SCANDAL

Former Detroit City Councilman Andre Spivey has been sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to a bribery charge in connection with the federal probe into a Detroit corruption scandal.

After a chaotic year of scandal for the Detroit City Council, the 2021 General Election could be just as messy.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency visited Flint Wednesday as the city continues to deal with the fallout from the water crisis.

Former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is due in court in Genesee County for a pretrial hearing on Tuesday morning.

The class-action lawsuit seeks a series of reforms, including the appointment of an independent monitor to enforce the steps.

Dennis Williams, former president of the International United Auto Workers union, was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison on Tuesday.

But he said that current UAW President Rory Gamble is not a target of the investigation. The probe has led to 11 convictions of union members, including two former presidents. Currently the union’s members vote on delegates to a convention, who then vote on a president. Former UAW President Dennis Williams in September pleaded guilty in the government’s investigation, and his successor as president, Gary Jones, pleaded guilty in June. Eleven union officials and a late official’s spouse have pleaded guilty since 2017, although not all the crimes were connected.

Ashton and his UAW co-conspirators demanded kickbacks on the $3.9 million contract for the Center for Human Resources to buy 58,000 watches for all UAW members employed by GM. However, the watches were never distributed to UAW members. Read more: UAW president steps down as GM sues rival over union briberyAshton is one of 15 defendants convicted in connection with the ongoing criminal investigation into illegal payoffs to UAW officials by FCA executives and corruption within the UAW itself. In addition, the following UAW officials have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing: former UAW President Gary Jones, former senior UAW official Jeffrey “Paycheck” Pietrzyk, former UAW Region 5 Director and UAW Board member Vance Pearson, former UAW Midwest CAP President Edward “Nick” Robinson, and former UAW President Dennis Williams. Ashton’s greed caused irreparable damage to the trust UAW members have in their leaders who are supposed to represent their best interests,” stated Schneider.

DETROIT General Motors appears to have adopted a scorched earth policy when it comes to its lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Bribes were paid to individuals working within GM, who then stashed them in secret overseas accounts, GM said in a court filing. GM also claims while Ashton sat as the UAWs member on the General Motors board, he acted as a paid mole, giving GM proprietary information to FCA. GM goes on to say, it was former UAW president Dennis Williams who put Ashton up to all of this. But then, General Motors brought in the name of the long retired former UAW president Ron Gettelfinger, who has to date not been involved in the scandal.

NEW YORK A $19 million settlement between Harvey Weinstein and some of his accusers and the state of New York was rejected Tuesday by a judge. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Manhattan said Weinsteins accusers in the proposed class-action settlement were too varied to be grouped together. Three lawyers for several women who had opposed the deal praised what they described as Hellersteins swift rejection of a one-sided proposal. On behalf of our clients, we look forward to pursuing justice against Harvey Weinstein and his many enablers.A spokesperson for Weinstein did not comment. Weve long held that we needed to find justice for all the women that Weinstein preyed upon in a fair and equitable way.