to seek a term of incarceration at sentencing.
“The system in Michigan is not rigged. We have one system of justice and the rules apply to all,” said Schuette. “Today we are one step closer to accountability for the defendant, justice for victims, and a chance to restore the public trust tarnished by a public servant who only served himself.”
CASE BACKGROUND
The charges against Stuart Dunnings grew out of a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring which took place in 2015. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan filed federal charges in that case against human trafficking ring leader Tyrone Smith in July 2015. On May 16, 2016, Tyrone Smith was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for sex trafficking young girls and women, including one minor.
Following the federal investigation into Smith, members of the Michigan Attorney General’s office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Ingham County Sheriff’s Office jointly conducted an additional investigation based on information provided by witnesses in the federal investigation of Smith, which led to Dunnings. That resulted in evidence that Stuart Dunnings, the then-Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney, engaged in commercial sex numerous times with multiple women in three counties (Ingham, Clinton and Ionia) from 2010 – 2015.
Furthermore, evidence showed that Dunnings also allegedly induced a woman to become a prostitute who had not previously been one, resulting in the original charge of Pandering, a 20-year felony. In order to achieve justice and avoid victimizing the victim and her family, this charge is being dropped at this time. The defendant instead pleaded guilty to Misconduct in Office, a felony which carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Former County Prosecutor Dunnings investigation ongoing
Despite guilty plea, case file on former Ingham County prosecutor still open because tips still coming in
LANSING – The criminal investigation of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III remains open because law enforcement is still receiving tips, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office said Wednesday.
Dunnings, who was the county's elected prosecutor for nearly 20 years, pleaded guilty last week to misconduct in office, a felony that could land him in prison for five years. He was arrested March 14 after a yearlong investigation involving county, state and federal law enforcement revealed he had paid multiple women for sex over several years and had coerced one woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex.
Dunnings, 63, has not yet been sentenced.
With Dunnings convicted, the State Journal asked the Attorney General's Office to release information on the investigation through the state's Freedom of Information Act. The AG denied that request on Tuesday, citing an ongoing investigation and privacy concerns.
On Wednesday, AG spokeswoman Megan Hawthorne said in an email to the State Journal that "the case file remains open as we continue to receive tips." Reached by phone, she refused to provide additional information, including when the case might be considered closed.
Michigan's open records laws allow government agencies to withhold information if disclosure may hinder an ongoing investigation.
Dunnings' attorney, Vincent Toussaint, would not comment on Wednesday.
After the prosecutor's arrest, the AG's office set up a tip line for people to provide more information about the case. In April, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth told the State Journal that the tip line had yielded some useful leads, though he wouldn't offer specifics.
Wriggelsworth also told the State Journal police knew that Dunnings had used the power of his office to help the women he was paying for sex.
The State Journal is seeking the investigatory reports in Dunnings' case in an attempt to independently examine any potential affect his admitted crimes may have had on his taxpayer-funded office or the criminal cases it handled.
Dunnings' admission last week was part of a plea deal that allowed him to admit to a lesser felony — the former prosecutor had faced up to 20 years in prison — in exchange for most of the charges against him being dropped. The plea agreement does not rule out additional charges being filed in the future.
But the plea deal also means there will be no potentially revealing testimony in the case. Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a tweet that the plea deal saved the victims in Dunnings' case from being "revictimized" by having to testify in open court.
Gretchen Whitmer, the former state senator who replaced Dunnings for the final six months of his term, released a report last month that said cases handled by the prosecutor's office were unaffected by Dunning's crimes. But Whitmer said her internal investigation was hampered by a so-called "gag order" preventing the AG's office from releasing information.
Defendants in at least three criminal cases and a civil Michigan's Children's Protective Service case have alleged connections to Dunnings' case.
Criminal probe remains open into ex-Michigan prosecutor
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
August 11, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Officials say a criminal investigation remains open into a former Michigan prosecutor who pleaded guilty to misconduct in office in a prostitution investigation.
Stuart Dunnings III last week pleaded guilty to a felony as well as a misdemeanor, soliciting a prostitute, in a deal that dismisses 14 other charges in three counties. The 63-year-old was Ingham County's prosecutor for nearly 20 years.
The Lansing State Journal reports the attorney general's office continues to get tips. Dunnings' plea agreement doesn't rule out future charges.
The Associated Press sent an email seeking comment Thursday to Dunnings' attorney Vincent Toussaint.
Authorities pursued Dunnings based on information first gathered during a human-trafficking investigation by the FBI. He was accused of hiring prostitutes in three counties and inducing a woman to become a prostitute.
Criminal probe remains open into ex-Ingham prosecutor
Lansing — Officials say a criminal investigation remains open into a former Michigan prosecutor who pleaded guilty to misconduct in office in a prostitution investigation.
Stuart Dunnings III last week pleaded guilty to a felony as well as a misdemeanor, soliciting a prostitute, in a deal that dismisses 14 other charges in three counties. The 63-year-old was Ingham County’s prosecutor for nearly 20 years.
The Lansing State Journal reports the attorney general’s office continues to get tips. Dunnings’ plea agreement doesn’t rule out future charges.
The Associated Press sent an email seeking comment Thursday to Dunnings’ attorney Vincent Toussaint.
Authorities pursued Dunnings based on information first gathered during a human-trafficking investigation by the FBI. He was accused of hiring prostitutes in three counties and inducing a woman to become a prostitute.
CORUNNA - Steven Dunnings, the younger brother of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, pleaded guilty Thursday afternoon to engaging in the services of a prostitute, prosecutors said.
Steven Dunnings was charged in March with two misdemeanor counts as part of the same investigation that led to Stuart Dunnings being charged with 15 prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony.
A message was left seeking comment from Steven Dunnings' attorney, Lawrence Shulman.
Stuart Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a five-year felony, misconduct in office, and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He's scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Steven Dunnings was sentenced Thursday to a $600 fine, court costs and 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank, according to a news release from the Attorney General's Office, which is handling both the Dunnings brothers' cases.
Steven Dunnings was sentenced by Shiawassee County District Judge Wade Clarkson in Corunna because the judges in Lansing's 54A District Court all disqualified themselves after charges were issued.
During a March news conference announcing the charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said Stuart Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over several years. Court records that led to charges against the Dunnings brothers indicate Steven Dunnings paid two women for sex, one of which "considered him a regular customer."
Stuart Dunnings, who served nearly 20 years as Ingham County prosecutor, resigned from office in July. During his plea hearing earlier this month, he admitted to offering a woman who wasn't a prostitute payment for sex, which was the factual basis of the felony charge.
Dunnings moves to remove local judge from his case
LANSING - Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III is trying to get the judge scheduled to sentence him next month to take herself off the case.
In a motion filed Thursday, Dunnings' attorneys wrote that Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina should remove herself from the case based on the state's Code of Judicial Conduct because there could be an "appearance of impropriety."
A hearing on the motion has been scheduled for Sept. 14 in Aquilina's courtroom. Aquilina said it would be improper to comment on the case.
A message was left seeking comment from the Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case.
Dunnings' attorneys couldn't be reached for comment Friday.
Dunnings, 63, pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to five years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 by Aquilina in Veterans Memorial Courthouse in downtown Lansing.
Dunnings was arrested March 14 and arraigned on 15 prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony. He faced charges in four district courts in three counties, including two Ingham County district courts where all judges disqualified themselves. Those charges were dropped in exchange for his plea.
Dunnings' wife filed for divorce March 18 and all the Ingham County Circuit Court judges except for Aquilina disqualified themselves. The divorce has not been finalized. Dunnings hasn't asked Aquilina to remove herself from the divorce case.
Dunnings' attorneys said Aquilina's "failure to recuse (herself) from the present controversy" would cause a reasonable person to perceive that her impartiality is affected.
They also said another judge on the Ingham County Circuit Court bench — one of Aquilina's colleagues — wrote a letter in support of the former prosecutor to Aquilina, as did Dunnings' sister, Shauna Dunnings, who is the court administrator. It's not clear which judge wrote the letter. Ingham County has nine circuit court judges.
Dunnings served as the county's top law enforcement officer for nearly 20 years before resigning in July.
In his role as prosecuting attorney, Dunnings has filed thousands of cases in Ingham County Circuit Court with hundreds being in Aquilina's courtroom, Dunnings' attorneys wrote in the motion. The attorneys added that several cases filed during Dunnings' tenure are still open in Aquilina's courtroom.
Dunnings' attorneys also addressed the Attorney General's Office's allegations that Dunnings is "somehow connected to, or a part of, 'Human Trafficking.'"
"(Dunnings) has not been charged or convicted of any form of human trafficking and (Aquilina) will not be imposing sentence for any crime which has 'human trafficking' as an element," Dunnings' attorneys wrote in the motion.
During a news conference in March announcing the charges, officials said information received during a federal sex-trafficking investigation with Lansing ties led to Dunnings' arrest. Officials haven't detailed what the information was or where it came from, other than that it didn't come from Tyrone Smith, the man convicted of running the ring.
What's next
A hearing will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 14 regarding Stuart Dunnings III's motion to disqualify Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina from his criminal case. Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to five years in prison.
Steven Dunnings' role as Housing Commission attorney under review
Steven Dunnings, brother of Stuart Dunnings III, appears to still represent the Lansing Housing Commission in landlord-tenant cases. Mayor encourages agency's board to replace him.
LANSING -- A week after pleading guilty to paying for sex, the landlord-tenant attorney for the Lansing Housing Commission faces an uncertain future with the publicly funded agency.
Steven Dunnings, who is the attorney that the commission pays to handle landlord-tenant disputes, pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute. He, along with his brother, former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, were charged in March following a years-long investigation by county, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Stuart Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a five-year felony, misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He's scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Steven Dunnings' role with the Housing Commission will be reviewed and evaluated by its Board of Directors "ASAP," said Tony Baltimore, the board's chair.
"We’re trying to figure out what the best course of action is right now," Baltimore said Thursday morning.
Baltimore declined to comment further about the matter. Patricia Baines-Lake, the Housing Commission's executive director appointed by its board, also declined comment Thursday. The board's next scheduled meeting is 5:30 p.m. Sept. 28 at the commission's administrative office, 419 Cherry St. It is open to the public.
The Housing Commission's Board of Directors is composed of five unpaid members appointed by Mayor Virg Bernero. The commission, according to its website, owns and operates five communities in the city with a combined 516 units.
Randy Hannan, Bernero's executive assistant, wrote Thursday afternoon in an email to the State Journal that Bernero wants to see the commission part ways with Steven Dunnings.
"Although Mayor Bernero does not have a formal role in the decisions LHC makes concerning contracts for service, employment or other administrative matters, he has strongly urged the Board chair and LHC management to terminate their relationship with Mr. Dunnings and seek new legal counsel," Hannan wrote.
Terms of Steven Dunnings' sentencing released last week by the State Attorney General's Office show he is required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. He is also required to undergo mandatory AIDS and sexually transmitted disease testing.
Dunnings declined comment late Thursday afternoon. A man who answered the phone Thursday morning at the Dunnings Law Firm said "You can talk to the Housing Commission" after a State Journal reporter identified himself.
Baltimore said he wasn't sure when Dunnings last represented the Housing Commission in court over a landlord-tenant matter. Court records show Dunnings represented the Housing Commission this summer in an eviction case against a resident of South Washington Park, a complex it owns and operates. An eviction notice for tenant Tinisha House was served on Tuesday, according to records found on 54A District Court's website.
House confirmed Thursday to the LSJ that she was evicted from the complex at 3200 S. Washington because of a dispute over rent and living conditions. She believes the Housing Commission should hire a new attorney for landlord-tenant cases because Dunnings' legal troubles raise ethical concerns about the agency's practices. House, however, said Dunnings was nothing but respectful to her during the case that dates back to late June.
“I think it might be best to have somebody else as an attorney," said House, a single mother with two children ages 4 and 14 months. "Who knows what’s going on?"
Steven Dunnings has an active law license. He joined the bar in 1984. Asked in June how much Dunnings is paid to be the commission's landlord-tenant attorney, Baines-Lake said he receives "customary fees" for those kinds of services. Baines-Lake said in June that Dunnings became the commission's landlord-tenant attorney "before 2009," the year she became the commission's executive director.
The State Journal in June filed a Freedom of Information request with the Housing Commission for copies of bills and invoices from Dunnings for his legal services since Jan. 1, 2015. The commission has failed to respond within the time frame required by law, however, Baines-Lake wrote in an email Thursday the information will be made available to the State Journal Monday.
Decision soon on Steven Dunnings' Housing Commission role
Lansing Housing Commission's Board of Directors expected to decide in a few weeks if Steven Dunnings will continue to represent publicly-funded agency in court.
LANSING -- The Lansing Housing Commission is expected to decide within the next few weeks if a lawyer who pleaded guilty to paying for sex will continue to represent the publicly-funded agency in court for landlord-tenant matters, the commission's board chair said Friday.
A decision about Steven Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, will be made by the Housing Commission's Board of Directors. The board's next scheduled meeting is 5:30 p.m. Sept. 28 at its office, 419 Cherry St. It will be open to the public.
"As far as I know he has done an exemplary job in representing us in court," Housing Commission Board Chair Tony Baltimore said of Dunnings. "It's just unfortunate this has had to play out the way it has. I definitely feel bad for him and the Dunnings family. We don't want this to be a distraction for what we're doing."
Steven Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute. He, along with his brother Stuart Dunnings III, the former Ingham County Prosecutor, were charged in March following an investigation by county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Baltimore said he hasn't spoken with Steven Dunnings about his status, but has contacted other board members to get their opinion about the commission's relationship with him. Mayor Virg Bernero has urged Baltimore and Patricia Baines-Lake, the commission's executive director, to "terminate their relationship" with Dunnings and seek new legal counsel.
Baltimore said he highly values Bernero's opinion and takes the mayor's suggestion "very seriously." But as a courtesy to other board members and Baines-Lake, Baltimore said he wants to meet with them first before Dunnings' status with the commission is determined.
"I just need to make sure I hear what they are saying," Baltimore said. "I understand we need to move quickly on this."
Terms of Steven Dunnings' plea, released two weeks ago by the State Attorney General's Office, show he is required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. He also must undergo mandatory testing for AIDS and sexually transmitted disease. Dunnings has repeatedly declined to comment about his role with the Housing Commission.
Stuart Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He's scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Baltimore is chair of the commission's five-member unpaid board that's appointed by Bernero. The board has the authority to hire Baines-Lake's successor. Baines-Lake has said she plans to retire in January. She told the Lansing State Journal on Thursday in an email that Steven Dunnings remains the commission's landlord-tenant attorney and will be paid by the agency "as he provides services."
Dunnings has done legal work for the Housing Commission for at least a few years and still has an active law license. He joined the bar in 1984. Copies of invoices sent from Dunnings' law firm to the Housing Commission for landlord-tenant work from June 30, 2014 to April 30 of this year show he often charged the commission for "completion of bulk evictions" at properties the commission owns and operates to serve primarily low income residents.
The copies of the invoices were obtained this week by the State Journal from the Housing Commission in response to a June 6 Freedom of Information Act request that sought all legal bills for Dunnings' landlord-tenant services since Jan. 1, 2015.
Balances "due now" that were included and itemized within the 90 pages of invoices the Dunnings Law Firm sent to the Housing Commission for Dunnings work ranged from $498.69 to $4,579.25. The $498.69, according to an invoice dated June 30, 2014, covered "2013 general miscellaneous matters." The $4,579.25 covered 10 days of work from Dunnings in June 2015 and added a previous balance of $3,312.05.
Steven Dunnings still represents Housing Commission - for now
Mayor Virg Bernero still stands by statement he wants Housing Commission to terminate its relationship with lawyer who pleaded guilty to paying for sex.
LANSING -- The Lansing Housing Commission intends to continue using a lawyer who pleaded guilty to engaging in the services of a prostitute despite Mayor Virg Bernero's urging to cut ties.
Patricia Baines-Lake, executive director of the publicly-funded Housing Commission, wrote Thursday in an email to the Lansing State Journal that Steven Dunnings remains the attorney paid by the commission to handle its disputes with tenants.
