Former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, his wife plead not guilty to financial crimes
LANSING, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield and his wife Stephanie pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a myriad of financial crimes, from improper mileage reimbursements with state money to paying off personal charges on credit cards from a social welfare organization.
Chatfield, himself, is facing 13 counts, and state lawmakers say this level of fraud is disheartening to see.
In the House on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Joe Aragona tells CBS News Detroit that he feels Chatfield needs to experience the consequences of his action.
"We as legislators, any public servant, we have the public trust, we have the power of the purse. We can't break that," Aragona said. "So there has to be zero tolerance for any corruption of any kind, whether it's Republican or Democrat, doesn't matter. He's got to face the consequences."
Aragona said he wants to see a law on the books that incentivizes news agencies to find corruption in the state Legislature.
"They get a bounty for breaking, for breaking these news stories, for finding these things that, unfortunately, our state government did not find," he said. "I think that's going to help lower the waste here in Lansing, and I think that's going to lower corruption."
On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Julie Brixie highlighted her government transparency bill that she hopes would have prevented a situation like this.
"Our bill package would force them to disclose any affiliations with dark money accounts," she said. "This is a really important first step to shine a bright light on the types of activities that Speaker Chatfield engaged in when he was speaker of the House of Representatives."
Brixie said she is hopeful her bill will pass, especially with the added help of the Democrats' slim majority in the House.
