Oakland County Prosecutor's Office seeking sanctions against Jennifer Crumbley's defense team
The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office filed a response seeking a sanction against Jennifer Crumbley's defense team after they filed a motion to remove the prosecutors from the case.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Marc Keast filed the motion in the Oakland County Circuity, calling Crumbley's motion "meritless."
"The motivation for the new motion is clear—to generate headlines and divert attention from the defendant's own actions—the facts that caused a jury of her peers to unanimously find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for causing the deaths of Hana St. Juliana, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, and Justin Shilling," Keast wrote.
Crumbley and her husband, James Crumbley, were each charged and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Nov. 30, 2021, deadly shooting at Oxford High School. The couple's son, Ethan Crumbley, was sentenced to life in prison for the shooting.
Since the conviction, Jennifer Crumbley's defense attorney, Michael Deszi, has filed a motion for a new trial or the charges to be dropped.
Deszi also accused Oakland County prosecutors of entering "secret agreements" with two school officials who testified at the Crumbleys' separate trials and spending over $100,000 on a "smear campaign" against her. Deszi claimed that prosecutors used the firms "to sway public opinion and cast the Crumbleys in the most negative light possible" despite gag orders.
Oakland County Prosecutor's Office files response to latest motion from Jennifer Crumbley's attorney by CBS News Detroit on Scribd
However, the prosecutor's office said the firms were hired with the approval from the county executive and Board of Commissioners to respond to media inquiries.
"The Prosecutor's Office did the right thing by victims, the taxpayers, and the public by timely responding with accurate, reliable information," Keast wrote.
"In her repeated references to a smear campaign, Jennifer Crumbley never points to any media coverage. That's because there was no smear campaign, and because the negative portrayals of Jennifer Crumbley were the result of the facts. For example, her social media posts about buying her son a gun as an early Christmas present and taking him to the shooting range three days before the shooting, the drawing school officials texted to her and showed her on the day of the shooting, her decision not to take her son home, and her flight to a warehouse in Detroit instead of turning herself in," he added.
Keast also refuted claims of secret deals with school officials, Nicholas Ejak and Shawn Hopkins. The prosecutor's office has acknowledged that Ejak and Hopkins had proffer agreements but denied that they were promised immunity, leniency, or favoritism for testifying.
The prosecutor's office said if sanctions are granted, her office will request payments to go to charities supporting victims of the shooting.