"He provides landlord-tenant services for the Lansing Housing Commission," wrote Baines-Lake. In another email, Baines-Lake added: "As he provides services he will be paid for those services." She declined to respond further on the matter.
Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute. He, along with his brother, former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, were charged in March following an investigation by county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Terms of Steven Dunnings' plea, released two weeks ago by the State Attorney General's Office, show he is required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. He also must undergo mandatory testing for AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Dunnings has repeatedly declined to comment about his role with the Housing Commission.
Bernero wrote Thursday in a text message that he stands by a statement his office emailed last week to the State Journal that said he has "strongly urged" Tony Baltimore, the Housing Commission's board chair, and its management to "terminate their relationship with Mr. Dunnings and seek new legal counsel."
Bernero added that he's currently focused on a housing emergency at the Magnuson Hotel, but remains committed to meeting with Housing Commission officials about Dunnings' status. Bernero declared a housing emergency this week after the hotel's management informed people staying there it would close this month for renovations.The property, known as "the homeless hotel," could force about 90 people to seek shelter elsewhere.
"I have not had a chance to discuss this matter further with Pat (Baines-Lake) as I am dealing with the housing emergency at the Magnuson," Bernero wrote. "It is certainly at the top of my list to discuss (Dunnings' role) with her and Tony as soon as possible."
Baltimore declined to comment about Bernero's stance on Dunnings and whether the commission's five-member board -- appointed by the mayor -- could meet soon and seek new legal council. The unpaid board is appointed by Bernero and has authority to hire Baines-Lake's successor. Baines-Lake has said she plans to retire in January. The board's next scheduled meeting is Sept. 28.
Copies of invoices sent from Dunnings' law firm to the Housing Commission for landlord-tenant work from June 30, 2014 to April 30 of this year show he often charged the commission for "completion of bulk evictions" at properties the commission owns and operates to serve primarily low income residents. It's unclear if the commission owes Dunnings for additional work he might have completed after April 30.
The copies of invoices were obtained this week by the State Journal from the Housing Commission in response to a June 6 Freedom of Information Act request that sought all legal bills for Dunnings' landlord-tenant services since Jan. 1, 2015.
Court records show Dunnings represented the Housing Commission this summer in an eviction case against a resident of South Washington Park, a complex it owns and operates. An eviction notice for tenant Tinisha House was served last month, according to records on 54A District Court's website.
House confirmed last week to the State Journal that she was evicted from the complex at 3200 S. Washington because of a dispute over rent and living conditions. The single mother with two children ages 4 and 14 months said the Housing Commission should hire a new attorney for landlord-tenant cases because Dunnings' legal troubles raise ethical concerns about the agency's practices.
House, however, said Dunnings was nothing but respectful to her during the case, which dates back to late June.
“I think it might be best to have somebody else as an attorney," House said. "Who knows what’s going on?"
Steven Dunnings has an active law license. He joined the bar in 1984.
Balances "due now" that were included and itemized within the 90 pages of invoices the Dunnings Law Firm sent to the Housing Commission for Dunnings' work ranged from $498.69 to $4,579.25. The $498.69, according to an invoice dated June 30, 2014, covered "2013 general miscellaneous matters." The $4,579.25 covered 10 days of work from Dunnings in June 2015 and added a previous balance of $3,312.05.
Stuart Dunnings, the former Ingham County Prosecutor, pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He's scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said that while she believes she can be an impartial judge in sentencing former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, the appearance of impropriety is what has her stepping away.
Video by Dave Wasinger/Lansing State Journal
Judge recuses herself from sentencing Stuart Dunnings III
LANSING - An Ingham County judge has recused herself from sentencing former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings, 63, pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to five years in prison. He had been charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, including a 20-year felony.
Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina granted Wednesday a defense motion asking her to disqualify herself. She said if she had declined to recuse herself, she expected Dunnings' attorneys would appeal her decision to Chief Judge Janelle Lawless, and she would ultimately be removed from the case.
"I have always felt, which is why I (initially) retained this case, one of the reasons, that each county should handle their own problems," she said. "That's why we have jurisdictions. I understand the appearance of impropriety, but I believe that I can be fair and impartial."
Both Dunnings and his attorney, Mike Hocking, declined to comment after the hearing.
"Clearly, the defendant's admitted conduct casts a stain on the criminal justice system in this county," Hocking told Aquilina during Wednesday's motion hearing. "We're not going to stand here and say that that did not happen."
He added that if Aquilina kept the case, no matter what she did could lead a reasonable person to believe that that "stain might have extended into the judicial branch."
Other circuit judges in Ingham County had already recused themselves from the case as they did with the Dunnings' divorce case, which Aquilina still presides over. The State Court Administrative Office will assign the criminal case to a new judge.
Dunnings' sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 10 but that could change when a new judge is assigned.
Judge recuses herself in sentencing of former prosecutor
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
September 14, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan judge has recused herself from sentencing an ex-prosecutor who pleaded guilty to misconduct in office in a prostitution investigation.
The Lansing State Journal reports (http://on.lsj.com/2cxIde2 ) that Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina made the ruling Wednesday following a motion by lawyers representing Stuart Dunnings III.
The 63-year-old Dunnings also pleaded guilty to soliciting a prostitute in a deal that dismisses 14 other charges in three counties. He had been Ingham County's prosecutor for nearly 20 years.
Aquilina said Wednesday that she understands the appearance of impropriety, but believes she "can be fair and impartial" in sentencing Dunnings.
Authorities pursued Dunnings based on information first gathered during a human-trafficking investigation by the FBI. He was accused of hiring prostitutes and inducing a woman to become a prostitute.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced on prostitution-related charges on November 10 in Genesee County. Dunnings faces up to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to Misconduct of a Public Official.
Complete coverage: Criminal charges against Stuart Dunnings III
LANSING - On March 14, 2016, longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was arrested and charged with a total of 15 prostitution-related crimes [https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2016/03/14/ags-office-announce-charges-against-prosecutor-dunnings/81758756/ ] in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
A months-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Michigan Attorney General's Office found Dunnings had paid multiple women for sex hundreds of times over several years, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
On Aug. 2, 2016, Dunnings pleaded guilty in Ingham County to a lesser felony, misconduct in office, and to one count of engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor, in exchange for the other charges being dropped. He was sentenced on Nov. 22 to one year in jail followed by two years of probation. He reported Nov. 25 to the Clinton County Jail, where he will serve his sentence to avoid any risks or conflicts in Ingham County.
Housing Commission officials begin search "immediately" for new legal counsel to handle 40 to 60 landlord-tenant cases per month.
LANSING -- A lawyer who pleaded guilty to paying for sex will no longer represent a publicly-funded agency in court for landlord-tenant matters.
The Lansing Housing Commission confirmed Monday it accepted the resignation of Steven Dunnings, of the Lansing-based Dunnings Law Firm, as its landlord-tenant attorney. A press release sent to the Lansing State Journal from the Housing Commission said the search begins "immediately" for new legal counsel to handle 40 to 60 landlord-tenant cases per month.
Attempts to reach Dunnings were unsuccessful. A message left Monday afternoon at the Dunnings Law Firm and his home weren't returned.
Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute. The Dunnings brothers were charged in March following an investigation by county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Terms of Steven Dunnings' plea, released two weeks ago by the State Attorney General's Office, show he is required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. He also must undergo mandatory testing for AIDS and sexually transmitted disease. Dunnings has declined to comment about his role with the Housing Commission.
Tony Baltimore, the Housing Commission's board chair, said in a statement that Steven Dunnings has "always put the needs of the Housing Commission and the rights of tenants at the forefront of his representation." Baltimore thanked Dunnings for "his thoughtfulness in terminating services so that the commission can move forward without any distractions."
"We wish Mr. Dunnings and his family well, as they deal with this private and personal matter," Baltimore said. "They are in my thoughts and prayers.”
Dunnings had done legal work for the Housing Commission for at least a few years and still has an active law license. He joined the bar in 1984. Copies of invoices sent from Dunnings' law firm to the Housing Commission for landlord-tenant work by Dunnings from June 30, 2014, to April 30 ranged from $498.69 to $4,579.25. The invoices were obtained by the Lansing State Journal in a Freedom of Information Act request.
Stuart Dunnings III pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He has yet to be sentenced.
In addition to Steven Dunnings' resignation, the Housing Commission has accepted the entire Dunnings Law Firm's request to be released from an attorney-client relationship it has had with the commission for over 30 years.
Patricia Baines-Lake, the Housing Commission's executive director, said in a statement that it will be difficult to find new legal counsel because of the "unique nuances and complexities of Housing and Urban Development proscribed tenant-landlord rights."
The Housing Commission receives funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and consists of a five-member unpaid Board of Commissioners appointed by Mayor Virg Bernero. The board has the authority to hire Baines-Lake's successor. Baines-Lake has said she plans to retire in January.
The Housing Commission's website, as of Monday, had job postings for an executive director and chief finance officer.
Lansing Housing Commission separating from Steven Dunnings firm
Lansing Housing Commission accepts Steven Dunnings' law firm's request to cut ties to the commission.
Brother of ex-prosecutor resigns as lawyer for commission
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
September 27, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The brother of a former prosecutor in Michigan's capital who was snared in a prostitution investigation will no longer represent a publicly-funded agency in court.
The Lansing Housing Commission confirmed Monday it accepted the resignation of Steven Dunnings, of the Lansing-based Dunnings Law Firm, as its landlord-tenant attorney.
Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute. Stuart Dunnings III is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty Aug. 2 to misconduct in office and soliciting a prostitute.
The Lansing State Journal reports terms of Steven Dunnings' plea show he must pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service. He has declined to comment about his role with the Housing Commission.
Brother of disgraced prosecutor resigns as attorney for publicly-funded agency
Steven Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, resigned from his role as the attorney for a public-funded commission.
Steven Dunnings pleaded guilty to engaging in the services of a prostitute Aug. 18. He must pay a $600 fine, court costs and perform 80 hours of community service, the Lansing State Journal reports via the Associated Press.
He is also subjected to mandatory AIDS and sexually transmitted disease testing, according to the State Journal.
His brother, Stuart Dunnings III, pleaded guilty to misconduct in office and soliciting a prostitute Aug. 2. The disgraced prosecutor awaits sentencing.
In court documents, it was noted that Stuart Dunnings III allegedly paid for things like rent, YMCA memberships and methadone treatments in return for sex.
Stuart Dunnings III served as Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997, originally faced 15 charges across three counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office said the 2015 FBI human trafficking investigation of Tyrone Smith led to Dunnings.
Smith, who had previously served 15 years for second-degree murder, recruited Lansing-based women for his interstate sex operation, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
Further federal investigation into Smith led to Ingham County's former top prosecutor.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office said at the time of Stuart Dunnings III's sentencing that it intended to seek a maximum prison sentence of five years. In accepting the felony plea agreement, his license to practice law in the state of Michigan is automatically suspended.
Dunnings won his re-election bid in 2012 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. He was at the tail-end of his fifth term when the charges were announced March 14.
After resignation, Dunnings continues with Housing Commission
Steven Dunnings, who pleaded guilty to pay for sex, returns as Housing Commission's landlord-tenant attorney until transition to find a new one is complete, official says.
LANSING - Three days after the Lansing Housing Commission said in a press release it had accepted the resignation of an attorney who pleaded guilty to paying for sex, it confirmed Thursday he'll continue to represent the commission in court for landlord-tenant matters until a replacement is found.
Steven Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, will remain the Housing Commission's attorney for landlord-tenant matters until the "transition is complete" to find another attorney, said Patricia Baines-Lake, the commission's executive director.
Baines-Lake said Thursday that she and Dunnings decided on the arrangement after the Housing Commission issued a press release Monday that said it accepted "his request to be released from attorney-client relationship." Baines-Lake added the commission's Board of Directors, appointed by Mayor Virg Bernero, didn't vote at its scheduled meeting Wednesday night to decide if Dunnings should return for a temporary role.
"That's not a board decision," Baines-Lake said. "That's something we did as a matter of business." Baines-Lake said it's unclear when the Housing Commission will hire a new attorney for landlord-tenant matters.
Attempts to reach Dunnings this week were unsuccessful. The press release from Monday also stated it accepted the Dunnings Law Firm's "request to be released from the 30+ year attorney-client relationship" with the commission. A message left this week with the Dunnings Law Firm wasn't returned.
Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor. He along with his brother were charged in March following an investigation by county, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Tony Baltimore, the Housing Commission's board chair, said in a statement the commission released Monday that Steven Dunnings has "always put the needs of the Housing Commission and the rights of tenants at the forefront of his representation." Baltimore thanked Dunnings for "his thoughtfulness in terminating services so that the commission can move forward without any distractions."
Terms of Steven Dunnings' plea, released by the State Attorney General's Office, show he is required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. He also must undergo mandatory testing for AIDS and sexually transmitted disease.
Stuart Dunnings III pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He has yet to be sentenced.
Sex trafficker Jonathon Purnell's leave to appeal, denied
LANSING - The Michigan Supreme Court has denied the claims of a convicted pimp who said his court case was tainted because of the admitted crimes of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.
Lansing's Jonathan Purnell, appealing his 2015 conviction on sex trafficking charges, alluded in a June 6 brief with the Supreme Court that Dunnings was "involved romantically with the victims" in his case and that Dunnings made decisions in the case based on jealousy. Attorney General Bill Schuette's office called his claims "meritless" and "based on pure speculation and conjecture." On Wednesday, the justices said they wouldn't consider Purnell's appeal.
The justices' decision effectively ends Purnell's chances at having his case reopened, meaning he'll likely be in prison until at least 2054.
Dunnings is expected to be sentenced next month. He faces up to five years in prison.
Ingham prosecutor candidates want transparency, community outreach
The candidates for Ingham County prosecutor want to restore trust in an office that’s seen its share of scandal in the past year.
They both agree more transparency is needed.
But their priorities beyond those issues differ.
Republican Billie O'Berry has stressed better inter-agency cooperation and prosecutorial decisions made in the best interest of justice; Democrat Carol Siemon said she is focused on proactive community partnerships that address the roots of prevalent crimes.
O’Berry, 61, wants better communication among the prosecutor’s office, law enforcement agencies and victims. She also emphasized the importance of specialty courts and diversion programs.
“Our community expects more,” O’Berry said. “They deserve more from their public officials.”
Siemon, 59, wants to bolster community partnerships that address issues like substance abuse, mental health and poverty before those issues land someone in court. Siemon said her commitment to social justice would influence her work in the prosecutor's office.
“I just would like to be part of making Ingham County a safe community with hope and opportunity for our youth,” Siemon said.
Siemon, an East Lansing resident, has held a variety of positions within state agencies over her career.
She worked as an assistant prosecutor in Ingham County between 1983 and 1995 during the tenures of former prosecutors Peter Houk and Don Martin. Siemon also has held positions in the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, Legislative Service Bureau, the state Office of Children’s Ombudsman and the State Court Administrative Office.
She left her most recent post at Public Policy Associates in 2012.
Siemon believes her work brings a unique perspective to the prosecutor’s office.
“I have the prosecutorial experience,” Siemon said. “And, beyond that, I’ve seen how government works in the different branches.”
O’Berry, a Mason resident, has worked as an assistant city attorney for Lansing since 1987. She also worked as an adjunct law professor at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School for 18 years and served in the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office while former prosecutors Raymond Scodeller and Peter Houk were in office.
Her experience as a city attorney would aid in the continued improvement of the prosecutor’s office, O'Berry said.
“Basically, it’s not much different than what I do here,” O’Berry said. “It’s just a change of address.”
As the first elected female prosecutor in Ingham County, either Siemon or O’Berry will inherit an office dealing with the fallout from months of turmoil surrounding the criminal case against former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings resigned in July amid prostitution-related charges in multiple counties. He pleaded guilty in August to felony misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 10.
Gretchen Whitmer has been serving as prosecutor since Dunnings’ resignation in July.
In September, the State Journal reported that potentially hundreds of pieces of evidence in the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office had been compromised due to sewage leaks and poor record keeping. The issue wasn’t disclosed to prosecutors or county commissioners for years, and is now the subject of an independent audit by the Michigan State Police.
