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The name, email address, and home address of Republican state Rep. Bryan Posthumus of Kent County, along with a credit card bearing his name, appear in data from Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking affairs.
Posthumus, who has built his political career around “traditional family values,” was married in March 2012 when the account under his name was used multiple times to access the chat and mail features, according to records reviewed by Metro Times and verified through publicly available cybersecurity databases.
Posthumus’s personal information also shows up on two other adult hookup websites — AdultFriendFinder and Fling.com, a pornographic dating site that features live web cams and promised users they could “find sex” and “get laid tonight.”
An AdultFriendFinder account used the possy355@aol.com email address and was last accessed in 2012.
A Fling.com account listed the same password found in the AdultFriendFinder breach and used his bryan.posthumus@gmail.com address, which Posthumus used in his candidate filing data. The Fling.com information also included his October 26, 1984, birth date. The account lists top interests as “fetish,” “group sex,” and “online flirting.” The account also indicates an interest in men, women, or couples.
Each of these sites has since confirmed the authenticity of the breaches. Metro Times independently verified the information using original data files and multiple cybersecurity databases.
In response to questions from Metro Times, Posthumus’s office in Lansing emailed a letter from the lawmaker’s lawyer John C. Burns, who called the allegations “categorically false” and accused the story of being a “hit piece” and “nothing more than a thinly veiled political attack masquerading as journalism.”
The 2015 Ashley Madison hack exposed the personal information of more than 30 million users of the infidelity website, which was explicitly marketed to married people seeking affairs under the slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair.” The leak ensnared numerous politicians and public officials worldwide and has been used in reporting by outlets, including The Washington Post and Politico.
The Ashley Madison data includes an email address linked to Posthumus and a Lowell home address that he and his then-wife purchased in 2011, as well as a credit card bearing his name. The data matches information contained in the leak, which was one of the largest privacy breaches in internet history. The same property and email appear in other public records tied to the lawmaker.
The account was accessed several times between March and September 2012, and it used the site’s mail and chat features.
At the time, Posthumus was married. His former wife, Stacy Posthumus, filed for divorce in early 2014, according to court records.
The profile associated with the information contained explicit sexual preferences and listed the user’s relationship status as “attached male seeking female.” In a written response field, the user wrote:
“I love when a woman takes charge and seduces me.”
The account lists favored sexual activities such as “threesome,” “being dominant/master,” “being submissive/slave,” and “one-night stands.”
Posthumus, 41, represents part of Kent County in the Michigan House of Representatives, where he serves as majority floor leader. He previously served as Minority Floor Leader and as finance chair for the Kent County Republican Party.
Posthumus married Elizabeth Posthumus in 2022. Since then, he has been accused of living outside his House district on two separate occasions. County court records showed he and his wife filed to run for precinct delegate positions in two separate townships, and only one of those was within his House district. Posthumus said he bought a Cannon Township condo to maintain his residency in the 90th House District while keeping close to his wife’s family.
The adult hookup websites stand in stark contrast to the man who has built his image around God, morality, and “traditional family values.” In 2022, the Christian Coalition of Michigan named him its “Friend of the Family Award” for his “strong defense of family values.” In accepting the award, Posthumus said he was “honored to receive this recognition.”
He has voted against repealing Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban that lacked exceptions for rape or incest, against removing criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions, against expanding protections for LGBTQ+ residents, and against banning conversion therapy for minors.
In his attorney’s letter to Metro Times, Burns accused the publication of trying to “weaponize unverified, anonymous data dumps” and claimed that “a disgruntled former employee” or political opponent could have created the accounts. It also described the reporting as a “thinly veiled political attack masquerading as journalism.”
However, the Ashley Madison account was created nearly a decade before Posthumus was first elected to public office.
Posthumus is part of one of Michigan’s most prominent Republican political families. His father, Dick Posthumus, served as lieutenant governor under Gov. John Engler from 1999 to 2003, and his sister, Lisa Posthumus Lyons, is the Kent County clerk and register of deeds and previously served three terms in the state House.
Born in Grand Rapids on Oct. 26, 1984, Posthumus earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business management from Michigan State University. He is managing partner of West Michigan Hopyards, a hop farm he co-founded in 2013, and CEO of Tuebor Strategies, a consulting firm launched in 2010. He previously worked as a national account and regional sales manager at Compatico.
Posthumus is a three-term lawmaker who was first elected in November 2020.
Posthumus has twice been convicted of drunk driving — once in 2013 and again in 2021, the latter while serving as a state representative. He spent 15 days in jail following the 2021 conviction. For his 2013 conviction, Posthumus’s license was temporarily suspended.
In November 2024, Posthumus and West Michigan Hopyards were sued in federal court by a migrant worker alleging wage theft and labor-law violations. The suit claims worker Jose Magana Garcia was denied full pay, forced to go weeks without compensation, and lacked access to bathroom facilities while working long hours on the 33-acre hop farm.
Posthumus and his business partner have called the allegations “politically motivated” and “frivolous.”
Last month, Metro Times revealed that Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver, R-Oxford, who introduced legislation in September to ban online pornography statewide, appeared on Fling.com. The leaked information, verified by the cybersecurity database SnusBase, lists Schriver’s email address and a profile indicating sexual interests including “fetish” and “groupsex.” The account was last accessed on Sept. 11, 2010, according to breach data.
Schriver denied having a Fling.com account.
Editor’s note: Metro Times reviewed the data linked to Posthumus in verified cybersecurity breach databases and cross-referenced it with public property, campaign, and voter records. The information includes email addresses, a home address, and a credit card in his name. Publication of this story serves the public interest because Posthumus has based his political career on promoting “traditional family values” while seeking to legislate personal morality.
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Steve Neavling
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