House, Senate Democrats Spend Thousands Backing Brian Banks, Eight-Time Convicted Felon Facing 3 More Felony Charges, Potential Life in Prison
LANSING, MI, July 29, 2016 –The Michigan Freedom Fund today demanded that House and Senate Democrats come clean with their constituents about their decision to write thousands of dollars in checks to support the election efforts of Brian Banks, an eight-time convicted felon who was charged on June 28 with 3 additional felonies and a misdemeanor for bank fraud. If convicted, Banks—a “habitual offender” – faces up to life in prison.
Lansing area state Senator Curtis Hertel, Jr., state Representative Andy Schor, and state Representative Sam Singh have donated $3,000 to Banks’s election efforts, while state Rep. Frank Liberati of Dearborn Heights has pitched in an additional $250. All of the donations were given after Banks was charged in June.
“Voters in Lansing have every right to wonder why their state lawmakers are spending campaign cash backing the election of an eight-time convicted felon who is currently facing the prospect of life in prison for bank fraud,” said Terri Reid, President of the Michigan Freedom Fund. “Brian Banks has lied, cheated, stolen, and defrauded Michiganders for years.
“Brian Banks is everything that’s wrong with politics – and Curtis Hertel, Sam Singh, and Andy Schor owe voters an explanation why they’re fighting so hard to allow an eight-time felon staring down the possibility of life in prison access to the taxpayers’ purse strings.”
The charges against the Detroit lawmaker stem from an alleged scheme to swindle $7,500 from a local bank using counterfeit pay stubs for a job Banks did not work and that didn’t exist. Banks is currently charged with two felony counts of uttering and publishing, one felony count of using a false pretense to defraud or cheat, and one misdemeanor count of making false statements of financial condition.
Banks earlier this year settled a lawsuit filed by a former House staffer who accused the lawmaker of sexual harassment and of firing him when he refused Banks’s sexual advances. When added to the expense of the settlement, defending himself during the lawsuit on taxpayers’ dime cost the people of the state of Michigan more than $97,572.
