Special Prosecutions: The Long And Winding Road Of The Flint Water Crisis

If Todd Flood, special prosecutor for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's criminal probe of the Flint Water Crisis, is calling Adam Rosenthal as being "very low in the totem pole", then who would be the head of the totem pole?

If you have not noticed, the Flint Water Crisis special prosecution is a mirrored investigation of state government using a special prosecutor, similar to the federal investigation of the public corruption in the DOJ and FBI.

Perhaps, the Michigan Office of the Attorney General has similar issues to what is being investigated in the DOJ and FBI, but hey, what do I know.

I am just a public nuisance, according to Bill Schutte, Michigan Attorney General and 2018 Gubernatorial Candidate.

Special investigations are "special" because you never know where the findings will take you along the long and winding road of public corruption.

9 times out of 10 the findings will take you somewhere you never expected.

Stay tuned because it is all symbiotic. 

DEQ water analyst agrees to plea in Flint water case

Flint — A water quality analyst for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality agreed to a plea deal Wednesday with prosecutors in Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s criminal probe over the city’s water crisis.

Adam Rosenthal — whom special prosecuting attorney Todd Flood described as being “very low in the totem pole” of DEQ involvement in the lead-tainted water crisis — pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor related to failing to offer “reasonable facilities” to inspect records.

It’s a charge punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or one year in jail, and Rosenthal is expected to continue cooperating with Flood’s far-reaching prosecution of state and local officials as part of the plea deal.

Flood told Flint’s 67th District Court Judge Jennifer Manley that Rosenthal “has been honest and candid with us to date” and that he expects him to “continue to be honest and candid with us … and will testify in court if necessary and required by the prosecution.”

After the hearing, Flood and Rosenthal’s attorney, James Burdick, declined to elaborate on the extent of his expected cooperation or the content of his testimony if he is called to testify.

Burdick had high praise for Flood, although he said most of the accusations against Rosenthal signify that his client never should have been charged in the first place.

“Yes, I feel like he should never have been charged,” said Burdick, but still called Flood “a person of honor, of integrity and sincerity” who realized during the course of the investigation that Rosenthal’s involvement in the crisis was minimal.

Burdick said Rosenthal’s only error was “failing to make facilities available for all of the investigators who descended one day.”

Burdick said it took “probably a day or two” longer than prosecutors wanted to obtain certain documents during the Flint water crisis criminal probe. All original charges were dropped against Rosenthal, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor that Flood had not charged Rosenthal with prior to the plea.

Before the plea, Rosenthal faced misconduct in office, neglect of duty and tampering with evidence charges, which could have resulted in possible time in prison and a fine if convicted. He pleaded no contest to failing to provide reasonable facilities for the inspection and examination of records and the remaining charges were dropped.

He is the fourth defendant to cut a plea deal with Flood, the second state official to reach an agreement and the first DEQ official to make a plea deal.

Rosenthal was warned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that high levels of lead are usually due to particulate lead, an indication of a corrosion problem. A task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder said in a March 2016 report that the failure to use corrosion control chemicals in the river water resulted in lead leaching from the city’s old pipelines.

In 2015, Rosenthal allegedly helped manipulate lead testing results and falsely reported they were below the federal action level of 15 parts per billion. Those charges were dropped.

The state acknowledged high lead levels in the city’s children in late September 2015 and switched back in mid-October 2015 to the Detroit area water system, now called the Great Lakes Water Authority.

Lead testing this year has found that Flint’s results have consistently been below the federal action level of 15 parts per billion. But the state has maintained advisories against drinking Flint’s water until all of the city’s lead lines have been replaced.

■Former Flint utilities administrator Michael Glasgow pleaded guilty in May to a reduced charge of willful neglect of duty, a one-year misdemeanor. Sentencing for Glasgow was set aside as long as he cooperates with the ongoing investigation by Schuette.

■Corinne Miller, who retired as director of the state’s bureau of epidemiology earlier this year, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of neglect of duty in office in exchange for providing information to investigators.

Miller originally was charged with failing to respond properly to an early report that city children were affected by lead contamination in Flint and instructing state health employees to delete emails pertaining to the report. She was sentenced to one year of probation in March.

■In late November, former Flint utilities director Daugherty Johnson pleaded no contest to failing to give water documents to a Genesee County Health Department employee investigating a possible connection between Flint water and Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks that eventually killed 12 and sickened 79 others in the Flint area in 2014-15. The deal resulted in two felonies being conditionally dropped in exchange for his cooperation.

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Flint crisis charges raises scrutiny of EM law

Flint — Two former emergency financial managers — empowered by state law and appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to run Flint — now face criminal charges for actions taken during their tenures that prosecutors say contributed to the city’s water crisis.

A yearlong Michigan Attorney General’s Office investigation into Flint’s water contamination issues has targeted the highest-ranking officials thus far. On Tuesday, investigators announced charges against former emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, as well as a pair of former city officials.

That brings the number of government officials charged in the crisis to 13. The probe also focused the harshest spotlight to date on Michigan’s emergency manager law and Snyder’s use of it.

Flint — Two former emergency financial managers — empowered by state law and appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to run Flint — now face criminal charges for actions taken during their tenures that prosecutors say contributed to the city’s water crisis.

