AG Nessel charges Fay Beydoun with 16 felonies, theft of $20 million

State Rep. Jim DeSana today announced his appreciation that Fay Beydoun has finally been indicted in the MEDC scandal awarding her shell company $20 million dollars under extremely suspicious circumstances.

“This is one of the most egregious examples of government corruption in Michigan history, and it’s well past time the people responsible were punished,” said DeSana. “This scam violated the public trust, stole millions of dollars away from Michigan families, and kept a corrupt system greased and spinning. Today’s actions are finally bringing the weight of law enforcement to bear.

“Our political process has become so broken and so focused on trading favors for personal gain, and this is the best example yet. Far too many last-minute deals get slipped secretly into the state budget, and those secret backroom agreements come out of our pockets and our paychecks. It isn’t right. And that’s why I’m fighting so hard to stop this broken process and expose these bad deals.”

Rep. DeSana has been on top of corruption at the MEDC, cosponsoring a plan last year to eliminate the organization and end its mismanagement of taxpayer funds. DeSana also sits on the House budget committee, where he has used his position to hold state departments accountable for their spending and deny easy access to funds without much greater transparency and results.

“This is why we need to pass my plan to eliminate the MEDC. This quasi-official deal-making bureaucracy is now a potential target in this investigation, and the attorney general has already called them out for stonewalling investigators after her team raided their office. Nothing good comes from an entire secret department created to bribe businesses into coming to Michigan, and Fay Beydoun’s role on the MEDC and her theft of our tax dollars shows how little oversight it has.

“I applaud Attorney General Nessel for investigating this alleged wrongdoing and issuing indictments on 16 criminal counts. We need law enforcement to crack down on bad actors. Together with reforms we have passed in the Legislature and that we can still pass going forward, that is how we can stop bad deals like this and protect Michigan families.”