Both Siemon and O’Berry said the evidence issue has added to public concern regarding the justice system in Ingham County.
“I think we’re going to have to sort out a lot of the things going on,” Siemon said. “We need to restore the moral compass. The prosecutor’s office needs to be seen as doing the right thing.”
O’Berry believes she’d bring an established, respected reputation to the office that could help to restore some trust in the role of prosecutor.
“There needs to be a current and relevant investment in this community,” O’Berry said. “It’s not about just winning cases; its ensuring justice is done.”
Both candidates voiced support for specialty courts, diversion programs and changes in indigent defense, but they varied in their approaches to court appointed counsel.
O’Berry has advocated for a public defenders’ office in Ingham County, a system that would replace the appointment of attorneys not employed by the county to indigent cases.
She said attorneys appointed to cases currently don't have the necessary resources to enable them to research a case and file motions in the most zealous way.
“The system currently puts the court appointed counsel at a disadvantage," O'Berry said.
Siemon said, while change is needed, she’d prefer to wait on statewide suggestions from the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission before backing an alternative solution.
Records reveal many saw early clues to Dunnings' misdeeds
More than 500 pages of investigators' records recount questionable activity by Stuart Dunnings III
LANSING - Investigative reports made public this week show that some police and county employees were aware of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III's questionable conduct long before a criminal investigation into his dealings with prostitutes was launched.
Indeed, some records indicate Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at least some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships. The records also show Dunnings’ involvement with prostitutes may date to nearly the beginning of his 20-year career as one of the county's top law enforcement officials.
Dunnings, 64, pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to felony misconduct in office and a misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute in a plea agreement negotiated by the Michigan Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted the case. He faces up to five years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for mid-November.
Details included in more than 500 pages of investigatory reports obtained Thursday by the State Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request show more public employees were aware of Dunnings’ activities than Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth had earlier described. They also run counter to current Ingham County Prosecutor Gretchen Whitmer’s July 22 assertion that all employees in her office were shocked at the March 14 announcement that Dunnings had been charged.
“You put all of these together after what we now know and they look like flags, but at the time … (it) was inappropriate, but did it rise to the level of knowledge of a criminal activity? No," said Whitmer, who was appointed to serve the last six months of Dunnings' term. She noted in a Friday interview that she was not privy to the investigation during her review of the prosecutor’s office.
Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Schuette, declined to comment, as did Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings’ attorney.
Messages were left seeking comment from the chief judges in Ingham County Circuit Court and 54A District Court.
Wriggelsworth said Friday that it wasn’t until this investigation that his office had anything solid — or even wrote an official report.
But the prosecutor’s activities were so widely known, in fact, that an inmate laughed when he saw Dunnings being led down a hall in the county jail in cuffs in March.
"Everyone knows" Dunnings had been involved with prostitutes "for years,” the inmate said, according to the records. “Damn, the man finally got caught up.”
The heavily-redacted records obtained Thursday show that, around the same time Dunnings was being arrested outside of a Biggby on West Saginaw Street, police were searching his home and office. They collected dozens of pieces of evidence, including cell phones from multiple carriers, multiple laptops, tablets, smartphones and more. They found multiple phone numbers tied to escort advertisements on those phones.
Police found two condoms in his desk drawer in the county office.
The records also show that, years before the summer 2015 launch of the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office investigation into Dunnings in response to an FBI tip, county employees knew Dunnings often used his position to influence criminal and civil cases connected to women with whom he had relationships. They also show he sometimes asked employees in his office to help the women and at least one employee told police he felt his job was in jeopardy if he didn’t take it easy on one of the women.
Among the findings:
Escort service
One woman who ran an escort service told police this year that Dunnings, a longtime Lansing lawyer who was elected county prosecutor in 1996, was a regular customer of hers in the late-1990s. When the Michigan State Police shut down the escort service in 2003 and arrested the woman, Dunnings called her and asked if the police would find his name in her records. He also promised the woman he would make sure her records were clean. The woman said she later found her record cleared even though she never asked a judge to do so.
Office happenings
In 2010, Dunnings brought one of the women he paid for sex into the prosecutor’s office on several occasions and accompanied her to the court clerk’s office to help her obtain a personal protection order. Dunnings told her to be careful what she put into emails to him because others could read them, bought her a disposable cell phone and dropped money for her at her car.
Charges inexplicably dropped
In August 2012, charges were inexplicably dropped in a drug paraphernalia case. When an investigator interviewed the person who dropped the charges — likely an assistant prosecutor, whose identity was redacted from the report — the person told the detective she doesn't know why she dismissed the case and "she would've documented if someone had contacted her requesting she dismiss the charges."
Personal involvement
In November 2013, a woman arrested on a domestic violence charge claimed to know Dunnings personally and said she should be released immediately, a jail staffer told investigators. Dunnings called the jail and said he wanted the woman released into his custody. Though “the staff thought it strange that the prosecutor was getting personally involved in this case,” investigators found at least eight women had been released from the jail in 2015 “at the request of the prosecutor or the prosecutor’s office.” The Sheriff’s Office oversees the jail.
Intervention
In late 2013 or early 2014, police were called to a home of a prostitute, where she and others were having an altercation with their landlord, the prostitute's boyfriend told investigators. Dunnings showed up and intervened, telling the landlord he would take over paying the rent. That boyfriend told police he and his girlfriend had first met Dunnings when they showed up at an apartment and saw the prosecutor trying to revive a woman passing out on heroin.
'This isn't right'
A woman who appears from the records to be a current or former assistant prosecutor told investigators that, in fall 2014, Dunnings directed a law student working in the prosecutor’s office to write responses in a civil case on behalf of one of the prosecutor’s “acquaintances.” Dunnings asked an assistant prosecutor to oversee it. The acquaintance then filed the legal briefs as if she had written them herself. The law student and assistant prosecutor even attended a court hearing with the woman, but the assistant prosecutor refused to appear on the record for the woman, telling her, “This isn’t right.” The assistant prosecutor later complained to a supervisor, who told her to “shut it down.” She also told investigators that she told Dunnings she didn’t think she should be involved in those cases.
Missed appointments
At least as early as January 2015, Dunnings was interfering in the office’s diversion program on behalf of a woman he had a relationship with, an employee in the program told investigators in December. The woman, facing shoplifting charges, missed an appointment and Dunnings made excuses for her. Missing appointments normally sends participants back to court to face trial. She missed several appointments between March and September 2015, and yet the employee saw the woman leaving Dunnings’ office during that time. He also told investigators he and other employees saw the woman leaving through an employee entrance with the prosecutor. The employee told investigators “he felt at that point he needed to give (redacted) leeway, although Stuart Dunnings never told him to do so" and that "he was concerned about his employment" if he booted the woman from the program. Officials from the probation programs in Ingham and Eaton counties, as well as a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said Friday their offices had never heard any complaints about Dunnings.
Child support payments
In April 2015, Dunnings paid $500 in child support payments that a woman owed in order to keep her from serving 30 days in jail. He appeared in court and spoke on her behalf. A court official told investigators that Dunnings and the woman left court together. The official followed up on the matter and said he learned Dunnings paid the $500 with cash or a money order. It wasn’t the only time, according to the records, that Dunnings used money orders in connection with women. A prostitute told investigators that Dunnings directed an intern to send her money via Western Union to avoid creating a paper trail that pointed to him.
Suspicious incident
In June 2015, as the sheriff’s investigation into Dunnings was just beginning, an Ingham deputy assigned to the Tri-County Metro Narcotics unit was surveilling a suspected drug house when he saw Dunnings drop a woman off at a nearby townhouse. After Dunnings spent some time inside, the deputy thought the situation odd enough that he followed Dunnings and wrote down the prosecutor’s license plate number. But a report wasn’t filed until Dec. 16, 2015, more than six months later. Detectives had heard about the incident and Chief Deputy Greg Harless said he asked the deputy to write a report. A Tri-County Metro Narcotics command officer told the State Journal on Friday that he wasn’t aware that a deputy assigned to his team had seen Dunnings while surveilling a possible drug house.
The files also show Dunnings may have continued to communicate with at least one prostitute after his arrest.
While his case was pending, a judge allowed Dunnings to leave the state from late March to early May to attend an unknown treatment program at an undisclosed facility in Tennessee. Included in the documents obtained Thursday was a handwritten letter Dunnings sent to someone — the name was redacted — while he was there.
On May 2, the same day Dunnings was due to leave treatment, a phone number with a Tennessee area code called into a county office phone line associated with Mary Greener, Dunnings' longtime executive assistant, according to phone logs obtained by the State Journal through a separate FOIA request earlier this year.
An hour later, Greener's phone line received a call from a phone number the State Journal later located on a website advertising escort services, the records show. That call lasted more than 15 minutes.
Two days later, Greener's phone line was used twice to call that same number.
When the State Journal called the number this summer, a woman who answered told a reporter she hasn't "had an ad up for a long time" and said she was "really not at liberty to talk about that right now, because it's an ongoing case."
Harless, the Ingham County chief deputy who oversaw much of the investigation, said he knows there was discussion about the need or desire to interview Greener, but that he couldn’t say whether it did or did not happen.
The records the State Journal received don’t include reports from an interview identifying Greener, or anyone who appeared to be Dunnings’ executive assistant. Whether or not Greener was interviewed was one of many questions AG spokeswoman Bitely refused to answer because her office considers the investigation ongoing.
Greener, through her attorney, Scott Mertens, declined comment. She left county employment about the same time Dunnings did.
Dunnings was originally charged with a 20-year felony, pandering, and 14 misdemeanors spread across three counties. He pleaded down to the current charges
LANSING – Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth and Attorney General Bill Schuette's office pushed to delay the public release of documents related to the criminal investigation of former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.
The State Journal obtained those records on Thursday, following a successful appeal to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners. In more than 500 pages, the investigatory reports show Dunnings was engaged in questionable behavior — behavior which was observed by police and other public employees — for years before a formal investigation was launched last year.
The county board voted unanimously on Tuesday to release the records without delay.
"There's been enough secrecy in terms of what's happened in the past couple of years, and it's time for full disclosure," Commissioner Teri Banas said before Tuesday's vote. "It's time to restore the public trust in that particular office."
Using the state's Freedom of Information Act, the State Journal requested records from the Ingham County Sheriff's Office on Aug. 2, the day Dunnings pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office and to a misdemeanor related to paying for sex.
The Sheriff's Office approved the request and on Aug. 26 the State Journal paid the county a deposit toward the cost of processing the documents, including the redaction of witness names and other information. On Sept. 29, the county told the State Journal the records should be available in a couple weeks.
On Oct. 12, however, Becky Bennett, the county's FOIA coordinator, emailed the State Journal to say the records would not immediately be made public because "the Sheriff’s Office received notification that the Attorney General’s Office does not want them to release the file until Dunnings has been sentenced."
Sentencing is scheduled for mid-November.
Asked why, Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said on Oct. 12 that the sentencing judge could dismiss the plea deal Dunnings struck with Schuette's office, throwing the case back to a jury.
"At that point, anything that's been publicly released could potentially affect those jurors," she said.
After first telling the State Journal on Oct. 12 that he personally had no problem with releasing the records, Wriggelsworth emailed the Attorney General's Office on Tuesday, before the county board meeting, to say he planned not to release the report "absent a court order."
He backed off of that stance when contacted by the State Journal on Wednesday, however, saying he'd consulted the department's attorney and decided he would release the records when the redaction was complete.
When asked if he would release the documents that had already been redacted, however, Wriggelsworth said he likely would release nothing until he could release everything.
Concerned that the office may delay processing the documents until after sentencing, the State Journal's attorney drafted a letter to the sheriff. That letter was delivered Wednesday night, and the documents were released Thursday afternoon.
An invoice from the Sheriff's Office to the State Journal shows the office worked on the State Journal's request consistently throughout August, then performed no work until the last day of September, the day after the newspaper asked for a progress update. Then the county stopped working on the records again until Oct. 17, four days after LSJ appealed the decision to delay the release.
The State Journal ultimately paid $1,073.11 for the documents.
FOIA allows government agencies to withhold information that could hinder a criminal investigation. Unlike some other states, however, Michigan's law does not specify when an investigation is considered closed. Evidence typically becomes public during a trial in open court, but Dunnings' plea deal has allowed him to avoid a trial.
However, even if police consider the investigation ongoing, "that doesn't mean everything could be withheld," said Robin Luce-Herrmann, an attorney for the Michigan Press Association. "They still have an obligation to separate the exempt from the non-exempt."
FOIA provides for fines of up to $7,500 for "willfully or intentionally" failing to comply with the open records law.
One-party malaise
Ingham County needs GOP officials: O'Berry and Trojanowicz
The Ingham County Prosecutor's Office and Sheriff's Department need a quick and thorough housecleaning.
Riddled with cronyism and at times incompetence, both need leaders willing to unravel the compliant cultures created by former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III and current Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth.
Republican Billie Jo O'Berry, an assistant attorney for the city of Lansing and a perennial candidate for higher office, is reasonably qualified to become Ingham County's new prosecutor. So is her opponent, Carol Siemon. But Siemon is endorsed and, in fact, embraced by the county's entrenched Democratic establishment, whose hold on the reins of government could be shredded by a hard-nosed investigation of the justice system and other departments.
O'Berry's strongest suit is that she isn't a member of the club. Also, she can accumulate political capital by rooting around in the pit of one-party county government.
New leadership for the Sheriff's Department is more challenging. The choice is between Republican Eric Trojanowicz, a 25-year department veteran who managed day-to-day operations of the Corrections Division and Field Services Division until his retirement in May, or East Lansing Police Department Lt. Scott Wriggelsworth, campaigning to succeed his father.
Scott Wriggelsworth has a good reputation and obvious name recognition, usually a winning combination. But a deep dive into the opaque dealings of the Sheriff's Department could shred his father's legacy. And there are problems. Acting Prosecutor Gretchen Whitmer wants an investigation of the Sheriff's Department's loss and mishandling of evidence and more troubling, the attempt by Wriggelsworth and crew to cover up its failures.
It's just one of the issues facing the new sheriff. Also, like Siemon, Scott Wriggelsworth is aligned with the entrenched Democratic establishment.
Trojanowicz is the better bet to fumigate the office — though not by much, considering his long tenure there. Still, with another Republican running the Prosecutor's Office, he can be prodded to action.
As the Dunnings sexcapade scandal continues to unfold, documents show shocking complicity by the Prosecutor's Office, the Sheriff’s Department and county courts.
Using heavily redacted documents related to the Dunnings investigation, the Lansing State Journal has uncovered court records inexplicably cleansed, dropped criminal charges, concerns and complaints about Dunnings that were ignored by higher-ups and incomplete questioning of important witnesses.
The documents reveal that for years before his arrest, staff inside the Prosecutor's Office and Sheriff's Department recognized Dunnings' aberrant behavior. The LSJ reported that he turned up at crime scenes, ordered staff to help “friends” and secured the release from jail of suspects who invoked his name.
Incredibly, none of this raised the suspicions of Sheriff Wriggelsworth.
His department, after agreeing on Aug. 26 to release documents related to the Dunnings investigation, stalled for a month and then used a specious request for secrecy from Attorney General Bill Schuette to again withhold the documents until after Dunnings' sentencing at some undetermined date — a date well after his son's campaign for sheriff. The Ingham County Board of Commissioners overruled Wriggelsworth, forcing the release.
Ingham County is governed by a single party with no meaningful opposition, no checks and balances. It seems great when your team's in charge, but it inevitably leads to poor governance. Consider Michigan.
The state has a Republican governor, attorney general, secretary of state, Supreme Court and both legislative chambers. The result has been hostile takeovers of local governments and school boards by emergency managers, anti-union laws, costly legal challenges to prevent same-sex marriages and federal clean air legislation, laws to suppress voter access, the worst roads and bridges in the country and the lead poisoning of Flint.
It's an appalling legacy that could have been tempered by a more balanced government. And were the power of the parties reversed, there would be a litany of Democratic failings.
