High stakes embezzlement case against former GOP Michigan House speaker goes to trial next week

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Evil March

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: State Library of Queensland, Australia · No restrictions · via Wikimedia Commons

The trial of former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield opens Tuesday on 13 felony charges including embezzlement and running a criminal enterprise, tied to allegations he funneled nonprofit and campaign funds into a lavish personal lifestyle. Attorney General Dana Nessel's office alleges the money covered luxury shopping, credit card bills, apartment rent, dry cleaning, haircuts and strip club expenses, all charged to his 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.

A forensic accountant testified that 99% of over $150,000 in Chatfield's personal credit card spending from January 2020 to April 2021 was reimbursed by that nonprofit. His wife Stephanie and two former aides already pleaded guilty and are expected to testify against him.

Chatfield denies all charges, and his attorney says the prosecution is politically motivated. The sexual assault allegations that originally triggered the financial investigation never resulted in charges.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

When 99 cents of every dollar on your credit card gets paid back by a ‘social welfare’ fund, the welfare being served is your own. A speaker's gavel apparently came with a very generous expense account, and nobody at the nonprofit thought to ask what a strip club receipt was doing in the books. The trial will sort out guilt, but the bookkeeping already tells its own story.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Evil March · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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