![]() Her actions this week led to charges for the first time against Snyder. But in June 2019, Nessel, the newly elected Democrat, upended that effort when her office dismissing all pending criminal charges, saying the initial Flint investigation had been bungled and opting instead to launch a new and expanded probe. Years ago, the office of the state's previous attorney general, Bill Schuette, pursued criminal charges against a number of the same defendants charged this week. Nobody, no matter how powerful or well-connected is above accountability when they commit a crime," she said. "Let me be clear, there are no velvet ropes in our criminal justice system. That is what all citizens in this state are entitled to regardless of their ZIP code," Hammoud said at a news conference Thursday. “When an entire city is victimized by the negligence and indifference of those in power, it deserves an uncompromising investigation that holds to account anyone who is criminally culpable. The totality of the Flint water catastrophe may never be known, but the failures of public officials who "evaded accountability for far too long" continue to reverberate throughout the community, Hammoud said. The indictments followed a year's worth of grand jury proceedings. The evidence was reviewed by Genesee County Circuit Court Judge David Newblatt, who was appointed as a one-man grand juror to investigate crimes related to the crisis. “I trust today’s announcement reflects their professional responsibilities and ethical obligations as the prosecuting authorities in this matter, and that their decisions are based solely on the facts, the law and the evidence.” “Solicitor General Hammoud and Prosecutor Worthy’s track records demonstrate their commitment to public service as experienced prosecutors, which is why I appointed them to lead the criminal investigation in the Flint water crisis,” Nessel said in a statement Thursday around noontime. Nessel had said earlier that she had walled herself off from the criminal cases, turning her focus instead to ongoing civil cases related to the contamination of Flint's drinking water beginning more than six years ago. On Thursday, Nessel praised the high-wire prosecutions into the contamination of Flint's drinking water supply led by her Office's Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, as well as Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. And it is Snyder, they say, who has given ambiguous and sometimes conflicting accounts about what he knew and when he knew it. Further, it was he who pushed for Michigan's emergency manager law and appointed the Flint overseers who managed the switch of the city's water supply to the Flint River. Supporters of the former Republican governor and his aides decried the prosecution as a reckless overreach fueled by partisanship.īut Snyder's critics say it was he who should have acted sooner when he knew or should have known there was something terribly wrong with the water Flint residents were drinking.
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