UPDATED: Here's the Latest on Sen. Virgil Smith's Resignation

Updated at 3:19 p.m.

DETROIT — State Sen. Virgil Smith, D-Detroit, on Thursday resigned from the seat he has held since 2009, effective April 12 when the Senate returns to session after a spring recess.

The one-sentence letter — "I resign as Senator of the 4th District" — was delivered to the Senate Business Office Thursday afternoon, The Detroit News repots.

Our Earlier Report

A Downriver state senator jailed this week on a felony charge for shooting up his ex-wife’s car is expected to resign his seat Friday, a move that would negate an expulsion hearing.

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Virgil Smith, a Detroit Democrat serving in the Legislature since 2003 and the Senate since 2009, began serving a 10-month jail sentence on the felony charge of malicious destruction of property valued at more than $20,000 on Monday. His sentence also includes five years probation.

Amber McCann, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, told the Detroit Free Press that Smith’s attorney indicated the 4th District senator’s resignation letter would be delivered Friday to the Secretary of State’s Office.

If that happens, the expulsion hearings won’t be necessary, though a resolution is ready in the event the resignation letter doesn’t materialize, McCann said.

Smith had agreed to resign from the Senate as part of the plea deal. But that didn’t happen after Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Talon said he didn’t have the authority to impose Smith’s resignation as a condition of the sentence and removed it from the plea agreement, authorities said.

When the judge refused to include Smith’s agreement to resign in the plea agreement, the prosecutor’s office asked the deal be thrown out and that the case against Smith proceed to trial. Talon declined, and has said in the past that Smith could be removed from office in formal senate expulsion hearings.

“The plea is legal, and the defendant agreed to it,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement. “If all the conditions are not accepted by the court we will withdraw our plea. We are certain that we stand on solid legal ground.”

Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for Worthy’s office, said in a statement this week that as far as prosecutors are concerned, Smith’s plea remains conditional until all of the terms of the agreement are fulfilled.

Worthy’s office plans to appeal Talon’s ruling, even if Smith resigns as expected, “because the defendant did not fulfill his part of the plea agreement by resigning his elected position,” Miller said.

As a condition of probation, Smith must abstain from alcohol, comply with mental health treatment recommendations and refrain from contact with his ex-wife, Anistia Thomas.

The charges stemmed from an incident last May after Thomas reportedly pushed her way into Smith’s home on Wexford and attempted an attack on a woman in his bed, according to court documents. He reportedly rammed her head into the floor and wall in an attempt to thwart the attack, then fired two shots at her car after she left his home.

This isn’t Smith’s first brush with the law. He was twice convicted of drunken driving, and a third drunken driving charge was dismissed. According to court documents filed in the current case, Smith suffers from bipolar depressive hypomanic disorder, was recently treated for alcohol dependency, and was in a car accident in 2014 that caused a traumatic brain injury.

After his March 14 plea, state Republican leaders began pressuring Democrats to call for Smith’s resignation. After his plea deal, Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel called Smith’s behavior “appalling” and said residents of his district deserved better.

“With Sen. Smith pleading guilty to this terrible crime, now is the time for Democratic leadership in Michigan to step up and do the right thing,” the GOP leader said in a statement that called on Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, to persuade Smith to step down.

Legislative expulsion hearings are relatively rare in Michigan, though Smith’s would be the second in a year. Last fall, the Michigan House expelled Plainwell Republican Cindy Gamrat after she and another freshman representative, Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, were caught in an extramarital affair and bizarre fake gay sex cover-up scheme.

Gamrat was only the fourth Michigan lawmaker in history to be expelled. Courser avoided a similar fate by resigning moments before an expected vote to oust him.