Former Michigan Democratic Party Official Charged With Embezzling From Vulnerable Adult

Michigan Advance

January 28, 2026

The Kent County Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday charged Traci Kornak, an attorney who once served as the Michigan Democratic Party’s treasurer and is an associate of Attorney General Dana Nessel, with the embezzlement of money from a vulnerable adult to whom she was a conservator, charges that could net Kornak up to 15 years in prison.

Chris Becker, the county’s prosecutor, held a press conference Wednesday morning to announce that Kornak was being charged with two counts of embezzlement of a vulnerable adult and a charge for false pretenses, according to both The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press.

Kornak’s new legal troubles come after years of speculation and scrutiny from independent reporters, including former Detroit News reporter Charlie LeDuff, and Republican legislators who have drawn a line connecting dots to Kornak, the Democratic Party and Nessel.

Kornak was the party’s treasurer between 2019 and the spring of 2025. She was a member of Nessel’s transition committee when she was elected to office in 2018.

LeDuff and Republican members of the state House have for years accused Nessel and her office for burying an investigation into Kornak’s alleged abuse, which quietly wrapped up in 2022.

On Tuesday, Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Township), the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said that the Michigan Attorney General’s office is “either wholly incompetent or it is corrupt” in a hearing of the Oversight Committee on ethics violations allegedly committed by Nessel.

AG spokesperson Kimberly Bush told the Advance on Tuesday, in an email request for comment that the committee “continues to conflate the Attorney General’s investigation with subsequent, separate investigations by other agencies that were predicated on separate allegations made by different complainants involving a different victim, that began only after the Attorney General’s investigation was concluded.”

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday regarding the new charges against Kornak in Kent County.

Nessel’s office opened an investigation after LeDuff wrote about the issue in the summer of 2022, and a conflict wall was set up to isolate Nessel from the case. However, the case was requested to be closed later in the fall.

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