BTL Staff Editorial
Former Detroit City Council President - and before that, Fox 2 news personality - Charles Pugh is back in the news again. The Free Press, and other news sources, have obtained the Madison Heights Police report that details explicit text messages Pugh sent to the 18-year-old former high school student who has since accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct while he was a member of the Charles Pugh Leadership Forum at Frederick Douglass Academy.
The text messages are not graphic, but they are direct. Pugh was willing to trade gifts and cash in exchange for having nude videos of the man sent to his phone. I call him a man because that's what he was. He was still a student, yes. But in the eyes of the law, he was a man. He was not a boy. He was somebody who saw a way to make a quick buck and, it's important to note, he took Pugh up on his offer.
The nameless man also alleged that Pugh at one point put his hand on his knee.
"We're talking about somebody who made a pass that was rebuffed, and he never went forward on it," Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, while admitting she found no evidence Pugh committed a crime, told the Free Press. "That's assuming that you believe that statement to begin with."
Cooper, apparently, wasn't convinced.
"When we talk about credibility, there appears to be some type of motive in the reporting of this incident," Cooper again said to the Free Press. "(The family) went immediately to a civil attorney. The civil attorney went immediately to the press, and nobody went to the police until well, well after this occurred. And then when they went to the police, the young man wouldn't come forward for another three months."
So let's discount for a moment the allegation of leg touching. Where does that leave us? With a defrocked role model guilty, obviously, of some very poor - very, very poor - judgment. Pugh's actions here are indefensible. He let us down. We expected better and we deserved better. "We" meaning the city of Detroit and, perhaps more so, the LGBT community of southeastern Michigan.
Though it appears Pugh did nothing illegal, he did something undeniably unethical. We supported him in his campaign, we were proud to have him represent our community. Now he has disgraced not only himself, but also our community as a whole. He was the first openly-gay elected official in the city of Detroit and instead of rising to the occasion, he sunk to a new low.
What compounds our disappointment is the fact that he did his dirty deed and ran. Many have done worse than what Pugh has been accused of and yet they've managed to take responsibility, repent and regroup. Pugh, nothing if not elegantly verbose, offered no explanation and, instead, left us with lingering questions. He owes this community an apology.
This act has undoubtedly cost Pugh his political career; perhaps even his journalistic one as well. But Pugh, at 42, still has time to redeem himself. We do not dispute that, this incident aside, Pugh did much good for the city of Detroit and the LGBT community at large. This incident can't erase that and it shouldn't. Pugh made his city proud before and someday, we hope, he will again.
