Judge may take months to rule if Lee Chatfield faces trial for corruption

• Prosecutors say Lee Chatfield and his wife misused tens of thousands of dollars in nonprofit, campaign and taxpayer funds 
• Attorneys argued Friday over how much control the Chatfields had over the funds and whether they knew how they could be used
• A district court judge said she may take months to decide if the case will proceed to trial

EAST LANSING — A judge may take some time to decide whether former state House Speaker Lee Chatfield and his wife stand trial on more than a dozen charges related to claims he used campaign, nonprofit and taxpayer funds to pay for a luxury lifestyle.

Attorneys tussled in closing arguments Friday over how much control the Chatfields had over the accounts, particularly a nonprofit called Peninsula Fund and leadership political action committees managed by two of Chatfield’s top aides, Anné and Rob Minard, who are also awaiting trial on similar charges.

Ingham County District Court Judge Molly Hennessey Greenwalt said after several hours of arguments she might need months to decide whether the multi-year case against the Chatfields could move forward.

Assistant Attorney General Kahla Crino said Chatfield “was perhaps the most important agent of the Peninsula Fund,” though he never appeared on any documents for the social welfare nonprofit. It raised close to $2 million during Chatfield’s tenure in the Legislature.

Chatfield’s attorney, Mary Chartier, emphasized that Chatfield raised millions of dollars while serving in the Legislature, but he and his wife, Stephanie Chatfield, allegedly misappropriated slightly less than $30,000.

“The government wants to paint these charges as some big scheme,” but have just “picked certain little aspects of a person’s life," Chartier said.

“None of these charges have merit to be bound over” for trial, she added.

Related:

• Lee Chatfield corruption case: Family, friends took free trips, cashed checks
• Lee Chatfield corruption case: ‘Questionable’ spending, a strip club bill
• Chatfield staffers to stand trial on embezzlement charges, Michigan judge rules

Attorneys representing the Chatfields have argued that the couple had limited knowledge of the funds, shifting responsibility for oversight of the spending to Dykema — a law firm hired by the Peninsula Fund — and the Minards, who ran the account through a consulting firm.

The compliance specialist at Dykema assigned to Peninsula Fund, Renae Moore, didn’t have a duty to “predict, prevent or stop someone else’s criminal actions,” Crino said.

Chartier argued the opposite. “It was their job to flag it, it was their job to research it, it was their job to disallow” problematic transactions, she said.

Crino said it was “highly improbable” Anné Minard would have written multiple checks to Lee Chatifeld’s brother and friends “right before the four of them were going on a trip together without some sort of direction or suggestion from Chatfield.” 

The associates testified they received checks for up to $5,000 from Chatfield’s political accounts, ostensibly for wages or reimbursements, only to later give some of the money directly to Lee Chatfield at his request.

Chartier countered that Aaron and Paul Chatfield “worked tirelessly” to support their brother’s campaigns and once the money was passed to them and friend Wil Lovitt “it’s theirs to do with as they choose.”

“They also testified that they could have said no” to passing money back to Lee Chatfield for personal spending, she said.

The attorney for Stephenie Chatfield, Matthew Newburg, characterized his client’s link to the overall case as tenuous at best. The facts heard about Stephanie Chatfield were “basically nothing,” he said.

He asserted she did nothing knowingly wrong and had little knowledge of any restrictions around how the nonprofit’s money could be spent.

“I know if my credit card was maxed out and I have access to such a significant amount of money to pay I probably would,” Newburg said.

The prosecution showed a series of text messages between Lee and Stephanie Chatfield inquiring about the credit limit of a card that was regularly paid off using money from the Peninsula Fund. At one point, Stephanie Chatfield questioned why there had been nearly $500 in charges to TouchTunes, a digital jukebox in bars and restaurants.

Crino said she was “not going to embarrass the donors” to the Peninsula Fund by publicly naming them and said lots of “reputable organizations and individuals” contributed to the account. 

As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the Peninsula Fund does not have to disclose its donors and can receive contributions from any source. That makes such organizations particularly attractive for politicians looking to fundraise aggressively.