Michigan AG executes search warrant of state economic development offices

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office served a search warrant Wednesday at the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
The warrant comes as Nessel is investigating money paid to a rocket firm and to a business incubator
A spokesperson for the MEDC called Wednesday’s action ‘unwarranted and unnecessary’

Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office on Wednesday executed a search warrant at the Lansing headquarters of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, officials confirmed.

The agency is charged with distributing millions of dollars in taxpayer grants and subsidies, and the warrant was exceedingly rare — coming when its director was in Australia on a trade mission with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

While the nature of Wednesday’s action isn’t publicly known, it comes as Nessel’s office is investigating two grants administered by the MEDC — $2 million for a group hoping to launch a rocket-launching site along Lake Superior and $20 million for a business incubator.

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A Nessel spokesperson would not provide details other than to confirm searches occurred in Lansing and Farmington Hills.

The incubator nonprofit under investigation, Global Link International, is headed by businessperson Fay Beydoun. Incorporation records show that Global Link International is registered to a Farmington Hills address where Beydoun is a registered voter.

The Detroit News first reported the MEDC search and also has reported on the Global Link grant, including reports the nonprofit paid $11,000 in first-class air travel and over $400,000 in salaries for two people over three months.

Otie McKinley, a spokesperson for the MEDC, said the agency “has been fully and voluntarily cooperating with the Attorney General’s investigation for more than two years.

“Today’s actions were unwarranted and unnecessary,” he said, declining further comment.

The MEDC has attracted scrutiny in recent years because it administers special grants approved by lawmakers, who have directed billions of dollars in state money to nonprofits, parks, zoos, museums and other special interests with little oversight.

In the past two years, Nessel has criticized the grants process and investigated several of them, including a $10 million grant awarded to a nonprofit created to build a health and fitness center in Clare.

In May she charged a former top aide to former House Speaker Jason Wentworth, David Coker Jr., with multiple felonies on allegations of embezzlement.

In the past eight years, Michigan lawmakers have approved billions of dollars in earmarks for pet projects, often in the last hours of a legislative session with little time for legislative or public review.

In recent years, legislators have added additional transparency, including a move by House Republicans to make all grant requests public long before any votes. Senate Republicans followed suit a week later.