In many ways government in Ingham County mirrors the state. The county board is controlled by Democrats and all of the countywide elected officials are Democrats. So it's not surprising that Siemon would be endorsed by the county Democratic establishment: Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, State Reps. Andy Schor, Sam Singh and Tom Cochran, County Board Chairwoman Kara Hope, fill-in Prosecutor Whitmer, county commissioners, former Democratic judges. The establishment.
Working for O'Berry and Trojanowicz this year could be the Bernie Sanders/ Donald Trump effect. Both candidates campaigned on the populist though often unstructured desire for an outsiders to challenge the status quo.
But the local lines on the General Election ballot are about more than “Make Ingham County Great Again.” There are real questions about the actions of two justice departments that wield extraordinary power over citizens. We need assurances that won't be repeated and that those responsible are held accountable.
And for this, the county needs more independent leaders: O'Berry and Trojanowicz.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor to be sentenced to prison
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced to as many as five years in prison on prostitution charges Thursday afternoon. Dunnings pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute on August 2. In exchange, prosecutors dropped the felony pandering charge that could have gotten him 20 years in prison. Genesee County judge Joseph Farah will handle the hearing because Ingham County's Circuit Court judges recused themselves.
Sentencing postponed for former prosecutor charged with misconduct, engaging prostitute
LANSING, MI - Sentencing for Ingham County's former prosecutor, accused of abusing his power and paying for sexual favors from a woman seeking his help, has been delayed until Nov. 22.
Stuart Dunnings III, 64, was due to be sentenced Thursday, Nov. 10, in Ingham County's Veterans Memorial Courthouse by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah, after accepting a plea deal, confessing to misconduct in office and engaging prostitutes while in office.
Defense attorney Vincent Toussaint was granted a request to postpone the sentencing so he may introduce updated information, arguing the victim in the case was in a four-month consensual sexual relationship with Dunnings.
"He was looking for a mistress," Toussaint said. "This is seduction of a married woman; she had relations with my client on three occasions and (he) paid her rent for three to four months. That's all."
In Jackson County District Court on Aug. 2, Dunnings accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and one count of soliciting a prostitute. This allowed 13 other charges of neglect in office and soliciting prostitutes to be dropped.
Farah, who was assigned to render sentence after Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina excused herself from the case due to conflict of interest, saw doubt in the argument saying it did not sound like a legitimate relationship.
"I don't see anything about flowers or candy or meeting the kids," Farah said. "It was 'I'll pay you for sex.' How is that a seduction of a married woman?"
Toussaint defended the notion arguing that relationship has changed and that most people date through their phones now.
A report from a sex addiction counselor who has been treating Dunnings is expected to be submitted at his new sentencing date.
In accepting the felony plea agreement, Dunnings' license to practice law in the state of Michigan is automatically suspended.
Dunnings had sex in sex trafficker's home, records show
LANSING — Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III had sex with two prostitutes in the home of a pimp just months before the man was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges, new court records reveal.
In 2014, Dunnings had sex with two women who were being trafficked by Lansing's Tyrone Smith, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by the Michigan Attorney General's Office that asked for Dunnings to face the maximum penalty for his admitted crimes. He had sex with the women in Smith's home.
Smith was indicted for sex trafficking in federal court in March 2015. He regularly beat the women he trafficked, federal investigators said. Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced early this year.
Smith's prosecution was one of only two federal sex-trafficking cases to come out of the Lansing area.
Dunnings, 64, resigned his position on July 2 and on Aug. 2 pleaded guilty to misconduct in office, a felony, and engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor. He faces up to five years in prison.
Dunnings' attorney, Vincent Toussaint, declined to comment. An FBI spokesman could not immediately answer questions from the State Journal.
Dunnings also targeted one woman whom he coerced into letting him pay her for sex because she was a vulnerable victim of domestic violence, Assistant Attorneys General Matthew Schneider and William Rollstin wrote. The elected prosecutor also had sex in his county office in downtown Lansing, regularly left the office during business hours to have sex with prostitutes in area hotels, and told the women he paid for sex that he was a prosecutor to intimidate them, Schneider and Rollstin wrote.
The prosecutor "comingled (sic) his sexual exploits with his governmental office," the legal filing says.
At one point, Dunnings texted one of the women he was paying for sex while he was sitting at a Lansing City Council meeting for a "crime victims week" event. He paid women for sex — most of whom were addicted to drugs and some of whom were abused — while serving on the Victims Services Committee of the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.
The State Journal earlier revealed that Dunnings interfered with criminal and civil proceedings on behalf of the women he paid for sex and that some public employees assisted some of the women with whom Dunnings had relationships, though the county employees may not have known the women were prostitutes.
The AG's recent court filing adds more details to the State Journal's earlier report, which was based on hundreds of pages of documents obtained through the state's Freedom of Information Act.
When Dunnings attended addiction treatment meetings with two of the women, it "intimidated the other women who were trying to become sober, and discouraged them from attending."
The new court filing also reveals the FBI had Dunnings under surveillance, including at his county office, as early as July 2015.
Dunnings was charged in March and originally faced up to 20 years in prison on a separate felony, pandering, and 14 misdemeanors across three counties. He pleaded down to the lesser charge in negotiations with the Attorney General's Office.
Dunnings could avoid jail despite felony conviction
LANSING - The sentencing guidelines for former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III call for no more than three months in jail, according to court records.
Dunnings, 64, is scheduled to be sentenced this afternoon, more than four months after he resigned from office and more than two months after he pleaded guilty to a felony.
The felony, misconduct in office, is punishable by up to five years in prison. The minimum sentence can be set no higher than two-thirds of the statutory maximum sentence, meaning the longest sentence that could be issued is about three to five years in prison.
That's the term the Michigan Attorney General's will ask for, according to a sentencing memorandum filed last week.
"Due to the severity of the defendant's conduct, his abuse of the public's trust, his exploitation of victims of crime whom he publicly pledged to protect, and the fact that the sentencing guidelines fail to account for these and the factors discussed (in this memorandum)," the Attorney General's Office wrote, "the People respectfully request that the Court sentence the defendant to 40 months to 5 years imprisonment in the Michigan Department of Corrections."
However, the state probation department is recommending no more than 90 days in jail, if any.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah — presiding over sentencing because Ingham County judges recused themselves — can adopt the guidelines or depart from them. He can sentence Dunnings to time in county jail, state prison, court fines, restitution or probation, or a combination. Any sentence of less than one year would typically be served in a county jail, although in Dunnings' case, it's not clear where he would be housed because of his previous role as prosecutor.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's office has used the misconduct in office charge at least six other times in recent years, but no one has been sentenced to jail. Dunnings was originally charged with pandering, a 20-year felony, but Schuette agreed to allow a plea deal to the lesser charge.
The office has used the charge in some recent high-profile cases, including against former state lawmakers Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat and against six state employees for their role in the Flint Water Crisis. The charges against Gamrat were dismissed. The other cases are still pending.
Dunnings served as county prosecutor for nearly 20 years. He was first elected in 1996 and resigned in July after spending several months on medical leave. He was arrested and charged March 14 with 15 prostitution-related charges spread over three counties, including the 20-year felony.
He pleaded guilty Aug. 2.
Investigative reports made public last month showed that some police and county employees were aware of Dunnings' questionable conduct long before a criminal investigation into his dealings with prostitutes was launched.
In fact, some records indicate that Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at least some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships.
Today's scheduled sentencing will mark the second time Dunnings appeared in an Ingham County court as a defendant. The first time was in September, when he appeared during a hearing asking Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to recuse herself from the case. He was a arraigned via video conference in March and pleaded guilty to Ingham County charges in Jackson County District Court.
Dunnings had been scheduled to be sentenced by Aquilina, but she granted in September a motion from Dunnings' attorneys for her to recuse herself.
What's next
Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III is scheduled to be sentenced today in Ingham County Circuit Court by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah. Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 2 and is facing up to five years in prison.
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter sentence.
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter sentence.
Attorney General pushing for tough sentence for Stuart Dunnings III
Sex with a prostitute in a pimp's house is just one of the reasons the Michigan Attorney General's Office is pushing for a tough sentence for former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. It was supposed to happen Thursday, but got pushed back so the lawyers could try to sway the judge. FOX 47's Clayton Cummins tells us about a report the prosecution is hoping will draw a stricter sentence.
Sentencing postponed for former prosecutor
Jackson Citizen Patriot (MI)
November 12, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
Sentencing for Ingham County’s former prosecutor, accused of abusing his power and paying for sexual favors from a woman seeking his help, has been delayed until Nov. 22.
Stuart Dunnings III, 64, was due to be sentenced Thursday in Ingham County’s Veterans Memorial Courthouse by Genesee County Circuit Judge Joseph Farah, after accepting a plea deal, confessing to misconduct in office and engaging prostitutes while in office.
Defense attorney Vincent Toussaint was granted a request to postpone the sentencing so he may introduce updated information, arguing the victim in the case was in a four-month consensual sexual relationship with Dunnings.
“He was looking for a mistress,” Toussaint said. “This is seduction of a married woman; she had relations with my client on three occasions and (he) paid her rent for three to four months. That’s all.”
In Jackson County District Court on Aug. 2, Dunnings accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and one count of soliciting a prostitute. That allowed 13 other charges of neglect in office and soliciting prostitutes to be dropped.
Farah, who was assigned to render sentence after Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina recused herself from the case citing a conflict of interest, saw doubt in the argument, saying it did not sound like a legitimate relationship.
“I don’t see anything about flowers or candy or meeting the kids,” Farah said. “It was, ‘I’ll pay you for sex.’ How is that a seduction of a married woman?”
Toussaint defended the notion arguing that relationship has changed and most people date through their phones now.
A report from a sex addiction counselor who has been treating Dunnings is expected to be submitted at his new sentencing date.
In accepting the felony plea agreement, Dunnings’ license to practice law in the state of Michigan is automatically suspended.
Despicable Dunnings
Report amplifies his crimes and seeks harsher sentence
Stuart Dunnings III soon will be going to prison, probably for three to five years. Really not enough time.
After pleading to felony misconduct in office and one misdemeanor prostitution charge, Dunnings was facing just 0-to-6 months’ incarceration. It was an astoundingly light sentence considering his brazen relations with prostitutes, allegations of hundreds of related encounters, abuse of his office and felony coercion of a woman into the sex trade.
Just another example of a rigged system?
But the Attorney General's Office, rejecting the light pre-sentencing guidelines, is making the case for significant prison time.
Its sentencing report on the former Ingham County prosecutor's reckless conduct details callously exploiting women he paid for sex, betraying his self-proclaimed campaign against trafficking and enabling of assorted criminal activities while he was the county's chief law enforcement officer.
As prosecutor, he claimed prostitution as his specialty. Little did we know. His office prosecuted prostitution in Lansing, normally handled by the city attorney. He publicly railed against sex trafficking, ordered felony charges against repeat prostitution solicitors and heralded law enforcement personnel combating the exploitation of “vulnerable young ladies in our society.”
The state's sentencing report focused on six women who provided Dunnings with sex. He took them to local motels, sometimes to apartments, drove them around town during working hours — his working hours.
He encouraged his victims to call him at work and engaged in sex with one woman in his Lansing office, where investigators found condoms and lubricant hidden in a pot on his bookcase. He trolled the Internet to find local prostitutes whose charges for services started at $100 for the first half hour. One victim, a heroin addict who was prostituting herself to pay for her drug habit, said she and Dunnings had sex as often as three or four times a week.
Incredibly, Dunnings asked his victims whether they knew who he was, and when they didn't, he told them. As the sentencing report notes, this alone would intimidate the women who were “committing crimes by using drugs and engaging in prostitution.”
Even more incredibly, he attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with two of the prostitutes, and while his victims didn't recognize him as county prosecutor, others did.
According to the sentencing report, Dunnings' presence at these meetings intimidated the other women who were trying to become sober, discouraging them from attending.
The state's sentencing report portrays Dunnings’ actions as so calculating, so abusive, that they seem almost fictional — the stuff of a TV crime procedural or detective novel.
While the FBI was investigating a notorious local sex trafficker, Tyrone Smith, Dunnings was sleeping with the pimp's prostitutes, sometimes at Smith's house in Lansing. According to the sentencing report, one victim, identified as W-3, was forced by Smith to have sex with as many as 20 men a day. He supplied the women he was pimping with drugs —heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine — and beat them regularly.
“During the time W-3 was having commercial sex with Dunnings, W-3 had visible bruising on her body and multiple, noticeable needle marks on her arms from heroin injections. W-3 has stated it would have been obvious to Dunnings that during their commercial sex dates W-3 was high on drugs,” the sentencing report said.
Another victim, W-4, also had sex with Dunnings at Smith's house. She was punched repeatedly, slammed to the ground and burned in the eye with a heated spoon after Smith caught her freelancing to support her drug habit. Dunnings' victims were poor, had troubled backgrounds and were abused, which the sentencing report said would have been obvious to an experienced prosecutor.
There was one victim, W-6, a 26-year-old with no connection to prostitution or the sex trade, who sought Dunnings' help in a child custody dispute. After two meetings, he pressured her into having sex in exchange for cash, which she did.
According to the sentencing report, W-6 believed that if she did not agree to Dunnings' demand he would have retaliated against her in the custody case.
In a three-page letter to the court, she tells how Dunnings' demand ruined her life.
"I knew that my body and my soul didn't have a price to be bought for. But, I couldn't say no. … He took that choice away from me.
“I can still feel the sadness inside of me. It is still a part of my everyday life. Everything that I do and everything that happens to me is harder now. Everything hurts more than it should. I do not know if I will ever heal or overcome the depression I've encountered and suffered through. I can only hope that I can overcome for the sake of my sons, my family, and myself.”
Former Ingham County prosecutor deserved longer sentence, AG says
Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III appears before Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah at the Veterans Memorial Courthouse in Lansing for a sentencing hearing on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016. The hearing will be continued later in November. (J. Scott Park | Mlive.com)
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail for misconduct in office -- but that's not long enough, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
"I thought it would be more appropriate for him to be behind bars for at least two years," Schuette said. "He was suppose to uphold the law, not break the law.
"It's outrageous," Schuette added. "He broke the public trust."
Former prosecutor who paid for sex while in office sentenced to one year in jail, probation
Ingham County's former top prosecutor has been sentenced to one year in jail starting Friday.
Schuette's office prosecuted the case against Dunnings, after investigators found that Dunnings was hiring prostitutes over the years while in office. Dunnings served as Ingham County's prosecutor from 1997 until his resignation in March.
He allegedly paid for things like rent, YMCA memberships and methadone treatments in return for sex, according to witness statements.
Dunnings faced 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. That included 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
In August, he pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and to a charge of soliciting a prostitute, a 93-day misdemeanor.
The charges against Dunnings grew out of a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring. Witnesses in that case led to allegations that Dunnings was patronizing prostitutes.
Additionally, while Dunnings' law license will be automatically suspended due to the felony plea, Schuette said in August that he supports a permanent suspension of Dunnings' ability to practice law in Michigan.
No one should know that better than former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.
For nearly two decades, Dunnings and his office were responsible for meting out that judgment for people accused of crimes ranging from murder to sexual assault to embezzlement. As the county's chief law enforcement official, he was supposed to be setting the tone for the pursuit of justice.
Instead, according to court records, Dunnings was engaging in the services of prostitutes. In March, he was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, including one 20-year felony.
Dunnings used his position to improperly influence some cases, according to investigative reports the State Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, including interfering with criminal and civil proceedings on behalf of the women he paid for sex.
An Attorney General’s Office sentencing memorandum revealed Dunnings had sex in his county office, regularly left his office during business hours to engage with prostitutes and regularly told prostitutes he was the county prosecutor to intimidate them.
This is a severe betrayal of the public’s trust. He must be held accountable.
Dunnings pleaded guilty in August to misconduct in office, a felony; and engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor.
On Tuesday, he will be sentenced. The court must send a message to public officials and the community that no one is above the law, especially an official elected by the people to uphold the law.
The Attorney General’s Office is requesting the maximum punishment – 40 months to five years in prison.
The state’s probation department originally recommended a sentence of zero to three months. In a hearing earlier this month, Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah, who is presiding over the sentencing, increased the guideline range to zero to six months because he ruled one of the women was a vulnerable victim.
Some could argue leniency is in order because Dunnings is a first-time offender. They would be wrong.
