LANSING — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed criminal charges against the head of a nonprofit organization that received a $20 million state grant that led to public outrage and a raid on the Lansing headquarters of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.
Fay Beydoun, 62, who was the president of the nonprofit corporation Global Link International, was charged Monday, May 4 with 16 criminal counts in Farmington Hills District Court, online records show.
Charges include conducting a criminal enterprise, forgery, uttering and publishing, larceny by conversion, and larceny, records show.
Attorney General Dana Nessel has scheduled an 11 a.m. news conference on May 6 to announce charges in a public integrity case. Her office declined to disclose additional details.
It was not immediately clear, prior to the news conference, whether other defendants have been charged in addition to Beydoun. A Beydoun representative could not immediately be reached for comment May 6.
Last June, investigators from Nessel’s office raided Beydoun’s Farmington Hills home and the Lansing headquarters of the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
The Detroit News reported in April 2024 that Nessel’s office confirmed it had opened an investigation into a $20 million grant the MEDC awarded to Global Link International, whose corporate address is listed at the same Farmington Hills residence.
Although the grant was administered by the MEDC, it was initiated as a legislative earmark in the state budget passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2022.
Beydoun is a former vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party who, at the time the grant was awarded in 2022, was a member of the MEDC executive committee. The News reported that the nonprofit’s early expenditures from the grant proceeds included a $4,500 coffee maker, an $11,000 first-class plane ticket, and $408,000 in salaries to two people over three months. Beydoun has defended the expenditures in statements to The News but has not returned calls from the Detroit Free Press.
(This is a developing story and will update.)
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: AG files criminal charges against nonprofit leader who got $20M grant
Reporting by Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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