Charles Pugh (born August 3, 1971) is an American former television journalist, radio personality, and politician from Detroit, Michigan. For ten years, he served as the weekend anchor at WJBK in Detroit. He also served as the radio personality on CoCo, Foolish and Mr. Chase in the Morning and his own talk show, That's What's Up, which both originally aired Sunday evenings on WJLB.
In 2009, Pugh was elected council president of Detroit City Council, becoming the city's first openly LGBT elected official. Pugh served as president from 2010 until resigning in 2013 and relocating to New York City.
In 2016, he was convicted of three counts of criminal sexual misconduct and sentenced to – 15 years in prison. On December 22, 2021 he was released from Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan to serve a two-year term of parole. He will have to comply with sex offender registration for the rest of his life.
Early life, career and entry into politics
Pugh was born in Detroit to George and Marcia Pugh. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. At the age of three his mother was murdered by a drug dealer in their home in the San Juan neighborhood of Detroit, and in 1978 his father committed suicide. At the age of nine he moved in with his grandmother. Pugh graduated from Murray-Wright High School in 1989 and attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri on a $24,000 ($48,500 adjusted for inflation) scholarship from Ford Motor Company.
After graduating in 1993, Pugh started as an anchor on WIBW in Topeka, Kansas, later moving to WISE in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and news stations in Columbia, Missouri, and Norfolk, Virginia. In 1999 Pugh, joined WJBK the FOX affiliate in Detroit.
Pugh resigned from the station in March 2009 to campaign for Detroit City Council. He won the most votes of any council candidate on election day, giving him the title of council president, despite a controversy late in the campaign when he acknowledged that he had been struggling financially and his home had been foreclosed.
In 2012, Pugh sold his home, a condo on 73 Adelaide Street in Midtown Detroit, in a short sale to Shamrock Acquisitions LLC for $106,000. Pugh had purchased the home for $385,000 in 2005.
In 2012, Pugh made headlines in what local newspapers termed a "Twitter war" with an intern at Automotive News. After a brief disagreement on the social network, Pugh tweeted Automotive News requesting that they speak with the intern about his "offensive" posts. Pugh's action was widely derided.
In June 2013, City Councilman Ken Cockrel Jr., who had served as mayor and president of the council, made note of Pugh's recent attendance problems, noting that the then-council president had missed four meetings in a row. At the end of that meeting, Gary Brown, who was the council's president pro tempore and presided over the council in Pugh's absence, told his colleagues that Pugh had requested a four-week leave of absence as "sick leave". Later that day, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr denied Pugh's request and told him to return to work or resign.
On June 27, 2013, Detroit emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr formally stripped Pugh of his responsibilities and pay as president of Detroit City Council.
Pugh formally resigned from the Detroit City Council in September 2013. He now works at the Pizza Cat in Westland, MI.
Sex abuse allegations
On June 26, 2013, Pugh made headlines again when it was alleged that while serving as president of Detroit City Council he had an inappropriate relationship with a male high school student, aged 17 or 18, whom he mentored. Family spokesman Skip Mongo told reporters Pugh "was in a position of authority and he tried to seduce this young man." News broke of the allegations, and Pugh allegedly left Detroit in the middle of the night, and went into hiding requesting a four-week medical leave, which was denied.
On June 29, 2013, a police report was filed claiming a teenager was being groomed by Pugh. Though at first saying that he could not disclose whether sexual activity took place, the family's lawyer later stated no physical contact happened. The teen's mother complained of being accused of trying to extract a cash payment from Pugh after legal experts questioned why she contacted her lawyers before police. Pugh's supporters, including colleagues and adolescent students he mentored, said the allegations did not match his behavior in or out of class.