Is Terry Stanton Using His Political Position At Treasury To Make This Go Away?

Jerry Weintraub, the famous movie producer and all around “go to” guy in Hollywood once said, “There’s always a guy” referring, of course, to the “guy” that can get you out of trouble or if you need something that you normally couldn’t get on your own.

“There’s always a guy.” -Movie Producer Jerry Weintraub

Mid-Michigan media personality Jo Anne Paul didn’t have look very far to find the “guy” she needed when she got busted for receiving $7500 in unemployment benefits she wasn’t entitled to because she crawls into bed with him every night. Paul who is also facing an additional $30,000 in penalties and fines filed for unemployment insurance from cash-strapped Meridian Township, a suburb of Lansing while working as a freelance TV host for the township’s cable TV channel, HOMTV in 2007.

Paul’s husband is Terry Stanton.  Stanton is a former Lansing area TV news anchor and the current Communications Director for state Treasurer Andy Dillon who oversees Michigan’ Unemployment Insurance Agency.  So when it came time to having the hearing, no one from UIA showed up to testify against Paul.  UIA spokesman Mario Marrow cited an October 15, 2012 directive from Treasury to the Detroit Free Press stating UIA officials can not to attend civil fraud hearings unless the amount of benefits at stake is at least $15,000.

Marrow also claimed to the Detroit Free Press that the UIA’s no-show had nothing to do with Stanton’s job with state government stating, “The agency does not discriminate or show favoritism,”

Paul has profusely claimed her innocence through the investigation and hearings.  However, her stories don’t seem to match what others are saying.

Paul claims she informed Meridian Township of the error but her claims were challenged by Meridian Township Human Resources Amy Holda who claims she confronted Paul about receiving the benefits.

In July of 2010, allegedly at his wife’s behest, Stanton sent emails from his Michigan Treasury email account to other political appointees at various other state departments claiming his wife was attempting to straighten this out.

Holda also told the state in an August 10, 2010 report,

“Paul was collecting benefits, she was typically earning at least $300 each week working for Meridian Township, and some weeks earning two or four times that much.  Paul was hired as a free-lance TV host in 2007 and “she is STILL employed in the exact same capacity with weekly earnings typically no less than $300,”

According to the Detroit Free Press:

Paul, who has claimed in the past that any benefits she shouldn’t have received were accidental, said Thursday she was entitled to all the benefits she received and likely more.

Stanton who makes $114,000 year as Communication Director for the Michigan Treasury echoes his wife’s sentiments of entitlement by saying, “This has just been an ongoing nightmare that we’re trying to work through and rectify,”