Charles Pugh
Update, 5:30 p.m. Monday: It didn't take federal jurors long to deliver a damage verdict in the tawdry lawsuit against Charles Pugh, Jennifer Chambers reports for The Detroit News:
Jurors on Monday awarded $250,000 to a former Detroit Public School student who claimed former City Council President Charles Pugh offered him money in exchange for a sex video.
In a split verdict, the jury dismissed a sexual harassment claim brought by the former student against Pugh, but found Pugh liable for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the civil case.
The young man, now 20, met Pugh in the Charles Pugh Leadership Academy program in 2012 when he was 17 and Pugh was council president.
William Seiklay, who represents the former Detroit Public Schools student known as K.S. in court filings, had asked for $1.5 million in damages.
The ex-councilman wasn't criminally charged.
During the five-day trial, attorneys argued about whether the teen was a consenting adult or victim when Pugh asked him to make a sex video for $160.
Original article, Monday afternoon:
Ex-Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh took advantage of his power, and his only regret is that he was exposed in a scandal involving messages he sent soliciting sex and a sexual video from a student he mentored at the Frederick Douglass Academy, an attorney said in closing arguments in Pugh's civil trial on Monday morning.
"He regrets getting caught," but he's not remorseful, said Bill Seikaly, the attorney for the ex-student who is suing Pugh, claiming Pugh sexually harassed him and took advantage of his position as a mentor.
Seiklay then asked the jury to award his client, who is referred to in court documents by his initials, K.S., $1.5 million, but no less than $750,000. He said anything less would likely send Pugh out to a restaurant in Manhattan, where he lives, to celebrate.
Jurors began deliberating after the closings.
Pugh's attorney, Marc Deldin, saw it much differently in closing arguments, saying "this is a case about regret."
Deldin told jurors both Pugh and the ex-student regretted the behavior including text exchanges. He said the student regretted agreeing to making a video of himself masturbating for $160, which he used to go to the prom.
He said the student, who was 18 at the time, was a man.
He had "the ability to say no," Deldin said, adding that Pugh didn't have power over the student by being a city council member. He said Pugh only had money, something the student wanted.
"He wasn't powerless," Deldin said of the student, who sat in trial with his mother in the audience. Pugh chose not to attend his civil trial, which is permissible.
Deldin said the student was a far more the likeable person in this case than Pugh, but that really much matter. It was really about two adults doing things they regretted.
"He wanted the money, he made the video and he regrets it," Deldin said of the student.
He asked the jury to decide in favor of Pugh. The Detroit Public Schools, which had been a co-defendant in the case, settled out of court for $350,000 on the second day of trial.
Seikaly portrayed Pugh as a predator who wasn't capable of consistently telling the truth.
He said Pugh was in a powerful position as a mentor and president of the city council. On top of that, Seikaly said, the school principal told students that they should listen to what Pugh has to say.
Seikaly says that Pugh took advantage of an impressionable student who needed money for things including going to the prom.
Seikaly noted that a former staffer for the councilman testified in court that Pugh would say that regardless if people were straight or gay, he could get them into bed if they were desperate enough for money.
Seducing the student, telling him he should be willing to sell his body for sex, was part of Pugh's "scheme," part of his "modus operandi," the attorney added.
Seikaly also said it was absurd to place any responsibility on the student: "Really? We're blaming the victim."
