FLINT, Mich., July 29 (UPI) — Six Michigan state employees were criminally charged Friday morning with misconduct in office for their alleged roles in the lead contamination of Flint’s drinking water.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services employees Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller and Robert Scott, and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality employees Liane Shekter-Smith, Adam Rosenthal and Patrick Cook each faces charges that also include willful neglect of duty related to allegedly concealing or disregarding blood test results with high lead levels in Flint residents.
Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office said Peeler and Scott’s charges are based on a report by epidemiologist Cristin Larder that showed elevated lead levels in Flint residents in July, August and September 2015.
Investigators found Scott and Peeler, who work in the state health department’s childhood lead poisoning prevention program, created a “non-scientific” graph that “inappropriately concluded that the switch in water sources was not the cause of elevated lead levels in Flint children.”
