Pugh Denies Any Wrongdoing In Connection With Claims Of Money For Video Of Teen
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - The allegations are outrageous. That's the claim from the attorney for former Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh ... over allegations that Pugh offered cash and gifts in exchange for sex acts from a 17-year-old he was mentoring.
Pugh's attorney made the statements in a federal court filing according to the Detroit News, saying the claims exist only in the minds of the teen and his mother.
Pugh denies he did anything wrong.
He has since resigned from city council and is now living in Brooklyn, New York.
In December, a police report was filed by the alleged victim stating sexually explicit text messages and a video were exchanged between Pugh and an 18-year-old who had been part of a school mentoring program that Pugh ran.
The report, released by police in Madison Heights, detailed exchanges between Pugh's cellphone and the teen between the end of May and early June.
An investigator wrote in the report released that the suspect offered money and video games to the victim in exchange for a video of the victim.
"The suspect specifically requested that the victim be naked, and he preferred that the victim to be alone," the investigator wrote.
The teen, who was 17 when he initially met Pugh through the mentoring program at Frederick Douglass High School in Detroit, later provided a video of himself, according to the report.
"The suspect continuously pressured the victim for the video because he (the victim) wanted money and video games," according to the police report. "The suspect told the victim to delete text messages because if the texts were discovered, they could be very damaging to him."
Pugh officially resigned in September 2013.
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