DETROIT (AP) - The state has closed an investigation of Detroit officials and their connection to a prenatal health program supported by the city, Attorney General Dana Nessel said Wednesday.
No criminal charges were warranted, although the city could do more to improve “transparency and accountability,” Nessel said.
Investigators responded to complaints that Mayor Mike Duggan’s staff had directed some employees to delete emails that referred to Make Your Date, a program associated with Wayne State University that is aimed at helping women reduce the risk of premature births.
There were allegations that Duggan had a personal relationship with the head of the program. The mayor has declined to discuss that specific issue.
Emails were subsequently recovered, the attorney general’s office said.
“The investigation showed the emails at issue were merely efforts to raise money for a city of Detroit priority, which by all indications was a very worthy priority,” assistant attorneys general Mike Frezza and Danielle Hagaman-Clark said in a memo.
In 2019, Duggan said his chief of staff at the time would undergo public records training. Alexis Wiley now is running his reelection campaign.
Detroit now retains all employee emails for a two-year period “in order to make certain this problem cannot arise again in the future,” Duggan spokesman John Roach said Wednesday.
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