Felony criminal charges have been dismissed against seven former officials tied to the Flint water crisis in Michigan.
The order for the dismissal of the cases was issued on Tuesday by Judge Elizabeth A. Kelly in the Genesee Circuit Court, who claimed the indictments issued against the officials are invalid. The ruling comes four months after the Michigan Supreme Court held in June that a one-man grand jury used to indict nine officials did not have the authority to do so, according to Michigan Live.
“As stated earlier, this Court is bound by the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision … Because the one-person grand jury does not have the power to issue indictments, the indictments issued in the felony Flint water cases were void,” Kelly wrote in her decision. “Therefore, anything arising out of the invalid indictments are irreconcilably tainted from inception.”
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As a result of the ruling, the criminal charges were dropped against former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon; former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s senior adviser Richard Baird; former Flint emergency managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; former MDHHS Chief Medical Executive Dr. Eden Wells; former director of communications and former chief of staff for the governor Jarrod Agen; and Nancy Peeler, a former Early Childhood Health Section manager at MDHHS.
A couple of officials still face charges, however, as Snyder and Howard Croft, the former Department of Public Works director for Flint, still face misdemeanor charges in the Genesee District Court.
In 2014, Flint began using water from the Flint River as its main source of drinking water, which allowed the water to corrode the city’s pipes and let metals, such as lead, flow into people’s homes. At least 12 people died during the water crisis in 2014, according to the BBC.
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Side effects of lead poisoning include abdominal pain, headaches, memory loss, and weakness, while high levels of lead exposure can lead to kidney and brain damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