A yearlong Michigan Attorney General’s Office investigation into Flint’s water contamination issues has targeted the highest-ranking officials thus far. On Tuesday, investigators announced charges against former emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, as well as a pair of former city officials.

That brings the number of government officials charged in the crisis to 13. The probe also focused the harshest spotlight to date on Michigan’s emergency manager law and Snyder’s use of it.

“This fixation has cost lives,” he said. “This fixation came at the expense of protecting the health and safety of Flint. ... It’s all about numbers over people.”

As result, Earley and Ambrose face 20-year felony charges of false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses, as well as misconduct in office, a five-year felony. In addition, they face one-year misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty while in office.

Former Flint Public Works Director Howard Croft and his subordinate, Daugherty Johnson, also face the false pretenses charges.

Ambrose, Croft and Johnson were each arraigned on Tuesday, with all having not-guilty pleas entered on their behalf. Ambrose declined to comment while leaving the courthouse in downtown Flint.

Croft, who appeared initially without counsel, was briefly represented by attorney Frank Manley.

“He certainly believes that he is innocent of these charges and he expects to have his day in court,” Manley said.

‘Told it wasn’t ready’

In an early morning hearing in 67th District Court, Judge William H. Crawford II approved the charges after hearing from investigators, who spoke of a concerted effort to move the city from its traditional water source — the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s Lake Huron system to the Flint River. And they did so, according to investigators, knowing the city’s treatment plant was not up to the task.

Regarding Earley, who served as Flint’s emergency manager from 2013-15, Special Agent Jeff Seipenko said: “He knew the plant was not prepared to produce water and, nevertheless, allowed it to be provided to the public.”

Later, despite rising public concerns over health issues, both Earley and Ambrose, who served as emergency manager in 2015, failed to return Flint to its previous water source.

Regarding Croft and Johnson, Seipenko said the pair “put pressure on individuals at the (Flint) water treatment plant to get the plant to work, despite having been told it wasn’t ready.”

Later, both refused to reconnect to Detroit’s water system.

Many of Tuesday’s charges are linked to an administrative consent order issued by Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality that cleared the way for Flint to switch its water source to the Flint River in April 2014.

The river was meant to save Flint money until it could link up with the newly formed Karegnondi Water Authority and its pipeline system that draws from Lake Huron. But a failure to properly treat river water at the city’s plant resulted in lead contamination and, possibly, a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2014 and 2015.

In 2013, Flint leadership sought the order to help ease the city’s “ability to access bond funding” for the new Lake Huron water pipeline project.

Flint stated it needed to clean up its water treatment plant’s lime sludge dumping ground to get financing for the $285 million project, public records show. The city needed to show its plant was capable of properly treating water.

“Flint was under receivership and could not issue bonds or borrow money unless there was a fire, flood or calamity,” Schuette said during a news conference. “Earley and Ambrose engaged in a plan to execute an administrative consent order, which permitted the borrowing of tens of millions of dollars. ... This was supposed to clean up an environmental catastrophe — a lime sludge lagoon. Money did not go to cleanup. Instead, the tens of millions they borrowed were (put) toward building the KWA.”

Special Prosecutor Todd Flood put it more bluntly: “The sludge lagoon was not an emergency.”

Following Schuette’s news conference, Mayor Karen Weaver echoed the attorney general’s take on the impact of the emergency manager system on Flint.

“We have always thought that was the problem — that profit was put over the health and wellbeing of these people,” she said. “And this really gives voice to that ...

“That’s what was missing when we had the emergency manager in place. Our voice was taken.”

9 workers due in court

Meanwhile, cases against nine government workers — already criminally charged in the Flint water crisis — are scheduled for a court hearing on Wednesday in Flint.

Several current and former state employees face criminal charges for their alleged roles in the city’s water crisis. All face charges centering on an alleged failure to perform their roles in protecting public health.

Stephen Busch, Patrick Cook, Michael Glasgow, Corrine Miller, Nancy Peeler, Michael Prysby, Adam Rosenthal, Robert Scott and Liane Shekter-Smith are all scheduled for a hearing at 2 p.m. Wednesday before Judge Jennifer Manley with the 67th District Court.

The hearing is about the distribution of documents, specifically Michigan State Police documents, in preparation for a preliminary examination in the cases scheduled for March and April. The defendants are not required to attend, court officials said.

Glasgow struck a plea deal with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office in May. Manley took the plea under advisement while Glasgow continues to cooperate with the state’s criminal investigation into the water crisis.

Busch and Prysby are Department of Environmental Quality water regulators charged with misconduct and other crimes.

Rosenthal, a DEQ analyst, and Cook, a water regulator, face charges including misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty.

Schuette has accused Department of Health and Human Services workers Peeler and Scott of “burying” a report about elevated lead levels in the blood of Flint children in July 2015 — about two months before the department acknowledged there was a problem.

Fired DEQ municipal water chief Shekter-Smith faces charges stemming from Schuette’s probe.

Retired DHHS director of epidemiology Miller took a plea deal in September. She had been charged with failing to respond properly to an early report that city children were dealing with lead contamination. In addition, she was accused of instructing state health employees to delete emails pertaining to the report.

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