Prosecutor Who Paid for Sex Hundreds of Times Pleads to Felony

Stuart Dunnings III, the former Ingham County prosecutor accused of hiring prostitutes hundreds of times while at the same time publicly decrying human trafficking, pleaded guilty to a felony misconduct in office charge and a single misdemeanor count of soliciting a prostitute, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said Tuesday.

Dunnings, 63, who resigned in disgrace earlier this year, originally faced 15 felony and misdemeanor charges over four District Court jurisdictions — charges that could have sent him to prison for up to 20 years. Dunnings entered his pleas Tuesday at what was expected to be a pre-trial examination before Judge Michael J. Klaeren of the 12th District Court in Jackson.

In a statement, Schuette said that though all but two of the charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement, Dunnings still faces serious consequences — including a possible five-year prison sentence and fines of up to $5,000, which Schuette is recommending, and the loss of his law license, possibly for life.

The attorney general said he agreed to amend the charges against Dunnings to avoid “re-victimizing women involved in a potential trial and ... to protect them and their families from further publicity, while ensuring that justice is done in this case.”

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“The system in Michigan is not rigged. We have one system of justice and the rules apply to all,” Schuette said in the statement. “Today we are one step closer to accountability for the defendant, justice for victims, and a chance to restore the public trust tarnished by a public servant who only served himself.”

Dunnings was arrested last spring after his name came up in an unrelated investigation of human trafficking in mid-Michigan. At the time, FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Ted Docks said “investigators developed information we could not ignore involving a public official.”

“Although that information did not reach the threshold for a federal violation, we shared that information with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office,” Docks said at the time. “This sort of interagency coordination is routine to ensure crime problems in the Lansing area are addressed appropriately.”

If Dunnings receives jail time when he is sentenced at a yet-to-be-determined date, his DNA will be collected and the results will be entered in the FBI’s crime database, Schuette said.

Before his resignation, Dunnings, a Democrat, had been Ingham County’s elected prosecutor for almost 20 years.

According to Schuette, Dunnings paid one woman for sex three or four times a week over a period of five years. Another prostitute had sex with him more than 200 times, the attorney general said.

During that time, Dunnings was an outspoken advocate against prostitution and human trafficking, Schuette said.