New charges in Flint investigation
Michigan’s attorney general announced new criminal charges against four defendants Tuesday — including two former emergency managers appointed by the state — in his ongoing criminal investigation of the Flint drinking water crisis and lead poisoning of city residents.
Attorney General Bill Schuette brought felonies that could result in 20 years in prison against defendants he alleged conspired to operate the Flint Water Treatment Plant when it wasn’t safe to do so and used a phony environmental order to allow the city to borrow money to proceed with the Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline while tying Flint to the Flint River for its drinking water in the interim.
Officials pushed ahead in April 2014 with taking the city’s drinking water from the Flint River despite knowing that the Flint Water Treatment Plant was not ready to deliver safe drinking water, Schuette and his investigators alleged at a news conference.
“So many people knew that that plant was not ready — and yet it was done,” said Andrew Arena, former special agent in charge of the FBI in Detroit, and now Schuette’s lead investigator. “That’s the thing that shocked me.”
In 67th District Court, a judge authorized charges against former Flint emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose and city officials Howard Croft, who was public works superintendent, and Daugherty Johnson, the utilities administrator.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said she sees the charges as a broader indictment of the state’s emergency-manager system for financially distressed cities, in which an appointed official from outside takes powers stripped from the elected mayor and council.
“It’s taken the voice of the people and taken our democracy,” Weaver told reporters after the charges were announced.
Jeff Seipenko, a special agent with the Attorney General’s Office, told Judge William Crawford II that his office’s investigation showed that the former emergency managers conspired with Croft and Johnson to enter a contract based on false pretenses that bound the city of Flint to use the Flint River as its drinking water source, “knowing that the Flint Water Treatment Plant was unable to produce safe water.”
After being advised to switch back to water that the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department treated, Earley and Ambrose failed to reconnect to the city’s former water supply, Seipenko said. The result: Flint residents had prolonged exposure to lead and Legionella bacteria.
All four defendants face felony charges of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses. In addition, Earley and Ambrose also were charged with willful neglect of duty and misconduct in office.