Flint Water: Former Michigan governor faces charges of crisis that killed 12 people

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The Flint Water prosecution team is expected to announce its findings at a press conference Thursday morning after former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and former Flint Public Works Director Howard Croft were each charged Wednesday.

They each face two counts of willful neglect in an investigation into the crisis, according to court documents. The charges are misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine of up to $ 1,000, according to the state’s criminal code.

CNN has contacted an attorney for Snyder and an attorney for Croft for comment on the charges.

Flint has been exposed to extremely high levels of lead since 2014, when city and state authorities transferred the city’s water supply from the Detroit water system to the contaminated Flint River for the purpose of to reduce costs.

The change was to be temporary during construction of a new supply line to Lake Huron. When the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality failed to deal with the corrosive water, it ate from the city’s iron and lead pipes and entered the drinking water.

The contaminated water led to two outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, a serious type of pneumonia caused by bacteria.

Over a dozen lawsuits and a $ 600 million settlement

Snyder, who served from 2010 to 2018, apologized in 2016 for the state’s role in the crisis.

Court documents from Snyder, a Republican, indicate that the date of the offense is April 25, 2014, the same day Flint changed his water source.

Brian Lennon, an attorney for Snyder, said earlier Wednesday that his client was being turned into a scapegoat by a special political advocate. Lennon called for reports his client was being charged “without merit” and being part of a “political escapade”.

An attorney for Croft told the Detroit News his client was told on Monday that he would be charged.

The Michigan attorney general’s office made no comment on the charges Wednesday evening.

Residents of Flint had complained about the poor quality of their water when the Environmental Protection Agency tested the water entering homes in 2015, finding unsafe levels of lead, which can cause serious health problems.

More than a dozen lawsuits, including several class actions, have been filed against the state, the town of Flint, and some state and town employees involved in the decision to change the source of drinking water and responsible for water quality monitoring.

Last year, the state reached a $ 600 million settlement with the victims and a court-monitored compensation fund was established.

The Legionnaires’ epidemic led to criminal charges against state officials, including Nick Lyon, then director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, in 2017.

Prosecutors dropped all criminal charges in 2019 and said the investigation would start over, citing concerns over how the special counsel conducted its investigation.

CNN’s Taylor Romine and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.

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