Thursday, September 25, 2014
Former state senator Dave Jaye on Thursday pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after a drunken incident on the Macomb Orchard Trail in Washington Township.
The infamous ex-lawmaker agreed to the plea in exchange for a 1-year reprieve which allows him to have the Sept. 7 arrest wiped from his criminal record if he stays out of trouble.
According to the dictates of 42nd District Judge Denis LeDuc, Jaye, 56, will pay some court fines and he faces 12 months of a “non-reporting probation” that will result in another court hearing in one year on his deferred sentence.
Because he is already planning to move back to South Korea, where he previously taught English as a second language, the 42nd District Court will essentially have no way of monitoring his behavior.
According to the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office, Jaye at the time of the incident smelled of alcohol, was slurring his speech and looked “sloppy” when he was detained by deputies near Campground Road and Van Dyke. He was riding a bike with beer cans in his backpack when he had a verbal confrontation with a jogger and said: “Don’t make me come after you.”
The longtime Shelby and Washington Township Republican is best known as the only Michigan senator ever to be removed from office by his colleagues.
A no contest plea, which means that Jaye is not admitting guilt, offers some protections against a possible civil suit related to the incident.
After his ouster from the Senate in 2001 for drunken, assaultive behavior at a gas station, Jaye moved to Korea and he also taught classes at the college level in China.
Known for his vociferous, politically incorrect comments and his conservative Republican politics, Jaye’s political career began with a 2-year stint on the Macomb County Board of Commissioners in 1985-86.
He was elected to the state House in 1988 and served there for 10 years until he won a special election to replace the late state senator Doug Carl. Among the many reasons for his Senate expulsion, the most cited were his three misdemeanor drunken driving convictions.
His expulsion trial in front of a Senate panel received frenzied media coverage and produced big newspaper headlines across the state.
Jaye, a resident of Bonita Springs, Fla., had returned to Macomb County about two months ago to rehabilitate the Washington Township home that he lived in during much of his service in the Legislature.
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