UPDATED: Lawmakers Caught in Tryst Face Criminal Charges

This story has been updated.

LANSING, MI – Disgraced former Michigan state lawmakers Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat will be charged with felonies for plotting to cover up their extramarital affair with a bizarre fake gay sex scandal, authorities said Friday.

Attorney General Bill Schuette and Michigan State Police Det. First Lt. Sean Furlong announced the charges against the two former freshmen legislators, both Republicans, Friday.

“The voters placed a sacred trust in the hands of Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat when they chose them to serve as their voices in the Capitol,” Schuette said in a statement. “But instead of serving their home towns, they served only themselves at the expense of everyone else.

“With the filing of these charges, it is my hope that citizens of Michigan see that no one is above the law, not even those who walk in the halls of power; that no one is beyond the reach of the law, not even those who make the laws and when laws are broken, that justice can and will be delivered.”

Courser, of the Lapeer area, faces the most serious charges as the mastermind of the bizarre fake gay sex scandal and for asking his former aide, Ben Graham, to send the phony email to Republican lawmakers to deflect attention away from the real affair with Gamrat.

The felony charges against him include:

• Three charges of misconduct in office,, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a maximum $10,000 fine.
• One charge of perjury, a felony, with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Gamrat, of Plainwell, will be charged with:

• Two charges of misconduct in office, a felony, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or a maximum $10,000 fine.

Warrants have been issued for the arrest of both.

Gamrat was ousted outright by the House of Representatives, and Courser resigned just moments before the House was poised to vote to expel him.

Courser+Warrant by Beth Dalbey

Gamrat+Warrant by Beth Dalbey