Charles Pugh (Photo: MDOC)
Charles Pugh (Photo: Michigan Department of Corrections)
Ex-Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, who served more than five years in prison for having sex with a minor, is scheduled to be freed next Wednesday, just before Christmas.
Pugh, 50, was sentenced to 5½ to 15 years in prison in 2016, and was housed in the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia. He would have been released June 22, 2031 had he served his full 15 years, state records show.
Under his release conditions approved by the Michigan Parole Board, Pugh will be on parole for two years, register as a sex offender, have no contact with a minor without permission and wear a tether for at least six months.
The sentence stems from a 2016 plea deal in which he admitted having illegal sex with a teenage boy under the age of 16.
The victim was 27 in 2016 when he filed a complaint with the Detroit Police Department alleging he was molested multiple times in Pugh's apartment when he was 14. The man says he met Pugh at his then-workplace, Fox 2, during a trip with a theater group. Pugh was a reporter at the station.
Separately, in 2015, a 20-year-old man successfully sued Pugh in U.S. District Court in Detroit for $250,000 in a sexual grooming lawsuit. The accuser was a high school senior at the time of the allegations. He said he met Pugh at the Charles Pugh Leadership Academy program at Detroit Public Schools in 2012 when he was 17 and Pugh was council president.
Pugh was accused of taking the student shopping, inundating him with dirty text messages and pressuring him to make a videotape of himself masturbating in exchange for $160 to spend at the prom.
Pugh was a weekend anchor at WJBK in Detroit for 10 years before resigning in 2009 to run for Detroit City Council. He won election but vanished and left town in 2013 after allegations surfaced about him having sex with the student.
Attorney Bill Seikaly of Farmington Hills, who represented the ex-student in the grooming lawsuit, has concerns about Pugh's release.
"I certainly hope he received some counseling and rehabilitation services while in prison," Seikaly told Deadline Detroit on Thursday. "But I have a great fear that history will repeat itself."