Dunnings threw away the public’s trust and tarnished the family legacy begun by his father, a prominent Lansing attorney whose three children all pursued legal careers.
Serving prison time is the logical conclusion to this sordid tale. Dunnings’ gross negligence of power took advantage of some county’s most vulnerable. That merits a consequence more severe than a slap on the wrist.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Dunnings pled guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office. He was arrested and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes last March. Dunnings was initially supposed to be sentenced on November 10th, but his lawyer asked for a delay. Stuart Dunnings faces a maximum of five years in prison.
Live from court for the Stuart Dunnings sentencing
LANSING, MI - Ingham County's former top prosecutor has been sentenced to one year in jail starting Friday.
After confessing to misconduct and engaging prostitutes while in office, Stuart Dunnings III, was sentenced to 365 days in jail and two years probation by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Tuesday, Nov. 22, WLNS Channel 6 reports.
Dunnings has until 6 p.m. Nov. 25 to report to the Ingham County Jail to begin his sentence.
"Mr. Dunnings violated the public trust and deserves time behind bars," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in a press release. "I had hoped he would spend a longer period of time in prison because he broke the laws he was responsible for enforcing."
Farah issued the sentence, as Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, the original judge in the case, recused herself due to conflict of interest.
Dunnings accepted a plea agreement in Jackson County District Court on Aug. 2. He pleaded guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and one count of soliciting a prostitute.
This allowed 13 other charges of neglect in office and soliciting prostitutes to be dropped.
Dunnings originally faced 15 charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties for his alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015, according to Attorney General Bill Schuette.
In accepting the felony plea agreement, Dunnings' license to practice law in the state of Michigan is automatically suspended.
Former Ingham County prosecutor deserved longer sentence, AG says
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail for misconduct in office -- but that's not long enough, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
"I thought it would be more appropriate for him to be behind bars for at least two years," Schuette said. "He was suppose to uphold the law, not break the law.
"It's outrageous," Schuette added. "He broke the public trust."
Schuette's office prosecuted the case against Dunnings, after investigators found that Dunnings was hiring prostitutes over the years while in office. Dunnings served as Ingham County's prosecutor from 1997 until his resignation in March.
He allegedly paid for things like rent, YMCA memberships and methadone treatments in return for sex, according to witness statements.
Dunnings faced 15 charges across three counties over his alleged patronage of prostitutes from 2010-15. That included 10 counts of engaging in prostitution, four counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of pandering prostitution.
In August, he pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and to a charge of soliciting a prostitute, a 93-day misdemeanor.
The charges against Dunnings grew out of a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring. Witnesses in that case led to allegations that Dunnings was patronizing prostitutes.
Additionally, while Dunnings' law license will be automatically suspended due to the felony plea, Schuette said in August that he supports a permanent suspension of Dunnings' ability to practice law in Michigan.
UPDATED: Dunnings sentenced to year in county jail
Schuette hoped Dunnings would have been sentenced to state prison
LANSING – Eight months and 11 days after he was arrested outside a coffee shop and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III will start serving his year-long jail sentence.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Tuesday ordered Dunnings, 64, to report to jail by 6 p.m. Friday.
Dunnings will be on probation for two years after his release, the judge ordered, and will be required to pay costs that will be calculated later.
Attorney General Bill Schuette said in March, during a news conference announcing charges, that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times and used his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. Schuette's office also identified five other victims, who were designed W-1, W-2, etc. in court documents. Dunnings' relationship with the woman investigators say he coerced, referred to in court records as W-6, was the basis for the 20-year felony Dunnings faced after his arraignment. That charged was dropped in exchange for a five-year felony, misconduct in office, to which he eventually pleaded guilty.
Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings attorney, asked Farah for leniency for his client and in doing so asked Farah to consider the "measure of a man" as more than his crimes or misdeeds, but also his positive contributions to society. Farah said he received about 40 letters in support of Dunnings, including from the former prosecutor's wife and an Ingham County Circuit Court judge. It was not clear Tuesday which judge authored the letter.
Toussaint asked Farah that if Dunnings were given jail time that it be delayed so he could continue treatment for a sex addiction. He has been in treatment for that addiction since his arrest, including a 35-day in-patient program at The Ranch, an addiction treatment center in middle Tennessee.
Farah referenced Toussaint's words when he imposed the sentence, saying the measure of who Dunnings was as a man isn't what he did when people were paying attention, but rather what he did in private when he faced temptation.
"It pains me to say that Stuart Dunnings did not rise to the challenge," Farah said, who described Dunnings as a "brother in the legal profession."
Dunnings declined comment to reporters as he walked out of court with his attorney, but addressed Farah for nearly 15 minutes during the hearing. He was often emotional and cried.
He apologized to his family, to the prosecutors who served under him and to the community. He spoke about his sex addiction and desire to continue treatment.
However, Farah, who was presiding over the case because Ingham County judges recused themselves, said since Dunnings admitted his struggles with sex addiction started in college, he should have sought treatment long before he was arrested.
Dunnings denied several of the allegations made by the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
He said at the time he didn't think his relationship with W-6 was harmful to her, but that he can now look back and see that it was. He offered to pay for her counseling if he could afford it.
"Beginning in 1996 there were five times the people of Ingham County elected me as their prosecutor," Dunnings told Farah. "And beginning in 2010, I violated that oath (of office). I betrayed the trust of the people. And for that I am infinitely remorseful.
"If anything can be worse, I violated my covenant to God and my wife."
Investigative records obtained by the State Journal show that Dunnings' misdeeds may have begun before 2010. Those reports, made public last month by the State Journal, show that some police and county employees were aware of Dunnings' questionable conduct long before a criminal investigation into his dealings with prostitutes was launched in 2015. The investigation was conducted by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the FBI.
A woman who ran an escort service told investigators this year that Dunnings was a regular customer of hers in the late-1990s. When the Michigan State Police shut down the escort service in 2003 and arrested the woman, Dunnings called her and asked if the police would find his name in her records. He also promised the woman he would make sure her record was clean. The woman said she later found her record cleared even though she never asked a judge to do so.
Some of those investigators' records even indicate Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at least some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships.
Deal paved way for jail sentence
Attorney General Bill Schuette's office and Dunnings' attorneys reached a plea deal that allowed the former county prosecutor to plead guilty to misconduct in office and a single misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. Dunnings was arrested March 14 in Lansing and pleaded guilty Aug. 2.
Schuette told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he had hoped Dunnings would have been sentenced to more than a year, which would have triggered his entry into the state prison system.
However, Schuette added that the sentence didn't make him rethink the plea agreement, which lowered the maximum sentence from 20 years in prison to five years in prison.
"I would have thought it'd been more appropriate to be in prison for at least a year or two," he said, "but I am pleased that he's behind bars. He broke the public trust."
Officials said because of his former role as prosecutor, Dunnings will serve his sentence in the Clinton County jail. He was given credit for one day served, although he has never spent a night in jail. He appeared at the jail briefly in March for his arraignment on felony and misdemeanor charges.
Farah said that any further requests to the court for jail credits would be denied, and that it is his intention that Dunnings serve his full jail sentence.
Dunnings was first elected as county prosecutor in 1996. He resigned in July, just six months shy of a 20-year tenure as Ingham County's top law enforcement officer.
Gretchen Whitmer was appointed to serve the remainder of his term and voters elected Democrat Carol Siemon on Nov. 8 to serve as the next prosecutor. She will take office Jan. 1.
Attorneys for W-6, one of the Dunnings' victims, issued a statement following the sentencing.
"Our independent investigation as it pertains to these matters is ongoing," the statement from Okemos-based White Law PLLC read. "Our firm continues to represent W-6 in all matters related to this incident. After a comprehensive review, a decision will be made regarding what action is appropriate for our client."
AG, sheriff tried to withhold Dunnings records
Dunnings' wife, Cynthia Dunnings, filed for divorce March 18. The divorce case is ongoing, with court hearings set for 2017.
Dunnings will be jailed in Clinton County
Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III has to report to jail by 6 p.m. Friday to begin his one-year jail sentence.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah ordered Dunnings to serve the sentence in the Ingham County jail. However, Dunnings’ attorneys raised the issue that he might have to serve the time in another jail because of his former role as the county’s prosecutor. Farah told attorneys to resolve that issue prior to 6 p.m. Friday.
Later Tuesday, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Dunnings will be booked into Ingham County jail Friday and then taken to the Clinton County jail, where he will complete his sentence.
Wriggelsworth said Dunnings could have prosecuted or known any number of people at the Ingham County jail. That’s less likely elsewhere, he said.
Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator for Clinton County, said Dunnings will be evaluated and his housing needs addressed once he arrives.
"We would just treat him like any other inmate, keeping in mind safety and security," Hoskins said.
Lansing — A man who was accused of hiring prostitutes hundreds of times during his 20-year career as a Michigan prosecutor has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Stuart Dunnings III, who was the prosecutor for Ingham County, which includes the state capital of Lansing, pleaded guilty in August to misconduct in office and soliciting a prostitute in exchange for many other charges being dismissed. He was sentenced Tuesday.
His arrest earlier this year stemmed from a federal investigation into human trafficking.
Prosecutors say Dunnings paid women for sex over several years.
Dunnings said at Tuesday’s hearing that he has a sex addiction and that he “violated his oath” and “betrayed the trust” of his wife, family, colleagues and community. His attorney says Dunnings is being treated for that addiction.
LANSING - She felt excited and grateful when she first met Stuart Dunnings III in his office, but now looks back on a relationship that began shortly after their introduction with sadness and disappointment.
She is W-6, the identifier the Michigan Attorney General's Office gave her and the five other victims — W-1, W-2, etc. — in Dunnings' criminal case to protect their identities.
"I assure you I am a living, breathing, feeling woman who has been used and hurt by Stuart Dunnings," she wrote in her letter to the judge scheduled to sentence Dunnings today. Her victim impact statement was included in the AG's sentencing memorandum filed earlier this month.
"Every day that I get up, I look in the mirror and I try to convince myself that I'm still a person, that I still have value, and that I still have some kind of worth as a person," she wrote. "... I am a victim, but I cannot remain silent anymore."
When she met Dunnings, the woman was in the midst of a custody case and was a domestic violence victim, according to court records, and Dunnings knew it.
Prosecutors allege Dunnings used his position of power to coerce her to be paid for sex, which led to a felony charge.
The woman won't be in court for the sentencing, but her letter is expected to be read aloud in court by a detective, said Jamie White, the woman's attorney.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah will sentence Dunnings because Ingham County judges recused themselves the case.
Dunnings was arrested March 14 outside a coffee shop and was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, including a 20-year felony. He resigned from office effective July 2. He pleaded guilty Aug. 2 in a Jackson County District Court to a five-year felony and a misdemeanor as part of a plea agreement with Attorney General Bill Schuette's office.
Dunnings is facing a maximum sentence of 3 years, 4 months in prison to 5 years in prison, which the AG's office is requesting. The sentence guidelines, calculated in part by the state's probation department, call for 0-6 months in jail.
"The paltry sentencing range pales in comparison to the harm that defendant Dunnings has caused his victims, our community, and our justice system," assistant attorneys general wrote in their sentencing memorandum when the guidelines were 0-3 months in jail.
During a hearing about the sentence guidelines earlier this month, Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings' attorney, in arguing for a lower guideline, said his client was looking for a mistress and didn't seek out W-6 because she was vulnerable. He added that he planned to file a sentencing memorandum of his own prior to sentencing. As of 4 p.m. on Monday court records didn't indicate that one had been filed.
The AG's office successfully argued for the guidelines to be recalculated, but will still seek the maximum sentence, according to their court filing, because the guidelines don't account for, among other things, Dunnings' position in the community.
"(Dunnings) turned a blind eye to the law and encouraged sex trafficking," assistant attorneys general wrote in their sentencing memorandum. "Such conduct calls for an even higher sentence. The recommended guideline range cannot repair the embarrassment and disrepute the defendant has brought to our community."
What's next
Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III will be sentenced this morning by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah. Dunnings pleaded guilty in August to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute.
Ex-county prosecutor Stuart Dunnings sentenced to year in county jail
LANSING — Eight months and 11 days after he was arrested outside a coffee shop and charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes, former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III will start serving his year-long jail sentence.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Tuesday ordered Dunnings, 64, to report to jail by 6 p.m. Friday.
Dunnings will be on probation for two years after his release, the judge ordered, and will be required to pay costs that will be calculated later.
Attorney General Bill Schuette said in March, during a news conference announcing charges, that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times and used his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. Schuette's office also identified five other victims, who were designed W-1, W-2, etc. in court documents. Dunnings' relationship with the woman investigators say he coerced, referred to in court records as W-6, was the basis for the 20-year felony Dunnings faced after his arraignment. That charged was dropped in exchange for a five-year felony, misconduct in office, to which he eventually pleaded guilty.
Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings attorney, asked Farah for leniency for his client and in doing so asked Farah to consider the "measure of a man" as more than his crimes or misdeeds, but also his positive contributions to society. Farah said he received about 40 letters in support of Dunnings, including from the former prosecutor's wife and an Ingham County Circuit Court judge. It was not clear Tuesday which judge authored the letter.
Toussaint asked Farah that if Dunnings were given jail time that it be delayed so he could continue treatment for a sex addiction. He has been in treatment for that addiction since his arrest, including a 35-day in-patient program at The Ranch, an addiction treatment center in middle Tennessee.
Farah referenced Toussaint's words when he imposed the sentence, saying the measure of who Dunnings was as a man isn't what he did when people were paying attention, but rather what he did in private when he faced temptation.
"It pains me to say that Stuart Dunnings did not rise to the challenge," Farah said, who described Dunnings as a "brother in the legal profession."
Dunnings declined comment to reporters as he walked out of court with his attorney, but addressed Farah for nearly 15 minutes during the hearing. He was often emotional and cried.
He apologized to his family, to the prosecutors who served under him and to the community. He spoke about his sex addiction and desire to continue treatment.
However, Farah, who was presiding over the case because Ingham County judges recused themselves, said since Dunnings admitted his struggles with sex addiction started in college, he should have sought treatment long before he was arrested.
Dunnings denied several of the allegations made by the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
He said at the time he didn't think his relationship with W-6 was harmful to her, but that he can now look back and see that it was. He offered to pay for her counseling if he could afford it.
"Beginning in 1996 there were five times the people of Ingham County elected me as their prosecutor," Dunnings told Farah. "And beginning in 2010, I violated that oath (of office). I betrayed the trust of the people. And for that I am infinitely remorseful.
"If anything can be worse, I violated my covenant to God and my wife."
Investigative records obtained by the State Journal show that Dunnings' misdeeds may have begun before 2010. Those reports, made public last month by the State Journal, show that some police and county employees were aware of Dunnings' questionable conduct long before a criminal investigation into his dealings with prostitutes was launched in 2015. The investigation was conducted by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the FBI.
A woman who ran an escort service told investigators this year that Dunnings was a regular customer of hers in the late-1990s. When the Michigan State Police shut down the escort service in 2003 and arrested the woman, Dunnings called her and asked if the police would find his name in her records. He also promised the woman he would make sure her record was clean. The woman said she later found her record cleared even though she never asked a judge to do so.
Some of those investigators' records even indicate Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at least some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships.
Deal paved way for jail sentence
Attorney General Bill Schuette's office and Dunnings' attorneys reached a plea deal that allowed the former county prosecutor to plead guilty to misconduct in office and a single misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. Dunnings was arrested March 14 in Lansing and pleaded guilty Aug. 2.
Schuette told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he had hoped Dunnings would have been sentenced to more than a year, which would have triggered his entry into the state prison system.
However, Schuette added that the sentence didn't make him rethink the plea agreement, which lowered the maximum sentence from 20 years in prison to five years in prison.
"I would have thought it'd been more appropriate to be in prison for at least a year or two," he said, "but I am pleased that he's behind bars. He broke the public trust."
Officials said because of his former role as prosecutor, Dunnings will serve his sentence in the Clinton County jail. He was given credit for one day served, although he has never spent a night in jail. He appeared at the jail briefly in March for his arraignment on felony and misdemeanor charges.
