The highest-ranking state official to be charged in the Flint water emergency will be going to court today.
Prosecutors will attempt to prove that State Health Director Nick Lyon committed misconduct in office that led to involuntary manslaughter, in the way he responded to problems in Flint water. A judge will decide whether Lyon will stand trial. This is the first criminal case to advance this far in the wide-ranging charges against former state and Flint city officials and employees. The special prosecutor team expects to call Corinne Miller, a former employee of Lyon before she retired as director of the state Bureau of Epidemiology, as the first witness.
Miller agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in her plea deal with the Attorney General’s team. Miller is expected to testify that in Jan. 2015, she provided Lyon with information showing a 2014 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Genesee County.
Miller reportedly informed Lyon that she could not rule out Flint’s new water source — the Flint River — as the possible reason for the outbreak, which health officials have said killed at least a dozen people.