Complaints
Lucido pointed to achievements in increasing child-support collections, forming a Hate Crimes Unit and Conviction Integrity Unit, and requesting mental health assessments for new defendants in gun crimes.
Brewer, who is a lawyer, in February filed complaints about Lucido with the county Ethics Board accusing him of improperly allowing then Sterling Heights political candidate Paul Manni to use a photograph of the candidate and Lucido in the prosecutor’s office at the county Administration Building in Mount Clemens. He also alleged a photograph of Lucido on his campaign web site was taken at the same office.
Those complaints will be subject of an April 16 Ethics Board meeting at which time it will determine whether it will investigate.
Regarding the recent complaint about Lucido’s newsletters, Brewer says the prosecutor had his communications director, Dawn Fraylick, send the newsletters from a county email to employees’ county email.
Brewer also provides a 2021 allegation from an intern employee by Lucido that she was performing campaign-related work and quit.
In an email Brewer said he obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, Wayne State University student Adrianna Biggens tells Prosecutor’s Office employee Jennifer Putney (who now works in the Sheriff’s Office) in a July 19, 2021 email that she is quitting.
“I accepted the internship opportunity to determine if I should invest in law school or pursue another career,” she wrote. “Thus far my experience has consisted of organizing and assisting in campaigning efforts. Consequently, I have made the painful decision to pursue other opportunities that will provide real-world experience, post-graduation. I will … submit my badge tomorrow morning.”
In another alleged violation, Lucido has distributed tote bags that feature the web address of his campaign at least one county-sponsored senior event. Brewer includes photos that he says he retrieved from Facebook that show the bags at Lucido’s table and him distributing them.
Brewer also revives campaign-violation complaints that were included in a 2022 report by Butzel Long law firm commissioned by County Executive Mark Hackel due to excessive workplace complaints against Lucido.
The report alleges four employees said Lucido conducted myriad of campaign activities on county time and with county resources. The report recommended complaints be filed with the state and county Ethics Board. It was unclear whether any were filed.
Lucido allegedly used county employees to review newspapers and clip newspaper “to identify potential recipients of campaignstyle notes for those individuals/entities (these were referred to as ‘Happy Notes’ and ‘Tributes’),” the report says, according to Brewer. Happy Notes and Tributes were drafted and sent at county expense to people by county employees, the report says.
Lucido had employees send certificates congratulation graduating high school seniors, used county personnel and resources to write press releases and print campaign invoices, and used county employees and resources to “work on non- Prosecutor Office business, such as work on Trustee documents and/or obtaining access for Prosecutor Lucido as Trustee to a Trust,” according to the report.
Brewer also added an argument to his Ethics Board complaint noting photos of Lucido and Manni in his office and the photo of Lucido at his desk are similar to an allegation several years ago against then-county public works commissioner Anthony Marrocco, who was fined $125 by the board. Morocco filmed a campaign TV commercial at the Chapaton pump station in St. Clair Shores, a county facility.