Farah said that any further requests to the court for jail credits would be denied, and that it is his intention that Dunnings serve his full jail sentence.
Dunnings was first elected as county prosecutor in 1996. He resigned in July, just six months shy of a 20-year tenure as Ingham County's top law enforcement officer.
Gretchen Whitmer was appointed to serve the remainder of his term and voters elected Democrat Carol Siemon on Nov. 8 to serve as the next prosecutor. She will take office Jan. 1.
Attorneys for W-6, one of the Dunnings' victims, issued a statement following the sentencing.
"Our independent investigation as it pertains to these matters is ongoing," the statement from Okemos-based White Law PLLC read. "Our firm continues to represent W-6 in all matters related to this incident. After a comprehensive review, a decision will be made regarding what action is appropriate for our client."
Dunnings' wife, Cynthia Dunnings, filed for divorce March 18. The divorce case is ongoing, with court hearings set for 2017.
Dunnings will be jailed in Clinton County
Former Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III has to report to jail by 6 p.m. Friday to begin his one-year jail sentence.
Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah ordered Dunnings to serve the sentence in the Ingham County jail. However, Dunnings’ attorneys raised the issue that he might have to serve the time in another jail because of his former role as the county’s prosecutor. Farah told attorneys to resolve that issue prior to 6 p.m. Friday.
Later Tuesday, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Dunnings will be booked into Ingham County jail Friday and then taken to the Clinton County jail, where he will complete his sentence.
Wriggelsworth said Dunnings could have prosecuted or known any number of people at the Ingham County jail. That’s less likely elsewhere, he said.
Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator for Clinton County, said Dunnings will be evaluated and his housing needs addressed once he arrives.
"We would just treat him like any other inmate, keeping in mind safety and security," Hoskins said.
UPDATE - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings sentenced to probation, one year in jail
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III sentenced, Attorney General hoped for more
Dunnings has to turn himself in at the Ingham County jail by 6 p.m. on Friday. The sheriff could move him to another jail if it's determined that his former job as county prosecutor puts him at risk there. How did we get here? FOX 47's Clayton Cummins takes a look back at the case that spawned from a human trafficking investigation.
Dunnings gets 1 year in jail, 3 years of probation
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III sentenced, Attorney General hoped for more
Dunnings has to turn himself in at the Ingham County jail by 6 p.m. on Friday. The sheriff could move him to another jail if it's determined that his former job as county prosecutor puts him at risk there. How did we get here? FOX 47's Clayton Cummins takes a look back at the case that spawned from a human trafficking investigation.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings sentenced to probation, one year in jail
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III has been sentenced to probation, and one year in Ingham County Jail by Judge Joseph Farah. He is to turn himself in on Friday, November 25, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Dunnings was arrested on March 14, 2016 on 15 criminal charges in Ingham, Clinton, and Ionia counties. The charges related to prostitution, pandering, and willful neglect of duty. Investigators said that Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times with different women, between 2010 and 2015.
Stuart Dunnings III will serve his year behind bars at the Clinton County jail, but he’ll be paying Ingham County for his stay.
The former Ingham County prosecutor who pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges in August was sentenced Tuesday to a year in the county jail, with credit for one day served, followed by two years of probation.
Dunnings has been ordered to report to the Ingham County jail by 6 p.m. Friday, and is expected to be moved to the Clinton County jail the same day.
Major Sam Davis, Ingham County jail administrator, said Dunnings will serve his time in Clinton County instead of Ingham County to avoid any security risks Dunnings might face from inmates he knew or prosecuted.
The two jails have an agreement that allows them to exchange inmates for various reasons including space or security concerns.
Since Dunnings is being booked at Ingham County jail, he’d pay the Mason facility for his stay.
“All monies collected would either stay with Ingham County Sheriff’s Office or Clinton County,” Davis said.
Davis said the jail’s fee for inmates is $50 a day, which would amount to about $18,200 for the year. Davis said the actual cost of housing an inmate is about $63 a day.
Clinton County's jail charges $35 a day, Kangas said.
Although both jails have fees for prisoners’ stays, collection rates are low. Ingham County's jail averages a 4% to 5% collection rate, due in part to the jail’s large indigent population, Davis said.
Kangas said the jail will determine Dunnings’ accommodations once he arrives at the facility in St. Johns. He said Dunnings will be treated no differently than any other inmate.
The Ingham County jail, portions of which were built in 1963 and 1980, can hold 511 inmates, Davis said.
The Clinton County jail can hold fewer than half as many inmates, with a capacity of 238, Kangas said, but the facility is much newer. It was built in 1991 and has since been renovated. It is located just east of old US-27 at 1347 E. Townsend Road.
“We have inmates tell us this is the best jail they’ve ever been in,” Kangas said. “It is a very clean, orderly jail.”
Dunnings was also ordered to pay state costs and fines associated with his case. On Wednesday, court records show those fees have been calculated to be about $1,208, which he can pay through $40 monthly installments.
Dunnings reports to jail, begins year-long sentence
MASON - Former Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III reported to the Ingham County jail Friday evening to begin his year-long jail sentence.
Dunnings, 64, was sentenced Tuesday to 365 in jail followed by two years of probation. He'll receive credit for one day served and also pay $1,208 in state costs and fines.
Dunnings will be transferred to the Clinton County jail to avoid any security risks he might face from inmates he knew or prosecuted, officials previously told the State Journal. He'll pay Ingham County $50 a day during his sentence, which is the standard rate for inmates.
Dunnings was arrested March 14 and charged with 15 prostitution-related charges including a 20-year felony. He was allowed to plead guilty Aug. 2 as part of a plea agreement that lowered his maximum sentence to five years in prison. Dunnings resigned from office July 2.
During a news conference announcing the charges, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said Dunnings paid for sex hundreds of times over several years and used his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex.
During his sentencing hearing this week, Dunnings apologized to his family, the community and the prosecutors who used to work for him.
Ex-prosecutor who paid for sex sentenced to year in jail, probation
Grand Rapids Press, The (MI)
November 25, 2016
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING — Ingham County’s former top prosecutor has been sentenced to one year in jail.
After confessing to misconduct and engaging prostitutes while in office, Stuart Dunnings III, was sentenced to 365 days in jail and two years probation by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Tuesday, WLNS Channel 6 reported.
Dunnings has until 6 p.m. today to report to the Ingham County Jail.
“Mr. Dunnings violated the public trust and deserves time behind bars,” Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a press release. “I had hoped he would spend a longer period of time in prison because he broke the laws he was responsible for enforcing.”
Farah issued the sentence. Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, the original judge in the case, recused herself due to conflict of interest.
Dunnings accepted a plea agreement in Jackson County District Court on Aug. 2. He pleaded guilty to one felony count of misconduct in office, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, and one count of soliciting a prostitute.
Thirteen other charges of neglect in office and soliciting prostitutes were dropped. Dunnings had faced 15 charges in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties for alleged patronage of prostitutes between 2010 and 2015.
Dunnings’ license to practice law in Michigan was automatically suspended.
Dunnings has not sought protective custody inside jail
Former Ingham County prosecutor in 14-person dorm at Clinton Co jail
ST. JOHNS – After two decades helping to put hundreds of individuals behind bars, former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III is now eating, sleeping and exercising among inmates.
Dunnings on Friday began serving a one-year jail sentence in a 14-person, low-security dorm at the Clinton County Jail, Clinton County Sheriff's Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator, said Tuesday. Though other inmates are likely aware a former top law enforcement official is among them, Dunnings has not sought protective custody, she said.
"We have pretty much evaluated his situation and determined housing for him that would be most safe for him," she said, adding the jail has the means to move him to protective custody if he needs it.
Dunnings, 64, is serving his time like any other inmate, Hoskins said.
The 238-bed jail has facilities for inmates to go outside, though "we don't get them out much," especially as the weather turns colder, Hoskins said. Inmates can go to the gym three times a week.
Dunnings can purchase a phone card to make calls. He, like everybody else, can receive visitors for 30 minutes once a week.
"We don't treat him any differently, any better or any worse than any other inmate," Hoskins said.
He is serving his jail time in Clinton County to avoid any conflicts or risks at the Ingham County jail where he sent an untold number of convicts.
Dunnings was arrested March 14 and originally charged with a 20-year felony and 14 misdemeanors spread over three counties. Attorney General Bill Schuette said at the time that a months-long investigation determined Dunnings had used his power as prosecutor to coerce a woman who was not a prostitute to let him pay her for sex and paid at least five other women for sex.
As part of a plea deal with Schuette's office, Dunnings instead pleaded guilty in August to a five-year felony, misconduct in office, and to one misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He was sentenced Nov. 22 to one year in jail followed by two years of probation.
At his sentencing, Dunnings said tearfully that he didn't think at the time his actions hurt anyone but he could see now that they did.
He also told the judge he was being treated for sex addiction. Hoskins said her facility does not have sex addiction treatment specifically but that mental health services are available.
Ingham County Prosecutor's Office working to improve reputation
The Ingham County Prosecutor's Office is working to improve its reputation after former prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III left office following several prostitution related charges earlier this year.
Whitmer: 8 calls to jail to release women were from Dunnings
LANSING - Just days before leaving office, Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Gretchen Whitmer said a review of county records supports her assertion that wrongdoings by former Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III did not infect the office or the cases it worked.
In a year-end report released Thursday morning Whitmer responded to an Oct. 28 State Journal report that some police and county employees were aware of Dunnings III's questionable conduct long before a criminal investigation into his dealings with prostitutes was launched, and that records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed Dunnings at various times enlisted aid from other public employees in his activities.
In a five-page report, Whitmer said she took another look at the Dunnings' case after the State Journal article questioning why at least eight women had been released from the Ingham County Jail in 2015 “at the request of the prosecutor or the prosecutor’s office.” The State Journal also found that charges were inexplicably dropped in a drug paraphernalia case in August of 2012.
"In light of the LSJ article, I made a FOIA request to ascertain the veracity of these statements," Whitmer wrote in the report. "It is now clear that the drug paraphernalia charge stemmed from charges in 54-A District Court under a Lansing City ordinance...and accordingly would not have been within the jurisdiction of the ICPO, but rather that of the City Attorney’s Office."
Whitmer added that FBI officials told her Dunnings made the phone calls to release women from the jail himself.
"Therefore, it is my continued belief that the conclusion in the report is accurate," Whitmer wrote.
According to the report, Whitmer has recused her office from any pending cases "whenever questions have been raised about the possible improper involvement" of Dunnings. She said thus far that has involved five cases.
Regarding compromised evidence damaged by a sewage leak and affected by poor record keeping at the Sheriff's Office uncovered in a State Journal report earlier this year, Whitmer said she initiated an ongoing audit of all her office's cases handled by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office from 2010 to 2014.
"To date, my office has dismissed nine such cases, due to evidence problems," Whitmer wrote, adding that none of those cases involved a violent felony, or the abuse/neglect of a child.
Whitmer's report also highlighted her establishment of a new domestic violence unit that coordinates all domestic and sexual assault cases with one group of cross-trained staff.
"As a survivor of sexual assault myself this is something I care a great deal about," Whitmer said Thursday.
Carol Siemon steps in as the county's newly-elected prosecuting attorney Jan. 1. She could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
Whitmer said Siemon has already spent some time in the prosecutor's office meeting staff.
"I think that's going to make for a smooth transition," she said.
Steven Dunnings' work on landlord-tenant matters is expected to end soon. The Okemos-based Klug Law Firm will take over legal matters.
LANSING -- The Lansing Housing Commission has found a new law firm to handle landlord-tenant matters and is expected to part ways with a lawyer who pleaded guilty in August to paying for sex.
Jeff Klug and his Okemos-based Klug Law Firm, have been selected by the Housing Commission and is expected to begin work on Feb. 1. The Housing Commission's transition period from the Lansing-based Dunnings Law Firm to the Klug firm is expected to end this month.
Tony Baltimore, the Housing Commission's board chair, confirmed Wednesday the selection of the Klug Law Firm in an email to the Lansing State Journal. Baltimore also confirmed terms of the agreement, which includes an initial one-year term with four one-year renewal options. Either party can cancel the contract within 30 days written notice.
Klug declined to comment about the agreement.
The Dunnings Law Firm's Steven Dunnings, the brother of former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, spent a couple of years doing landlord-tenant work for the Housing Commission. Steven Dunnings pleaded guilty Aug. 18 to engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor. He still has an active law license.
In September, the Housing Commission first accepted Steven Dunnings' resignation, but brought him back three days after its announcement. The commission kept Dunnings' in his role until it selected the Klug Law Firm this week.
Patricia Baines-Lake, the commission's executive director, said the decision to bring back Dunnings in a temporary role after news of a resignation was "something we did as a matter of business."
Terms of Steven Dunnings' plea, released by the State Attorney General's Office, showed he was required to pay a $600 fine plus court costs and perform 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank.
Staffing has been an issue at the Housing Commission for several months. It's website currently has job postings for several positions including an executive director, chief finance officer, asset manager and assistant asset manager.
Patricia Baines-Lake, the commission's current executive director, told the LSJ in August she has plans to retire this month. Baines-Lake was hired by the commission's board.
Stuart Dunnings III was sentenced in November to a year in jail after he was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes. He pleaded guilty Aug. 2 to a felony charge of misconduct in office and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. His law license is suspended.
LANSING - New Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Carol Siemon, the third person to hold the position in the last year, is looking to bring some stability to her office.
Siemon follows longtime prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, who's currently serving a one-year jail sentence for coercing a woman to be paid for sex, and Gretchen Whitmer, the former state lawmaker who was appointed to serve the remainder of Dunnings' final term and who filed paperwork setting up her bid for governor days after leaving the prosecutor's office.
Siemon started her post as the county's top law enforcement officer this week. And while she is still getting settled into the office, she said she doesn't expect any major staff changes or reorganizations.
"The kinds of changes I'm thinking of making are more of incremental philosophical changes over time," she said.
Siemon, an East Lansing Democrat, held a variety of positions within state agencies over her career, including more than a decade with the prosecutor's office during the tenures of former prosecutors Peter Houk and Don Martin.
During the campaign, Siemon said she waned to bolster community partnerships that address issues like substance abuse, mental health and poverty before those issues land someone in court. Those issues, along with a victim-centered approach to violent crimes, will be priorities in her administration, she said.
"We're going to be looking at violence in the community," Siemon said, "what that means in terms of gun violence and what that means in terms of sexual assault and domestic violence, which are kind of the two main prongs of violence I want to be looking at."
A domestic violence unit, setup by Whitmer, will likely be kept intact, Siemon said.
After she won the general election, Siemon said she would conduct a "careful review" of the office and prosecutors as they relate to Dunnings' misconduct to determine what steps, if any, need to be taken. That review in ongoing, she said this week, and has yet to raise any red flags that would prompt her to conduct her own investigation from scratch.
The review has included discussions with Whitmer about her investigation that determined cases were unaffected by Dunnings' alleged crimes, a review of Whitmer's report and a review of investigative documents.
Dunnings, 65, was arrested March 14 and charged with 15 prostitution-related charges, including a 20-year felony for, officials said, using his position of power to coerce a woman to be paid for sex. In an agreement with the Michigan Attorney General's Office, Dunnings was allowed to plead guilty to a five-year felony and was later sentenced to a year in jail followed by two years of probation.
Investigative records the State Journal obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that some police and county employees were aware Dunnings' questionable conduct before his arrest. The records also show Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at least some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships.
Days before she left office, Whitmer released a report detailing her six-months on the job and in it addressed issues the State Journal disclosed relating to Dunnings. Whitmer, who didn't have the documents when she conducted her initial investigation, said this month after obtaining the documents that her earlier conclusion that Dunnings' misdeeds didn't infect the office or the cases it worked was still accurate.
Siemon said she'll look into any new information brought to her regarding Dunnings, but that the office is ready and needs to move forward.
"I'm not coming in with a suspicion and a predisposition to suspect anything was going on (involving others beyond Dunnings)," she said. "I know what it's like to work in big offices and how little we often know about what is going on outside of our immediate responsibility."
