Two ousted Michigan lawmakers embroiled last year in a scandal involving an affair and a fake prostitution email have been charged with felony misconduct in office, officials said Friday.
State Attorney General Bill Schuette announced the charges against ex-representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat. Courser also faces a perjury accusation.
A state report last year found the pair abused their office for personal and political reasons.
Schuette, in a press release, said charges “will allege that Gamrat and Courser engaged in a pattern of corrupt conduct while holding state office, including both lying to the House Business Office during its investigation and Courser lying during testimony before the House Select Committee, while under oath, about directing staff to forge his signature on proposed legislation.”
Robert Baker, who will help represent Gamrat, cited thousands of dollars spent on the investigation and two charges under a “vague catchall statute that appears on its face unconstitutional.”
“Neither charge calls into question the misuse of taxpayer resources, the alleged reason she was expelled” from the Legislature, Baker said in a statement, adding Gamrat will vigorously defend herself.
CNN left a message for Courser.
Last year, Courser apologized for his affair with Gamrat, as a 90-minute recording was played for lawmakers in which he asked his staffer to concoct a bizarre cover-up story alleging he was a drug and porn addict who paid for sex with men.
Michigan House investigators determined both lawmakers had lied about their relationship and their knowledge of the cover-up.
The House Speaker requested the investigation after a local news outlet reported Courser personally wrote an email from a pseudonym that was sent around the House. The email alleged he paid for sex with a male prostitute. The email was apparently designed to try to cover up an affair Courser was having with Gamrat.
Courser later confessed to writing the email in a lengthy, rambling audio file he posted on the Web.
Gamrat broke her silence weeks later, delivering a tearful apology to the public and denying she had any knowledge of the email plot.
That was a lie, a House report alleges. Citing testimony from some of Gamrat and Courser’s former employees as well as audio files, the report found Gamrat was aware of an attempt by Courser to convince a staffer to send the email before he did it himself.
Gamrat was expelled from the House after a vote last fall and Courser resigned before waiting for another expulsion vote in the House after his first one failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass.
Arrest warrants issued Friday provided few details in the case against the former lawmakers. Besides the perjury count, Courser faces three misconduct in office charges, while Gamrat faces two.
Courser and Gamrat have been offered the chance to turn themselves in, Schuette said.