DETROIT – Former Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh has come out swinging in a recent court filing, and he's taken aim at the mother of his accuser, Tamu Gaines. Through his attorney, Pugh had little to say about the young man he use to mentor, Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men graduate Khody Sanford, but plenty to say about his mom.
"This case exists solely in the minds of plaintiff's mother and her attorneys," Pugh's lawyer, Marc Deldin, said in the papers he filed. "Charles Pugh denies the factual allegations and the outrageous allegations that he committed criminal acts or violated Plaintiff's civil rights."
Plainly said, Pugh alleges that there is no real case against him.
"Plaintiff must, but cannot, prove any set of facts that show Mr. Pugh violated his personal security or infringed on his civil rights," the filing reads.
Pugh asked that the civil suit against him be dismissed, but U.S. District Court Judge David Lawson declined to do so. Instead, he set a trial date for Oct. 13, 2015.
The filing marked the first time that Pugh had an attorney speaking for him. Citing financial hardship, Pugh was representing himself until recently.
Much has been made about the text messages exchanged between Pugh and Sanford. They were explicit and show that Pugh did have a fascination with his former mentee.
"Truth is, I had a crush on you all year," Pugh texted Sanford on June 3, 2013, just days after Sanford, then 18, finished his senior year of high school. "I just couldn't say or do anything about it until now. I think you kind (of) knew tho (sic). LOL."
"Yes, I did," Sanford answered.
"YOU DID!!!!!!!"
"OMG how?!!!!"
"Did anybody else notice?"
"Yeah," Sanford told Pugh. "EVERYBODY knew."
Text messages reveal that Pugh paid Sanford to make a video of himself masturbating and made promises of more cash and video games if Sanford let Pugh perform oral sex on him. General consensus is that Pugh's actions were in poor taste and not befitting his status as Sanford's mentor – not to mention as president of the Detroit City Council. But the real question is whether anything Pugh did rose to the level of criminal.
Community activist and Pugh friend John Trimble thinks not.
"I think a lot of this controversy was fueled by the mother more so than the young man," Trimble told Between The Lines for a February feature on Pugh. "Was it inappropriate? Absolutely. Was the young man old enough to make his own decision to contribute to this situation? Absolutely."