Steven Dunnings reprimanded by Attorney Disciplinary Board
LANSING - Steven Dunnings on Tuesday received a formal reprimand from the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board for his misdemeanor conviction of engaging in the services of a prostitute.
Dunnings, 61, pleaded guilty to the crime in August and was sentenced to a $600 fine, court costs and 80 hours of community service at the Greater Lansing Food Bank. On Tuesday, the Attorney Discipline Board issued a formal reprimand and ordered Dunnings to pay $783.61 in costs. The reprimand does not affect his ability to practice law.
A reprimand "doesn't mean you have jeopardized your clients in any way, shape or form," Dunnings told the State Journal on Tuesday. "It doesn't mean I'm incompetent as a lawyer ... This is all behind me now. I have to move on with my life."
Until January, Dunnings represented the Lansing Housing Commission.
Steven Dunnings is the brother of Stuart Dunnings III, 64, the former Ingham County prosecutor who is currently serving a year in jail after he pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office charge and a misdemeanor of engaging in the service of a prostitute. The Attorney Discipline Board issued an automatic interim suspension on Stuart Dunnings' license in August, after he pleaded guilty, but has yet to issue a final decision.
The brothers were both charged in March after a yearlong investigation by the Michigan Attorney General's Office, Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the FBI, the latter of which was tipped off to Stuart Dunnings' activities while investigating a Lansing sex trafficking case.
15 arrests: Prostitution a year after Dunnings charged
LANSING - A couple weeks after Ingham County was rocked by news that its longtime prosecutor had coerced a woman into being paid for sex, a U.S. Army National Guard staff sergeant sent explicit messages to an 18-year-old East Lansing woman.
The woman, whom police called a human trafficking survivor, quickly tired of the explicit photos and cartoons he sent her and the offers to pay her for sex. In May 2016, she called an Ingham County Sheriff's Office detective and asked for help.
With the woman's cooperation and in partnership with the FBI, the Sheriff's Office lured the man to a Delhi Township hotel. There, he was arrested at 1:40 in the afternoon with $55 cash — the amount he'd agreed to pay the woman for sex — and a bag full of sex toys.
That case, included in dozens of pages of police reports obtained by the State Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request, illustrates police's ever-evolving approach to prostitution and sex trafficking one year after longtime prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was arrested on more than a dozen prostitution-related crimes.
In four years of Lansing-area police reports on prostitution cases reviewed by the State Journal, that May 2016 case was the first in which the reports indicate a victim brought a john to police's attention.
"I think all the attention that sex trafficking has been getting around the county, the state and the country, I think that's been the logical progression," Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wriggelsworth said. "I think now they're becoming more comfortable in doing that."
While no police officials attributed any reforms to the Dunnings case, specifically, many said such high-profile cases increase public awareness that many prostitutes are forced into selling their bodies. That, coupled with increased training for officers and more cooperation between local, state and federal law enforcement, helps police build trust with prostitutes so they feel comfortable sharing information about pimps or johns.
In the eyes of victim advocates, police may still have work to do. For one, though the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reports a sharp rise in Michigan sex trafficking cases in 2016 — and advocates say sex trafficking investigations would help police track other crimes such as guns and drugs — prostitution remains a lower priority for area agencies, behind violent crimes. Law enforcement reports from mid-Michigan show police averaged about six stings and 18 arrests a year in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Last year, they reported three stings and 15 arrests.
And, while advocates said enforcement should focus on johns and pimps instead of prostitutes who likely are victims, police continued to arrest as many prostitutes as customers who sought to pay them for sex.
Still, especially since the election of Ingham County's first new prosecutor in 20 years, groundwork has been laid for a more victim-centered approach, said Erin Roberts, executive director of Ending Violent Encounters, a Lansing shelter for victims of domestic and sexual violence.
New Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon is "coming to us and folding us into their service realm," Roberts said, "which is completely different from what we were experiencing prior."
'Trying to uncover victims'
Over four hours last May, local and federal law enforcement officials lured six women to a hotel in Dimondale by responding to their online ads featuring thinly veiled offers of sex for money.
One by one that evening, the women — ranging in age from 20 to 41, coming mostly from Lansing but also Battle Creek and rural Ohio — agreed to have sex with an undercover officer in exchange for money. One by one, the women were arrested by police who'd been listening in another hotel room.
And, one by one, police asked the women about their backgrounds, about the people and circumstances that may have led them to that hotel.
Those questions typify law enforcement's changing approach to prostitution, said Eaton County Undersheriff Jeffrey Cook, whose agency led the May sting in partnership with the Lansing Police Department, Ingham County Sheriff's Office, and FBI. Those changes predated Dunnings' arrest, Cook said, with new training for officers following the summer 2015 formation of a new task force involving the county sheriff's and prosecutor's offices, the Michigan State Police and court officials.
"I think we're proactive in gathering intelligence," Cook said. "We're trying to uncover victims of human trafficking."
Still, the women's answers that night show the difficulties police face. One woman told police a man dropped her off at the hotel, but offered no further information on him. Police were able to interview one woman's "boyfriend" who brought her to the hotel, but he claimed to have just met her and police couldn't pin a prostitution-related crime on him. He was arrested on an unrelated outstanding warrant.
Cook said his agency had discussed ways to target johns or pimps, but with most prostitution now happening online, it's no longer as easy as placing an undercover officer on a street corner. Responding to men with their own hotel rooms who try to buy sex online is a riskier operation for police.
In the meantime, police continue to nab some johns the old-fashioned way. Over a couple of hours last June, a Lansing police officer posing as a prostitute helped arrest three men along Kalamazoo Street.
And police continue to attack sex trafficking rings. In November, following a federal investigation aided by Lansing police, 26-year-old Nicko Rush was indicted in federal court for allegedly taking two underage girls from Lansing to Detroit and advertising them online for prostitution. Prosecutors accuse Rush of beating the girls, controlling their phones, providing them drugs and keeping all of the money they were paid for sex, according to court records.
Rush initially pleaded guilty but has since tried to withdraw that plea. The case is ongoing.
'Not a volitional act'
Meanwhile, Siemon, who on Jan. 1 took over the office Dunnings ran for nearly 20 years, has finished a "review" — she deliberately does not call it an investigation — and determined her predecessor's crimes did not affect her employees or the work they do.
After reading redacted investigatory reports and talking to employees and others, she said she sees no need for changes in policy or personnel. Instead, Siemon says she tries to be visible and available in the hope that workers or the public will feel free sharing concerns with her.
"I specifically have not gone to individual staff members and gone, 'What did you know? What do I need to follow up on?'" Siemon said. Instead, "I hope I've created an atmosphere where someone felt like, now it's safe to talk about."
In October, the State Journal reported that employees of the prosecutor's office told investigators they'd been asked or felt pressured to do favors for women associated with Dunnings. Siemon said she'd spoken to those employees and is confident they did not do and were not aware of anything illegal.
Following Dunnings' arrest, three criminal defendants alleged connections to or knowledge of the prosecutor's crimes. However, judges apparently determined those allegations did not affect the cases because all three men were convicted and two had appeals denied. The third man has not filed an appeal.
Siemon said she'll listen and respond to any new allegations related to Dunnings, but is now focused on restoring the public's trust in the office by running it in a new way.
For example, Dunnings had an unusual policy that any domestic violence victims who wanted to drop charges against their abusers had to meet with him first. Siemon said she leaves that decision to the victim and the assistant prosecutor on the case.
Asked if she would handle prostitution crimes differently, Siemon said: "Probably, yes, but I can't tell you how.
"I will say that I am deeply concerned about human trafficking, and that my response would be looking at the victim and survivor," she added. "In other words, it's not a volitional act. They are victims and we need to look at them as victims."
LANSING - Stuart Dunnings III, the former Ingham County prosecutor now in jail for coercing a woman to let him pay her for sex, has lost his ability to practice law in Michigan.
Dunnings' law license has been suspended since August 2016, when he pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and a misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute. The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board formally disbarred him on July 11 and on Tuesday the U.S. District Court and U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan banned him from practicing.
Dunnings, 64, began his long tenure as county prosecutor in 1997. He was arrested in Lansing in March 2016 after a yearlong investigation by federal and county authorities found he'd paid at least five prostitutes for sex since 2010 and had used the power of his office to coerce a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, to let him pay her for sex.
He was sentenced in November to three years' probation, with the first year served in jail.
He is serving his time in the Clinton County Jail to avoid any conflicts or safety concerns at the jail where he sent countless defendants over his two decades in office. Because of good-behavior credits, he is eligible for release on Sept. 24, according to jail records.
The disbarment is a stain on the Dunnings name that has been important in Lansing legal circles for decades. His father, Stuart Dunnings Jr., was Lansing's first black lawyer in 1950 and the city's black lawyers association is named in his honor. The former prosecutor's sister is Ingham County court administrator and his brother, Steven Dunnings, has continued the family's law practice.
Steven Dunnings pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute after he was caught up police's investigation into his brother. The Attorney Discipline Board gave him a formal reprimand in February.
A State Journal investigation discovered the former prosecutor had left several clues to his wrongdoing over the years, sometimes recruiting other public employees to help women he associated with, though it isn't clear those workers knew they were helping prostitutes.
Two of Dunnings' successors have reviewed the office and said the prosecutors' crimes did not affect the office.
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III loses law license
LANSING - Stuart Dunnings III, the former Ingham County prosecutor now in jail for coercing a woman to let him pay her for sex, has lost his ability to practice law in Michigan.
Dunnings' law license has been suspended since August 2016, when he pleaded guilty to felony misconduct in office and a misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute. The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board formally disbarred him on July 11 and on Tuesday the U.S. District Court and U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan banned him from practicing.
From the archives: "Dunnings sentenced to year in county jail"
More: "Before prostitution charges, 20 years of ups and downs for Stuart Dunnings"
LSJ investigation: "Records reveal Dunnings left clues to misdeeds"
Related: "Steven Dunnings reprimanded by Attorney Discipline Board"
Complete coverage: Criminal charges against Stuart Dunnings III
Dunnings, 64, began his long tenure as county prosecutor in 1997. He was arrested in Lansing in March 2016 after a yearlong investigation by federal and county authorities found he'd paid at least five prostitutes for sex since 2010 and had used the power of his office to coerce a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, to let him pay her for sex.
He was sentenced in November to three years' probation, with the first year served in jail.
He is serving his time in the Clinton County Jail to avoid any conflicts or safety concerns at the jail where he sent countless defendants over his two decades in office. Because of good-behavior credits, he is eligible for release on Sept. 24, according to jail records.
The disbarment is a stain on the Dunnings name that has been important in Lansing legal circles for decades. His father, Stuart Dunnings Jr., was Lansing's first black lawyer in 1950 and the city's black lawyers association is named in his honor. The former prosecutor's sister is Ingham County court administrator and his brother, Steven Dunnings, has continued the family's law practice.
Steven Dunnings pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of engaging in the services of a prostitute after he was caught up police's investigation into his brother. The Attorney Discipline Board gave him a formal reprimand in February.
A State Journal investigation discovered the former prosecutor had left several clues to his wrongdoing over the years, sometimes recruiting other public employees to help women he associated with, though it isn't clear those workers knew they were helping prostitutes.
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III officially banned from practicing law
Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III is no longer allowed to practice law in Michigan by order of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Dunnings's law license was automatically suspended on August 2 of 2016 when he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of misconduct in office as well as a misdemeanor count of engaging the services of a prostitute.
Ex-Ingham prosecutor disbarred by ADB panel
Michigan Lawyers Weekly
August 4, 2017
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
The former Ingham County prosecutor has been disbarred by an Attorney Discipline Board panel after pleading guilty to misconduct in office and engaging the services of a prostitute.
The disbarment notice of Stuart J. Dunnings, III, P 31089, (MiLW No. 12-95165, 1 page) was issued July 11. His law license has been continuously suspended since Aug. 2, 2016, when his guilty pleas were entered.
The case was assigned to Ingham County Hearing Panel No. 7, which included chairperson Robert E. McCarthy, and members Mary M. Lovik and Paula K. Manis. Cynthia C. Bullington represented the Attorney Grievance Commission while Steven D. Dunnings represented Stuart Dunnings.
Stuart Dunnings consented to the disbarment. He was accused of hiring prostitutes hundreds of times during his 20-year career as a prosecutor. Last November, he was sentenced to a year in jail. Many other charges were dismissed as he pleaded guilty to the felony count of misconduct in office and the misdemeanor charge of engaging the services of a prostitute.
The former prosecutor had faced 15 criminal charges, including a felony pandering charge of encouraging a person to become a prostitute.
Dunnings was on medical leave from March 2016 until his resignation became effective July 2, 2016. The charges against him resulted from a federal investigation into a Michigan-based human trafficking ring in 2015.
The case
In December 2016, the grievance administrator filed a Notice of Filing of a Judgment of Conviction against Dunnings, according to the hearing panel report. His law license was automatically suspended upon his felony conviction.
After two hearing dates were adjourned, it was “later determined that the matter would be resolved without the need for a hearing because the parties submitted a Stipulation for Consent
Order of Disbarment on June 6, 2017.”
The stipulation contained Dunnings’ admission that he was convicted.
“The parties have agreed that respondent should be disbarred, effective August 2, 2016, the date of respondent’s felony conviction and automatic suspension from the practice of law. The hearing panel has considered the stipulation and has concluded that it is reasonable and is consistent with the goals of these discipline proceedings,” the report stated.
“Based on respondent’s convictions, admissions, and the stipulation of the parties, the panel finds that respondent engaged in conduct that violated the criminal laws of the United States, in violation of MCR 9.104(5),” the ADB notice stated.
Discipline
The stipulation includes the parties’ assertion that the appropriate discipline for Dunnings is disbarment in accordance with Standard 5.21 (Failure to Maintain the Public Trust) of the American Bar Association Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions.
Standard 5.21 states that “Disbarment is generally appropriate when a lawyer in an official or governmental position knowingly misuses the position with the intent to obtain a significant benefit or advantage for himself or another, or with the intent to cause serious or potentially serious injury to a party or to the integrity of the legal process.”
The parties also considered all aggravating and mitigating factors in ABA Standards 9.22 and 9.32, and found these provisions relevant: ABA Standard 9.22(b) (dishonest or selfish motive); ABA Standard 9.22(d) (multiple offenses); ABA Standard 9.22(h) (vulnerability of victim); ABA Standard 9.22(i) (substantial experience in the practice of law); and ABA Standard 9.22(k) (illegal conduct), according to the hearing panel report.
“The hearing panel has carefully considered the stipulation filed by the parties and has concluded that the disposition accepted by the Attorney Grievance Commission and recommended by the Grievance Administrator is appropriate under the circumstances and should be accepted,” the report stated. “The panel will therefore enter an order in accordance with the stipulation that respondent be disbarred from the practice of law in Michigan, effective August 2, 2016 (the date of respondent’s conviction and interim suspension).”
The report listed no prior misconduct for Dunnings.
ST. JOHNS - Former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, convicted last year for prostitution-related crimes, will be released from jail one month from today.
Dunnings, 64, was sentenced in November to three years' probation, with the first to be served in jail. Though he was charged and sentenced in Ingham County, he is serving that time in the Clinton County Jail to avoid any conflicts or risks at the jail where he sent countless defendants over nearly 20 years as Ingham County's top law enforcement officer.
Though his yearlong jail term began at 7:13 p.m. Nov. 22, he is scheduled for release on Sept. 24 because of good-behavior credits, according to jail records. Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator for the Clinton County Sheriff's Office, confirmed Wednesday that Dunnings "has been a very good inmate" and remains eligible for early release.
Though his yearlong jail term began at 7:13 p.m. Nov. 22, he is scheduled for release on Sept. 24 because of good-behavior credits, according to jail records. Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator for the Clinton County Sheriff's Office, confirmed Wednesday that Dunnings "has been a very good inmate" and remains eligible for early release.
Dunnings pleaded guilty in August 2016 to a felony misconduct in office charge and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. He had originally faced up to 20 years in prison on a felony pandering charge and more than a dozen misdemeanor charges when he was arrested in March 2016.
A yearlong investigation by federal, state and local officials determined he'd paid at least five prostitutes for sex numerous times since 2010 and coerced a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, to let him pay her for sex. He received the lesser charges as part of a plea agreement with the Michigan Attorney General's Office.
