The Dunnings-Call Girl Effect

Mar. 22, 2016 (Mimesis Law) — Ingham County, Michigan’s top prosecutor, Stuart Dunnings III, 63, has been charged with fourteen misdemeanors and a felony over hundreds of alleged visits to prostitutes between 2010 and 2015.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, accompanied by Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, announced the charges at a press conference held March 14. Mr. Dunnings, a Lansing Democrat who serves as the chief prosecutor of Michigan’s capital city, was arrested the same day.

The charges were filed in four courts in Ingham, Clinton and Ionia Counties. They include ten misdemeanor counts of engaging in prostitution, four misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty, and a felony count of pandering. Dunnings was released from Ingham County Jail on $5000 bond following arraignment in all but Clinton County. His attorney implied the charges were politically motivated.

The judges at both Ingham County courts where Mr. Dunnings faces charges have since disqualified themselves from hearing his case.  Mr. Dunnings’ brother, Steven, a family law attorney, has also been charged.

According to an affidavit from Ingham County Det. Amber Kenny-Hinojosa, the charges against Dunnings arose in the wake of a joint Ingham County Sheriff’s Office/FBI investigation of another Lansing resident, Tyrone Smith, suspected of running an “interstate commercial sex operation.” Mr. Smith pleaded guilty to federal sex trafficking charges in 2015.

In the course of its investigation, the government identified five women (“W1” through “W5”) who, it claims, were prostitutes “associated with” Mr. Smith. Dunnings is alleged to have paid all five for sex.

The felony charge was for allegedly coercing a sixth woman (“W6”), who had never worked as a prostitute, into repeatedly prostituting herself with him after she sought his help in a child custody case.

According to the government, Dunnings hired prostitutes hundreds of times between 2010 and 2015, including more than 200 sessions over the course of four years with W2 alone. W2’s typical fee per session was allegedly $200. Moreover, the affidavit states Dunnings “often” met W1 for sex “as many as three or four times a week” over the course of five years. W1, like W2, was allegedly paid $200 for her services.

Dunnings, who is married, receives a salary of approximately $132,000. Taking the government’s numbers at face value, he is alleged to have spent as much as $50,000 annually on W1 and W2.

The affidavit claims two of the five prostitutes to whom Dunnings allegedly paid for sex were abused by their pimps, who are unnamed. Four are described as heroin addicts. The proportion of prostitutes with abusive pimps in the general population has been estimated at 1.5%.

Dunnings, who has been in office since 1996, is up for reelection at the end of the year; he has yet to announce his candidacy. Patrick O’Keefe, a former subordinate, filed for Dunnings’ seat after the charges were made public. Dunnings’ record speaks to his tough-on-crime image. Starting in 2001, he cracked down on prostitution in Lansing: between 2001 and 2003, his prosecutors charged repeat-offender prostitutes and Johns with 19 felonies and impounded 53 vehicles.