Ex-Detroit City Councilman Charles Pugh has agreed to drop his appeal and begin paying off an ex-Detroit high school student who successfully sued him last year in federal court. The student had accused Pugh, who was a school mentor, of sexually harassing him and asking for him to make a sex video.
A federal jury in downtown Detroit last year awarded the ex-student $250,000 following a trial. Pugh filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, claiming he shouldn't have to pay the student because the Detroit Public Schools, which was a co-defendant in Pugh's case, had agreed to a settlement of $350,000.
As part of the dismissal of the appeal, Pugh, who lives in New York, agreed on a payment plan. Details were not made public.
"Our client is happy to have this stage of the litigation behind him," said the ex-student's lawyer, Bill Seikaly, on Tuesday. "We are also pleased that Charles Pugh has actually begun to accept his financial responsibility for what occurred in this case. While we recognize that it will take many years to collect what our client is owed, we have every intent of holding Pugh responsible for the funds owed our client. He will not simply walk away from this obligation."
Seikaly said that school system has still has yet to pay the $350,000.
U.S. District Court Judge David Lawson, who presided over the trial, has ruled that if DPS fails to pay the full $350,000 by Nov. 1, the ex-student can seek the money not just from the school district, but also the individual defendants in the case: former DPS emergency managers Robert Bobb and Roy Roberts and school administrators Berry Greer and Monique McMurty.
"Similarly, the DPS still has a number of months to pay their obligation to our client," Seikaly said. "If they fail to do so on time, we will seek to collect the money from the two emergency managers against whom we have a judgment."
Pugh's attorney, Marc A. Deldin, did not immediately return a phone call from Deadline Detroit for comment.