It's unclear what Dunnings plans to do after his release. His law license was revoked last month. He will receive nearly $4,400 a month in pension benefits because of his 20 years with the county.
One of two attorneys who represented the former prosecutor last year said he no longer represents Dunnings and hadn't spoken to him. A second attorney couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Stuart Dunnings III leaves the Clinton County Jail
ST. JOHNS - Longtime Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III walked out of the Clinton County Jail early Sunday morning after serving 10 months on prostitution-related charges.
Wearing slacks and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar and carrying some of his belongings in a plastic bag, Dunnings made no comment to the waiting press before being quickly helped into the back seat of a black sports-utility vehicle that quickly drove away. Two men helped him into the vehicle and no one spoke to the press.
Dunnings, 64, was sentenced in November to a felony misconduct in office charge and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in the services of a prostitute. A yearlong investigation by federal, state and Ingham County officials determined he'd paid at least five women for sex over several years and used the power of the prosecutor's office to force a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, to let him pay her for sex. Investigators were tipped off during a federal investigation into a sex-trafficking ring.
He had faced up to 20 years in prison on a felony pandering charge when he was arrested in March 2016, but received a lesser sentence as part of a plea agreement with the Michigan Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted his case.
He was sentenced to three years' probation, with the first year to be served in jail. He was released about two months early for good behavior. He still must serve more than two years' probation.
Dunnings had been Ingham County's prosecutor since 1997, but resigned shortly after his arrest. His law license was revoked earlier this year, but he is receiving a sizable pension from his nearly two decades with the county.
Ex-Michigan prosecutor who paid for sex released from jail
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
September 24, 2017
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A man accused of hiring prostitutes hundreds of times during his 20-year career as a Michigan prosecutor has been released from jail.
The Lansing State Journal reports Stuart Dunnings III walked out of the Clinton County Jail early Sunday after serving 10 months. The former Ingham County prosecutor pleaded guilty to misconduct in office and soliciting a prostitute.
Dunnings made no comment to reporters waiting outside.
He was sentenced to three years of probation, the first served in the neighboring county's jail. He was released early for good behavior.
Many charges were dismissed. The ex-prosecutor's arrest last year stemmed from a federal investigation into human trafficking.
Dunnings had said he was being treated for a sex addiction. He also said he "violated his oath" and "betrayed the trust" of many.
Complete coverage: Criminal charges against Stuart Dunnings III
LANSING - On March 14, 2016, longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was arrested and charged with a total of 15 prostitution-related crimes in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia counties.
A months-long investigation by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Michigan Attorney General's Office found Dunnings had paid multiple women for sex hundreds of times over several years, Attorney General Bill Schuette said.
On Aug. 2, 2016, Dunnings pleaded guilty in Ingham County to a lesser felony, misconduct in office, and to one count of engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor, in exchange for the other charges being dropped. He was sentenced on Nov. 22 to one year in jail followed by two years of probation. He reported Nov. 25 to the Clinton County Jail, where he will serve his sentence to avoid any risks or conflicts in Ingham County.
Former Lansing band teacher faces sex charges again
LANSING - A former Lansing school teacher who left the district after a jury acquitted him of sexually assaulting a student faces new charges related to the sex trafficking ring that led to former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III serving jail time.
Jeffrey Jay Howenstine, 60, of Haslett, faces one felony charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution and one misdemeanor charge of engaging the services of a prostitute, court records show.
The charges stem from the investigation into Tyrone Smith, a Lansing man who last year was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading to three counts of sex trafficking.
Smith eventually told investigators Howenstine was a previous customer, Ingham County Sheriff's Office Detective Amber Kenny-Hinojosa said at a hearing that led to charges against Howenstine.
When confronted by police, Howenstine admitted paying for sex with at least two of the women Smith had trafficked, the detective said. Both of the women are adults, but one of them was a minor in 2014 when the crimes are alleged to have occurred.
The State Journal does not typically identify victims of sex crimes.
Frank Reynolds, an attorney listed in court records as representing Howenstine, did not respond to a request for comment.
Howenstine admitted he knew the women "were victims of trafficking and were afraid of (Smith)," Kenny-Hinojosa said. "The victims told him that Smith imprisoned them, beat them, provided them with drugs, and took all of their money ... he stated that he knew the girls were trapped.”
Howenstine also told the detective he "has a sex addiction," but denied knowing that one of the victims was a minor.
"(Howenstine) admitted when he looked for prostitutes, he looked for the age of 18 to 25 years," the detective said.
Allegations in 2002
A once-popular teacher who led the Otto Middle School band to national prominence, Howenstine in 2002 was acquitted by an Ingham County jury on three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Prosecutors said he urged a 15-year-old girl to perform oral sex in 2000. Howenstine denied the charges.
Two months after the trial, Lansing School District officials paid Howenstine $120,000 to leave his job.
He then spent nine years as a school band director in Melvindale and retired in 2013, according to a report from the Southgate-based News-Herald. Howenstine told the newspaper he planned to start a new career as a driver education teacher.
Indeed, Howenstine would sometimes travel in his driver's education car to meet prostitutes for sex, one of the victims told Kenny-Hinojosa.
Jason Redoutey, who owns Mr. R's Driving School in Haslett, confirmed that Howenstine once worked as a contracted instructor for his business, but said he fired him last year when he learned of the investigation.
"As a person I am (rooting) for him," Redoutey said. "As a business we could not be associated with him."
"He came to me right away," Redoutey said. "I think it was important for (Howenstine) to get it off his chest."
Dunnings connection
Former Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III was another of Tyrone Smith's clients, officials have said. In 2014, Dunnings had sex in Smith's home with two women who were trafficked, according to court records.
An investigation by federal, state and Ingham County officials eventually determined Dunnings paid at least five women for sex over several years and used the power of the prosecutor's office to force a sixth woman, who was not a prostitute, to let him pay her for sex.
Dunnings was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes and ultimately pleaded guilty to one count each of misconduct in office, a felony, and engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor.
He was released in September after serving 10 months in Clinton County jail.
Howenstine faces up to five years in prison if convicted. Free after posting 10% of a $25,000 bond, he currently awaits trial in Ingham County Circuit Court, with a pretrial hearing set for Dec. 5.
Lansing — A former Michigan middle school band teacher acquitted in 2002 of sexual conduct involving a student has been charged in a separate case with soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The Lansing State Journal reports new charges against 60-year-old Jeffrey Howenstine are related to a sex-trafficking ring that also ensnared the area’s former prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct and solicitation.
An Ingham County sheriff’s detective says Howenstine was identified by the man who ran the sex-trafficking ring as having been a customer several years ago.
The Associated Press left a message Friday seeking comment from Howenstine’s lawyer. A hearing is set for Dec. 5.
Howenstine was acquitted in 2002 after being charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for alleged incidents involving a 14-year-old girl.
Ex-teacher charged with soliciting minor for prostitution
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
November 10, 2017
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A former Michigan middle school band teacher acquitted in 2002 of sexual conduct involving a student has been charged in a separate case with soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The Lansing State Journal reports that new charges against 60-year-old Jeffrey Howenstine are related to a sex-trafficking ring that also ensnared the area's former prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct and solicitation.
An Ingham County sheriff's detective says Howenstine was identified by the man who ran the sex-trafficking ring as having been a customer several years ago.
The Associated Press left a message Friday seeking comment from Howenstine's lawyer. A hearing is set for Dec. 5.
Howenstine was acquitted in 2002 after being charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for alleged incidents involving a 14-year-old girl.
LANSING -- Jurors on Friday returned a guilty verdict against Amber Speed, a former Lansing resident accused of trafficking girls for sex over a span of several years.
In the latest in a series of loosely-connected sex trafficking and prostitution investigations that have ensnared former Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III and a once-popular band teacher, Speed was initially charged with nine counts related to online prostitution ads involving three girls.
Only one of the victims testified at this week's trial, and another witness refused to testify, so prosecutors on Thursday dropped four of the charges.
The remaining charges included two counts each of sex trafficking a minor and prostitution/pandering, and one count of running a criminal enterprise.
Jurors late Friday found Speed guilty on the criminal enterprise charge. She was acquitted on one count each of sex trafficking and pandering, and jurors could not reach a verdict on the two remaining sex trafficking and pandering counts. A mistrial was declared in connection with those counts.
"The not-guilty verdicts were a vindication for my client," said Patrick O'Keefe, Speed's attorney. "The guilty verdict to (the criminal enterprise count) was disappointing to her, but we respect the jury's decision. They worked very hard back there. They seemed to be receptive to a lot of our arguments,"
In a news release, Attorney General Bill Schuette lauded Michigan State Police for their work on the case.
"Today's conviction shows the importance of training and the need for increased awareness of human trafficking," Schuette said in the statement. "This crime can happen anywhere, from Lansing, to Detroit, Grand Rapids and small towns across our state."
In a recorded interview with police that was played on video during the trial, Speed admitted running an escort service for several years in the Lansing area but denied the women who worked for her sold sex.
The women stripped at bachelor parties and provided massages, she said.
Speed also denied the alleged victims ever worked for her.
O'Keefe told jurors he can't pretend Speed "is or ever was a saint."
Speed ran an escort service and at times prostituted herself through online sex ads, O'Keefe acknowledged.
"But she's not on trial for that," he said. "She's on trial for pimping out (the victims)."
The State Journal is not identifying the victims, who are now adults, because of the nature of the allegations.
O'Keefe also argued that prosecutors were relying on "flimsy, incredible evidence from witnesses who are extremely troubled, with something to gain."
"This is a band of prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers and drug addicts," he said.
Speed, 41, used to live in Lansing but now resides in Munith, in northeast Jackson County.
Contempt charges
On Thursday, Judge Joyce Draganchuk held Markus Vary in contempt of court after he refused to testify in Speed's trial.
Draganchuk ordered him to spend 93 days in jail, although Vary is already in custody, awaiting his own trial related to charges filed in 2016. In that case, Vary is charged with one count each of transporting a woman for prostitution, accepting prostitution earnings and third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Vary's co-defendant, Nicole Wright, faced similar charges and ultimately pleaded guilty to transporting a woman for prostitution and prostitution.
Also on Thursday, former Lansing band teacher Jeffrey Howenstine testified that Speed blackmailed him after he paid one of the victims for sex in 2014.
“If I did not pay money she was going to inform my family,” Howenstine said. “She knew that I was married and that I didn’t want people to know.”
He estimated he paid Speed “at least $20,000” over two years.
Howenstine, 60, of Haslett, said he did not know at the time that the victim was younger than 18.
A once-popular teacher who led the Otto Middle School band to national prominence, Howenstine currently awaits trial on one felony charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution and one charge of engaging the services of a prostitute.
The victims in Howenstine's case are separate from the victims in Speed's case.
Officials have said Howenstine and Dunnings, the former Ingham County prosecutor, were both clients of Tyrone Smith, a Lansing man serving a 25-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.
Dunnings was charged with 15 prostitution-related crimes and ultimately pleaded guilty to one count each of misconduct in office, a felony, and engaging in the services of a prostitute, a misdemeanor.
He was released in September after serving 10 months in Clinton County jail.
Howenstine left the Lansing school district after he was acquitted in 2003 on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. He eventually landed another teaching job in Melvindale, and returned to the Lansing area after retiring in 2013.
Sam North, a state police trooper, testified that he identified Speed as a suspect after he determined one of the victims in a separate 2016 prostitution investigation may have been sexually exploited as a minor.
"I was concerned for the welfare of a young girl, which led to this," he said.
Prosecutors have said Speed's crimes occurred between 2009 and 2014, when the woman was as young as 14.
Speed faces a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Draganchuk set sentencing for Feb. 28.
Ex-Lansing teacher sentenced to jail in prostitution case
Lansing – A former Michigan middle school band teacher acquitted in 2002 of sexual conduct involving a student has pleaded guilty in a separate case to attempting to engage a minor for prostitution.
The Lansing State Journal reports 60-year-old Jeffrey Howenstine entered the plea Wednesday in an agreement with prosecutors to drop charges including engaging the services of a minor for prostitution. He faces up to 2½ years in prison when sentenced Feb. 21
The former Lansing teacher was charged last year related to a sex-trafficking ring that also ensnared the area’s former prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct and solicitation.
Howenstine was acquitted in 2002 after being charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for alleged incidents involving a 14-year-old girl.
Jeffrey Howenstine, 60, learned his punishment this week after pleading guilty in January in an agreement with prosecutors. Under the deal, charges including engaging the services of a minor for prostitution were dropped.
The ex-Lansing teacher was charged last year related to a sex-trafficking ring that also ensnared the area’s former prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct and solicitation.
Howenstine was acquitted in 2002, after being charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for alleged incidents involving a 14-year-old girl.
Ex-Michigan teacher sentenced to jail in prostitution case
Associated Press State Wire: Michigan
February 23, 2018
https://infoweb.newsbank.com
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — An ex-Michigan middle school band teacher acquitted in 2002 of sexual conduct involving a student has been sentenced to six months in jail in a separate case for attempting to engage a minor for prostitution.
The Lansing State Journal reports that 60-year-old Jeffrey Howenstine learned his punishment this week after pleading guilty in January in an agreement with prosecutors. Under the deal, charges including engaging the services of a minor for prostitution were dropped.
The ex-Lansing teacher was charged last year related to a sex-trafficking ring that also ensnared the area's former prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings served 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct and solicitation.
Howenstine was acquitted in 2002, after being charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for alleged incidents involving a 14-year-old girl.
OPINION
Hinkley: A big part of a journalist's value comes from the fight to uncover public records
I've had my share of fights for public records over the years, but by far one of the most interesting – and most illustrative of strengths and weaknesses in transparency laws – is the fight the LSJ watchdog team had with the Michigan attorney general and Ingham County sheriff over records related to the arrest of longtime Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III.
Dunnings had been the county's prosecutor for nearly 20 years when federal, state and local authorities nabbed him on prostitution charges in March 2016.
I and my colleague, Matt Mencarini, had several questions come to mind: Had investigators explored the possibility that others knew about, and covered for Dunnings? Had Dunnings used public resources to commit any of his crimes? Had any of his actions put the general public at risk?
Only reports from the yearlong investigation preceding Dunnings' arrest could answer those questions. The reports also would allow the public to more fully understand whether Dunnings had received fair treatment, or if his law enforcement peers had pulled punches.
Michigan's Freedom of Information Act allows police to withhold records when release might hinder an ongoing investigation. But, after Dunnings pleaded guilty on Aug. 2, 2016, we argued the investigation was over.
We submitted a FOIA request to the sheriff's office that day. On Aug. 26, we paid the nearly $1,100 to cover the county's cost of redacting the records, allowable under FOIA.
Then we waited weeks. Finally, a month before Dunnings' November sentencing hearing, the county told us they would withhold the records, at the request of Attorney General Bill Schuette's office, until after sentencing.
However, FOIA also requires public agencies to set up an appeal process. In Ingham County our protest went to a committee of the county board where, fortunately for us, those officials – who also control the prosecutor's budget – wanted answers, too.
The day of the board meeting, however, we discovered an email former Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth had sent to Schuette's office, vowing to hold onto the records unless a judge ordered their release.
Concerned about further delay, LSJ's attorney drafted a harsh letter, which I hand-delivered to the sheriff at his office in Mason.
We got the records before Halloween.
They showed clearly that several county employees were aware of Dunnings' unusual dealings with women and some public servants even were recruited by Dunnings to help the women, though it isn't clear anyone knew those women might be prostitutes.
This was very important for the public to know.
FOIA, as it stands, provides clear avenues for the public to grieve denials of records. The problem, however, is that the burden falls entirely on the public to prove they were wronged.
A big part of a journalist's value to the community is the hours spent crafting appeal letters, arguing in front of county boards and working sources to discover emails such as these. Journalists have a company budget to help cover costs, as well as access to a corporate attorney experienced in public records laws.
Mark or Mary Michigander, who work their own 9-to-5s to give a chunk of their money to the government, likely do not have the same resources.
For them, the fight we fought might ultimately have been unwinnable.
