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AG's Office Looks Into Wayne County Severance Fiasco

DETROIT (WWJ) - The State Attorney General's office is taking over a case involving Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said her office will not investigate whether Ficano's office did anything wrong when it paid $200,000 in severance to an employee who moved from one county job to another.

WWJ Newsradio 950 talked with John Selleck, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.

"[Worthy] said that she can't take on a review of that because of the conflict of interest she has being part of the Wayne County government," said Selleck. "She has asked our office to see if another prosecutor would take a look and determine if there should be an investigation or a closer look at the issue."

Selleck said this is not that unusual.

"That's standard procedure. There's a commission that works with all 83 county prosecutors. So, now we'll reach out to all the county prosecutors ... and then we'll go from there," Selleck said.

Turkia Mullin received the money when she left Wayne County to run the Wayne County Airport Authority. That payment was negotiated as she took over as a head of the county's development office.

Mullin agreed last week to return the money, saying she decided it was the best thing to do for both the county and the airport.

Ficano has said an internal investigation is underway. He also promised to work with county commissioners on the issue of employee compensation, to help assure that this type of situation will not be repeated.

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