LANSING — Last week, the Detroit Metro Times released damning reporting about Republican AG candidate Doug Lloyd, who, as Eaton County Prosecutor, oversaw several “cases involving sexual assault, child exploitation, and domestic violence ended with reduced charges, probation instead of jail, or no prosecution at all.” 

A Metro Times review found multiple cases under Lloyd’s purview “in which defendants accused of sexual misconduct avoided incarceration,” including one in which the accused was the grandson of a former Eaton County prosecutor. 

In a case involving John Geddert, who was associated with Larry Nassar, Lloyd chose not to press charges and allowed Geddert to instead undergo counseling after a gymnast accused Geddert of pushing her into a wall. Attorney General Dana Nessel eventually charged Geddert with 24 crimes.

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• Republican Doug Lloyd is running for Michigan attorney general on his three decades of experience as a prosecutor. 
• But a Metro Times review of court records, charging documents, police reports, and other case files found several instances during his tenure as Eaton County prosecutor in which cases involving sexual assault, child exploitation, and domestic violence ended with reduced charges, probation instead of jail, or no prosecution at all.
• Among the cases reviewed by Metro Times is one involving Timothy Reed, the grandson of a former Eaton County prosecutor.
• Reed faced multiple felony charges stemming from two cases involving underage victims. According to records reviewed by Metro Times, prosecutors alleged that on two occasions Reed lured minors to secluded locations in a park and sexually assaulted them. He also faced a separate charge of accosting children for immoral purposes. As part of a plea agreement last year, Lloyd’s office reduced all four charges, and Reed received probation without serving jail time, according to the records. Reed violated his probation less than a year later.
• Another case that has followed Lloyd involves John Geddert, the former U.S. Olympic gymnastics coach whose association with convicted serial sexual abuser Larry Nassar later brought increased attention to allegations about Geddert’s treatment of young athletes.
• In 2013, a juvenile gymnast told police that Geddert became angry with her, took her into a locker room, stepped on her foot, grabbed her arm, and pushed her into a wall. Lloyd reviewed the complaint and determined there was enough evidence to charge Geddert with assault and battery, but allowed him to undergo counseling instead and ordered him to write the gymnast an apology.
• Years later, as additional athletes came forward with allegations against Geddert, families complained about the pace of the Eaton County investigation. In February 2019, Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office took over the case.
• Nessel’s office charged Geddert in 2021 with 24 crimes, including human trafficking, criminal sexual conduct, and lying to police.

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