Detroit city councilmembers approved a six-figure payout on Tuesday to settle allegations Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s husband abused his authority as the city’s chief development officer.
The $100,000 settlement, approved without discussion, puts an end to a 2019 lawsuit filed by Kennedy Shannon, the city’s former assistant director of the Office of Development and Grants who alleged she was fired for reporting violations of federal grant rules for Detroit’s Motor City Match program, the Detroit Free Press reports.
The lawsuit named Benson’s husband, former chief development officer Ryan Friedrichs, as well as former director of grants Katerli Bounds. The lawsuit alleged the duo were involved in improper expenses for the Motor City Match program, and a separate scandal involving the city’s Make Your Date prenatal health program, and claimed Shannon was fired for exposing the corruption.
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Motor City Match “is designed to assist Detroit entrepreneurs at critical stages of their business development,” while Make Your Date “focuses on reducing the number of preterm births in Detroit by providing women with prenatal care, cervical length screening and treatment (if necessary), pregnancy education classes, and group prenatal care,” according to the programs’ respective websites.
A report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development confirmed components of Detroit’s Motor City Match grant applications violated federal regulations, and Detroit’s inspector general confirmed Friedrichs was among city officials who abused their authority by forcing employees to delete emails related to Make Your Date.
“Mayor Mike Duggan came under fire after a Free Press investigation revealed that emails showed the mayor ordered Friedrichs, the city’s former chief development officer, to raise money for the (Make Your Date) program,” according to the news site. “The same investigation also showed Duggan’s former chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, ordered city employees to delete emails to conceal the extent of the city’s support for the nonprofit tied to Duggan’s now-wife Dr. Sonia Hassan.”
While Detroit councilmembers approved the $100,000 payment to settle Shannon’s lawsuit, officials continue to insist she wasn’t fired for speaking out against the corruption.
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A city attorney argued at a 2022 hearing Shannon was fired because she “was not doing her job well,” a position echoed by Detroit Corporation Council Conrad Mallett in a statement to the Free Press on Tuesday.
“The City still maintains that the actions taken by these employees with respect to Ms. Kennedy were fully appropriate and justified,” Mallett wrote in an email. “However, the law department made a decision in the interest of taxpayers to enter into this settlement rather than incur more significant costs in the form of ongoing litigation.”
Friedrichs quit his job with the city in 2020 to work for billionaire real estate mogul Stephen Ross, only to face other questions about his character two years later.
Following his wife’s repeated pledges to reform Michigan’s lobbying laws, Friedrichs registered to lobby on behalf of Ross’ Related Companies on June 29, 2022, less than two days before the Michigan Legislature voted to allocate $100 million to the Detroit Center for Innovation, a collaborative project between Related Companies, the Illitch family’s Olympia Development and the University of Michigan, according to The Detroit News.
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Related Companies spokesman Jon Weinstein told the news site Friedrichs was not involved in soliciting tax dollars from lawmakers for the project, which Friedrichs cited as his motivation for leaving the city of Detroit.
“It is company policy that development team members who may come into contact with public officials register as lobbyists,” he said. “To be clear, in this case, Ryan did no lobbying around the nonprofit Detroit Center for Innovation’s grant in the budget.”
Benson, who also previously worked for billionaire Ross as CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality, is now running to replace Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2026, on a platform of transparency and a promise to “protect your rights and freedoms from bullies and billionaires.”
“I know firsthand that the government only works well if it works for the people,” Benson wrote in a recent post to X. “I will bring real solutions to Michigan, not political games, conspiracy theories, or inaction. Because that’s what the people of Michigan deserve from their leaders.”
Benson’s botched gubernatorial campaign rollout last month followed an announcement from Duggan in December that he’s ditching the Democratic Party to run for governor as an Independent.
That decision has drawn heated criticism from the Secretary of State, who likened the party to a house on fire following the red wave in November.
“In moments like this, we don’t flee from the party, but we stay and fix it,” Benson told WJBK’s Tim Skubick. “We need to be firefighters, putting out fires, not running away from things we see that may be on fire.”