Ex-MI Lawmakers Courser, Gamrat Claim False Imprisonment

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LANSING, MI – Just when you thought it couldn’t get more bizarre — and faking a gay sex scandal to cover up a real straight sex scandal reached a level of skullduggery not often seen in politics — the salacious sex scandal involving former state Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat has taken another peculiar twist.

When the two former freshmen lawmakers were booted out of Michigan’s House of Representatives last September after their trickery to avoid blackmail by blackmailing themselves blew up, they kicked things up with twin attempts to replace themselves in special elections.

Michigan voters didn’t buy it.

Now, they may sue the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for holding them against their will during marathon expulsion hearings they claim were all part of a plot to prevent them from rocking Michigan's political establishment.

In a document filed with the Michigan Court of Claims that attempts to preserve their ability to sue, the two disgraced former lawmakers claim they were falsely imprisoned and falsely arrested by the Republican-controlled house, The Detroit News reports.

The former lovers also may sue House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, and Keith Allard, Ben Graham and Joshua Cline — who blew the whistle on their extramarital affair — for damages exceeding $500,000 for conspiring to end their political careers.

Specifically, they’ve accused House leaders of conspiring to get them out of the way to better the chances of passing a $1.2 billion package to fix Michigan’s roads that increased tax and vehicle registration fees.

Another potential defendant is David Horr, of Port Huron, a friend of Gamrat’s soon-to-be ex husband, Joe, who bought the burner cell phone used to send anonymous text messages to the legislators threatening to expose the affair if they didn’t end it.

According to the filing, Courser and Gamrat claim they were victims of “undercover surveillance operations, illegal wiretapping and eavesdropping, extortion, secret meetings, threats and intimidation, identity theft, invasion of privacy and hacking.”

Courser and Gamrat filed the notice to sue about two months after Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said his office was bringing felony charges alleging they engaged in a pattern of corrupt conduct while holding state office, including both lying to the House Business Office during its investigation, and Courser lying during testimony before the House Select Committee, while under oath, about directing staff to forge his signature on proposed legislation.

Both dismissed the charges as politics.

Whether they’ll actually follow through with a lawsuit is murky.

“It was to put them on notice,” Courser told The Detroit News of the March 10 notice.

“Obviously, there was enough done wrong, during the whole of the expulsion proceedings, and also the various players who are so intimately connected,” Courser said.

» For more on this latest twist, go to The Detroit News.