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Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters fired her government affairs director, Reggie Davis, on Wednesday after investigators discovered he and former council president and convicted sex offender Charles Pugh posed as incoming Ombudsman staff while Davis sought a $197,000-a-year job.
Waters said she acted after reviewing an Oct. 27 report from the Detroit Office of Inspector General that concluded Davis “abused his position” on her staff to obtain information from a private contractor that supplies software to the Ombudsman’s Office. The report found Davis and Pugh contacted WingSwept, the vendor behind the office’s case-tracking system, and represented themselves as part of the team preparing to take over the department.
The Ombudsman’s Office is an independent office that investigates complaints about Detroit city services and employee conduct.
“My review of that OIG report coupled with my independent assessment has resulted in my decision that your position on my staff is immediately terminated due to your conduct that has impugned the integrity of the Detroit City Council and is detrimental to those of us that hold the public trust as elected officials of Detroit including staff,” Waters wrote in a letter to Davis.
According to the OIG, Davis identified himself as a City Council employee and told WingSwept he was part of the incoming Ombudsman team during two phone calls and a video meeting. Pugh, who resigned from the council in 2013 and later served more than five years in prison on child sex-crime convictions, joined at least one call and was introduced by Davis as his “chief of staff.” WingSwept provided the OIG with recordings of the meetings.
The contractor later alerted the actual Ombudsman’s office, saying it had “a couple of phone calls with” Davis and Pugh and initially believed they were “part of the incoming staff for the City of Detroit Office of the Ombudsman.” When the Ombudsman’s office instructed WingSwept to cease communications, the company said it did so immediately.
The investigation began after then-Ombudsman Bruce Simpson learned of the contacts. Simpson’s 10-year term expired in October, and Davis was one of 10 finalists for the position, which requires approval from two-thirds of the nine-member City Council.
In a written response to the OIG, Davis’s attorney, Marcus Baldori, said Davis was using the information to prepare for his potential role in the Ombudsman Office. According to Baldori, Davis had sought only “publicly available or standard pricing information, not internal City data,” and his client’s description of himself as part of the incoming team “was imprecise.”
Baldori wrote that Davis’s communications reflected “over-enthusiastic preparation for an anticipated role,” not misuse of authority, and urged the city not to characterize the actions as an “abuse of authority.”
The OIG disagreed, finding Davis “falsely presented himself as part of the incoming Ombudsman team and abused his position by using his title to improperly access information.” The office recommended “appropriate disciplinary action.”
Davis, a former Wayne County commissioner, has been accused in the past of harassing two women who later secured personal protection orders against him. One woman alleged the mother of Davis’s unborn child threatened to “rip the baby” out of her stomach.
It’s unclear why Davis was working with Pugh, who was sentenced to 5½ to 15 years in 2016 after pleading guilty to two felony counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Metro Times couldn’t reach Davis for comment.
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Steve Neavling
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