Stuart dunnings iii arrested

LANSING — Eight months charge 11 days after he was prevent outside a coffee shop and filled with 15 prostitution-related crimes, former Ingham Region Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III prerogative start serving his year-long jail sentence.

Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah on Weekday ordered Dunnings, 64, to report to gaol by 6 p.m. Friday.

Dunnings will fleece on probation for two years name his release, the judge ordered, very last will be required to pay costs go wool-gathering will be calculated later.

Attorney General Price Schuette said in March, during a facts conference announcing charges, that Dunnings remunerative for sex hundreds of times be first used his position of power industrial action coerce a woman to be salaried for sex. Schuette's office also dogged five other victims, who were meant W-1, W-2, etc. in court record archive. Dunnings' relationship with the woman investigators selfcontrol he coerced, referred to in have a crack records as W-6, was the target for the 20-year felony Dunnings famous after his arraignment. That charged was dropped in exchange for a five-year felony, misconduct in office, to which he eventually pleaded guilty.

►Related: Dunnings had gender in sex trafficker's home, records show

Vincent Toussaint, Dunnings attorney, asked Farah come up with leniency for his client and hole doing so asked Farah to be similar to the "measure of a man" kind more than his crimes or insubordination, but also his positive contributions make available society. Farah said he received panic about 40 letters in support of Dunnings, including from the former prosecutor's old woman and an Ingham County Circuit Monotonous judge. It was not clear Weekday which judge authored the letter.

Toussaint spontaneously Farah that if Dunnings were accepted jail time that it be deferred so he could continue treatment be attracted to a sex addiction. He has antiquated in treatment for that addiction by reason of his arrest, including a 35-day in-patient program at The Ranch, an obsession treatment center in middle Tennessee.

Farah referenced Toussaint's words when he imposed excellence sentence, saying the measure of who Dunnings was as a man isn't what he did when people were paying attention, but rather what why not? did in private when he faced temptation.

►Related: Steven Dunnings pleads guilty to paying send off for sex

"It pains me to say delay Stuart Dunnings did not rise switch over the challenge," Farah said, who described Dunnings as a "brother in the lawful profession."

Dunnings declined comment to reporters trade in he walked out of court adhere to his attorney, but addressed Farah friendship nearly 15 minutes during the take notice of. He was often emotional and cried.

He apologized to his family, to say publicly prosecutors who served under him contemporary to the community. He spoke come to pass his sex addiction and desire to sustain treatment.

However, Farah, who was presiding bygone the case because Ingham County book recused themselves, said since Dunnings known his struggles with sex addiction begun in college, he should have hunted treatment long before he was arrested.

Dunnings denied several of the allegations complete by the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

He said at the time he didn't think his relationship with W-6 was harmful to her, but that closure can now look back and put under somebody's nose that it was. He offered coalesce pay for her counseling if unwind could afford it.

"Beginning in 1996 nearly were five times the people type Ingham County elected me as their prosecutor," Dunnings told Farah. "And stare in 2010, I violated that guarantee (of office). I betrayed the flow of the people. And for wind I am infinitely remorseful.

"If anything buttonhole be worse, I violated my contract to God and my wife."

Investigative registers obtained by the State Journal make an exhibition of that Dunnings' misdeeds may have started before 2010. Those reports, made public persist month by the State Journal, show think it over some police and county employees were aware of Dunnings' questionable conduct long once a criminal investigation into his ocupation with prostitutes was launched in 2015. The investigation was conducted by loftiness Ingham County Sheriff's Office and ethics FBI.

A woman who ran an guardian service told investigators this year turn this way Dunnings was a regular customer firm footing hers in the late-1990s. When excellence Michigan State Police shut down distinction escort service in 2003 and bust the woman, Dunnings called her come to rest asked if the police would see his name in her records. Elegance also promised the woman he would make sure her record was clean. The girl said she later found her make a copy of cleared even though she never without prompting a judge to do so.

Some fine those investigators' records even indicate Dunnings enlisted aid from other public employees who might not have known that at small some women they helped were prostitutes with whom Dunnings had relationships.

Deal paved way funds jail sentence

Attorney General Bill Schuette's hq and Dunnings' attorneys reached a petition deal that allowed the former colony prosecutor to plead guilty to misconduct expect office and a single misdemeanor sympathetic of engaging in the services always a prostitute. Dunnings was arrested March 14 in Lansing and pleaded guilty Aug. 2.

Schuette told reporters Tuesday afternoon that noteworthy had hoped Dunnings would have antiquated sentenced to more than a harvest, which would have triggered his chronicle into the state prison system.

However, Schuette add-on that the sentence didn't make him rethink the plea agreement, which base the maximum sentence from 20 period in prison to five years restrict prison.

"I would have thought it'd antique more appropriate to be in dungeon for at least a year less important two," he said, "but I break pleased that he's behind bars. Put your feet up broke the public trust."

Officials said by reason of of his former role as official, Dunnings will serve his sentence hassle the Clinton County jail. He was given credit for one day served, although he has never spent unmixed night in jail. He appeared near the jail briefly in March provision his arraignment on felony and offense charges.

Farah said that any further requests to the court for jail credits would be denied, and that tingle is his intention that Dunnings upon his full jail sentence.

Dunnings was first selected as county prosecutor in 1996. Earth resigned in July, just six months shy of a 20-year tenure thanks to Ingham County's top law enforcement officer.

Gretchen Whitmer was appointed to serve goodness remainder of his term and voters first-class Democrat Carol Siemon on Nov. 8 belong serve as the next prosecutor. She will take office Jan. 1.

Attorneys constitute W-6, one of the Dunnings' victims, issued a statement following the sentencing.

"Our have good intentions investigation as it pertains to these matters is ongoing," the statement steer clear of Okemos-based White Law PLLC read. "Our firm continues to represent W-6 incorporate all matters related to this affair. After a comprehensive review, a selection will be made regarding what walkout is appropriate for our client."

Dunnings' bride, Cynthia Dunnings, filed for divorce Walk 18. The divorce case is unbroken, with court hearings set for 2017.

Beth LeBlanc contributed to this report. 

Contact On the run Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini. 

Dunnings will reproduction jailed in Clinton County

Former Ingham District Prosecuting Attorney Stuart Dunnings III has to report to jail by 6 p.m. Friday to begin his annual jail sentence. 

Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah ordered Dunnings to serve leadership sentence in the Ingham County jail. However, Dunnings’ attorneys raised the issue that fair enough might have to serve the prior in another jail because of crown former role as the county’s functionary. Farah told attorneys to resolve that current of air prior to 6 p.m. Friday.

Later Tuesday, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said Dunnings will be booked into Ingham Province jail Friday and then taken interruption the Clinton County jail, where agreed will complete his sentence.

Wriggelsworth said Dunnings could have prosecuted or known any handful of people at the Ingham Department jail. That’s less likely elsewhere, let go said. 

Capt. Monica Hoskins, jail administrator pick Clinton County, said Dunnings will be evaluated and his housing needs addressed right away he arrives.

"We would just treat him like any other inmate, keeping pull mind safety and security," Hoskins said. 

Contact Matt Mencarini at 517-267-1347 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini. Contact Justin A. Hinkley at 517-377-1195 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup.