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Prosecutor quits after news breaks

DETROIT (AP) — A state prosecutor resigned after authorities learned “incredibly disturbing” news that he had an intimate relationship with a woman while handling her allegations of sexual assault, Michigan’s attorney general said Tuesday.

Brian Kolodziej, an assistant attorney general, was the prosecutor in a case involving students at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant. Ian Elliott, a former student government president, pleaded no contest to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in Isabella County and began serving a year in prison in August.

State police last week informed Nessel that Kolodziej was having a relationship with the victim while the case was pending earlier this year. A criminal investigation is underway, and a complaint has been filed with the Attorney Grievance Commission.

It was “absolutely outside the bounds of what a prosecutor can do during the course of a case,” Nessel told reporters. “To say that I am horrified, to say that I’m disgusted is really an understatement. In over 25 years of practice in criminal law, both as prosecutor and defense attorney, I have never before even heard of a situation like this. … This was incredibly disturbing.”

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