Dana Nessel

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed suit against a dairy farming operation she says has repeatedly “thumbed its nose” at environmental regulations.

Slater Farms is a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in rural West Michigan. According to the Attorney General’s office, it collectively owns and manages CAFOs with more than 1,500 mature dairy cows and 400 cattle. Every year, those operations produce about 8.9 million gallons of liquid waste and 1,500 tons of solid waste.

Republican leaders in the Legislature are making their final push to reverse a court ruling that absentee ballots that arrive at clerks’ offices after Election Day must be counted.

The first step is for House and Senate GOP leaders to ask to become direct parties to the case. A motion filed Tuesday asked for standing to challenge a Court of Claims decision.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says her office is ready to prosecute any efforts to use intimidation or misinformation to illegally swing the November elections.

Nessell, a Democrat, has compiled a list of laws that are supposed to deter election meddling. She says meddling includes threats that registering to vote could put government benefits at risk, or misleading people on where or how to vote.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday the results of her office's investigation into three separate incidents of alleged police misconduct involving officers in Jackson, Saginaw and Washtenaw counties.  

Former city of Saginaw police officer Adam Collier, who is white, will face felony charges for allegedly using excessive force during an arrest on July 11. Collier is accused of striking a handcuffed woman, who is Black, with a closed fist, first as she entered his patrol car and later at the jail after she allegedly spat at him. Collier was fired on July 17.

Update: Thursday, September 10, 10 p.m.

An Enbridge spokesman, Michael Barnes, confirms that the east leg of Line 5 returned to full operations at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, saying, "The east leg is operating as normal."

Michigan’s Attorney General is warning the operators of senior living facilities against charging a special COVID-19 fee.

This week, the attorney general’s office sent out cease and desist notices to eleven senior facilities after receiving nearly 40 complaints from residents and family members about a special $900 fee.

Updated 1:14 p.m., June 25, 2020: 

Ingham Circuit Judge James Jamo Thursday ordered Enbridge to fully shut down the Line 5 pipeline at the bottom of the Mackinac Straits within 24 hours.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel requested the shutdown after Enbridge reported damage to an anchor support.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is proposing statewide changes to policing oversight, to reduce excessive use of force incidents.

She says the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards issues licenses for police, but needs more authority to take those licenses away.

"And I think it's one of the reasons why you see officers that have committed numerous acts of misconduct and they still have their license," says Nessel. "And also officers that get terminated by a particular agency, they're so easily able to just go to another agency because they still have their license."

Michigan’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the owner of the two dams that failed last month causing historic floods.

On May 19, the Edenville dam failed after days of heavy rain. Torrents of water rushed downstream, overwhelming the Sanford dam and forcing thousands to evacuate.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is joining 17 other state AGs in asking Congress to expand federal law to give them "clear statutory authority to investigate patterns or practices of unconstitutional policing,” Nessel’s office said Thursday. 

“We therefore ask Congress to give us explicit authority under federal law to conduct

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says the commission in charge of running the state Capitol is allowed to ban guns inside the building.

She gave that advice Friday to the Michigan State Capitol Commission, which controls public areas of the building.

On Wednesday, a judge denied a legal challenge to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay home order.

Whitmer issued the initial stay home order in March with the intent to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday that corruption charges have been filed against Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith.

Three others – including a businessman and a former state legislator – also face charges linked to abusing public funds.

Concerns over coronavirus forced several top state officials to conduct a town hall promoting the 2020 U.S. Census in an empty auditorium in Flint Thursday.   

The public was barred from attending the event out of concern of potentially spreading the deadly COVID-19 virus.  The event was streamed on Facebook.

The state of Michigan is suing 17 defendants seeking damages for widespread PFAS contamination. The defendants include industrial giants 3M and DuPont. 

The lawsuit was filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

PFAS are a family of industrial chemicals linked to serious human health issues, including cancer. PFAS have been used in many consumer products and in firefighting foam. 

State prosecutors are still not saying when to expect new criminal charges in the Flint water crisis probe.

Thursday evening, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley in cutting a ribbon officially opening the department’s new office in Flint. The office will handle multiple jobs. But its highest profile mission is related to the investigation into Flint’s water crisis.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has gotten involved in the case of an undocumented Ann Arbor man who says he needs costly medications to stay alive after a kidney transplant.

Abraham Navarrete-Morales submitted his request for a deferral from deportation in December 2018. In recent months, his attorney Brad Thomson has been pressing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for a response, including going public with a plea for action last month.

The state Attorney General has recommendations for changes to bills on expunging criminal records. The bills are up for debate in the state Legislature.

At a Tuesday hearing in front of a House Judicial committee, Nessel said she is, overall, in support of expanding the state’s laws to set aside some crimes on a person’s criminal record.

But she had ideas that she said could improve the bills. One area of concern was a bill to automatically remove certain crimes from a person’s record after 10 years.

A former Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after a Detroit-area jury said it was having trouble reaching a unanimous verdict in his sexual abuse trial.

The Michigan Attorney General's office says Patrick Casey pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated assault. He was accused of engaging in sex acts with a younger man who was struggling with his Catholic faith and homosexuality and had sought Casey's counsel in 2013.

The maximum penalty is a year in jail.  

A federal judge says St. Vincent Catholic Charities and other faith-based adoption agencies with state contracts can refuse to place children with same sex couples while a lawsuit is pending.

A federal judge ruled late Thursday against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced on Monday that they have filed six felony charges against Southfield City Clerk Sherikia Hawkins.

A special task force has come up with a new tool to combat elder abuse in Michigan.

It may only appear to be a simple form to be filled out by a police officer. But prosecutors and law enforcement officials say the standardized form, along with new online training, will help prosecute cases of physical abuse and financial exploitation of older Michiganders.

Legislation introduced in Lansing on Thursday would increase penalties on businesses that commit payroll fraud.

The sponsors claim the current system allows crooked companies to steal millions of dollars owed workers in wages and overtime pay.

State Representative Mari Manoogian (D-Birmingham) says these proposals are needed to protect businesses, not just workers.

“Bad actors that refuse to pay their workers full wages and overtime, and dodge taxes the rest of us pay, should not be allowed to undercut legitimate businesses and their employees,” says Manoogian.

Michigan is joining nearly two dozen other states and several cities suing the Trump Administration over its decision to relax rules on fossil fuels fueled power plants emissions.

Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined 20 other attorneys general from across the U.S. to ask a court to force the federal government to keep children safe in immigration detention centers. The brief says media reports detail “deplorable and inhumane conditions,” including being denied basic necessities like like clean water and soap.

The Michigan Supreme Court is unsure if it can weigh in on the method used to change Michigan’s minimum wage and earned sick time laws, and it wants Attorney General Dana Nessel to weigh in.