Police Reports Reveal New Details In Chatfield Alleged Sex Abuse Case
(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/31/2024) Whether former House Speaker Lee Chatfield fathered “at least one of” his sister-in-law’s children is in question, according to a previously unreleased police report MIRS has reviewed roughly two years after the sexual assault investigation into Chatfield began.
In addition to paternity, which hasn’t been resolved as of today, other details are revealed in reports from the Lansing Police Department and Michigan State Police, including the complainant, Rebekah Chatfield's concession that some of the sex with Chatfield was consensual.
MIRS obtained heavily redacted police reports through a Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to glean more information as to why the Attorney General’s office has taken nearly two years to decide whether the former Speaker will face criminal charges.
A message to the AG’s office late today was not immediately returned, but Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a December press conference that all investigations "related to Speaker Chatfield remain ongoing.”
The reports, however, do reveal explosive information about the investigation and the allegations, including:
- The last report is dated March 2022, an indicator that MSP may not have been involved for more than 18 months;
- A search warrant at the Chatfield family school and church – Northern Michigan Baptist Bible Church (NMBBC) in Burt Lake – yielded a student file on Lee Chatfield, but not one on Rebekah Chatfield;
- The school atmosphere was strict about boys' and girls’ seemingly benign interactions – such as placing one’s arm around another – that was deemed “inappropriate” and kicked out students who engaged in sexual activity;
- Lee Chatfield’s wife, Stephanie Chatfield, disputed the sexual assault claims, noting that her husband couldn’t have gotten into her sister-in-law’s apartment without first being buzzed in past the security door. She also expressed the “media has not been accurate in their reporting”; and
- Comments during a conversation with Rebekah Chatfield and at least one of Chatfield's brothers in which it was said about Rebekah's allegations that, “You don’t need proof anyway” of a sexual assault, only a favorable judge.
The Lansing Police Department report is eight pages in length with the last entry being on Jan. 10, 2022. The report goes over Rebekah Chatfield's well-chronicled allegation that the abuse started when she was allowed to spend the night at Lee's parents' house when they were teenagers. She told Officer Christie Chiles on Dec. 21, 2021, that Lee would have sex without her consent inside her Lansing apartment on multiple occasions.
It also reads that her brother-in-law “groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted her” from 2010 to 2021 “at multiple locations all over the state of Michigan." “Lee was manipulating her and targeting her when she was emotionally vulnerable,” the report reads.
However, according to Officer Kristi Pratl on Jan. 10, 2022, “The victim was unable to tell me a time where she was forced to have sex with Lee Chatfield in the city of Lansing. The victim stated that some of the incidents in Lansing were consensual so she was not able to explain a time when it was not consensual. The victim did indicate that she had sexual relations with the accused on several occasions, which one time occurred in his office in Lansing.”
Jamie White, an attorney for Rebekah Chatfield, said there may be some people who believe “consensual” means his client was a willing participant, but that is not accurate as the basis for Lee Chatfield’s criminal culpability is that he “groomed and sexually assaulted” his sister-in-law when she was a minor and he was a teacher at his father’s school in northern Michigan.
“That is the slam-dunk, no-questions-asked guilty,” White said. “… There is absolutely no question that his criminal culpability exists based on the relationship he had when he was a teacher at her school. And that’s just the baseline, where there’s no question asked.”
Lee Chatfield, via his attorney, previously conceded that he had an affair with his sister-in-law, but he denies it was rape.
Chatfield attorney Mary Chartier said Chatfield has lived under the cloud of false allegations for over two years, waiting for the government to investigate these claims. He is confident that a fair and thorough investigation – whenever it is completed – can only result in no charges.
“Any reasonable person must realize that claims, such as Mr. Chatfield having controlled Rebekah Chatfield’s life and finances, have no basis in reality,” Chartier said. "She was an adult who chose to engage in a sexual relationship with another adult. She could – and did – work outside of the home. At times, she also lived outside of Michigan. She exercised her own autonomy as an adult, and attempts to revise history are not supported by facts and evidence.
White vehemently disagrees, noting that suggesting the relationship was consensual is “insane” because his client felt coerced. He said that but for Lee Chatfield “taking advantage” of his sister-in-law as a child when he had a position of authority, “she would have never engaged in anything with him as an adult.”
“He controlled the finances of the family; he controlled her actions. And while ‘consensual’ is a relative term, she always felt that if she pulled back from him in any way, shape or form, there would be some accountability to her family – financially and otherwise,” White said.
“People are going to argue it was consensual,” he noted. “I would suggest to you when you groom a teenage girl and put her family in a position where you are in control of their financial situation, their well-being, that consent goes away.”
The Wife Speaks
The Michigan State Police's heavily redacted reports (Part 1, Part 2) span from Jan. 10, 2022, to March 16, 2022, with limited supplementary information after that date. The only documents from 2023 were eight pages from the Computer Crimes Unit in September regarding the review of iPhones and other presumably electronic equipment.
Among the least redacted portions is the interview with Stephanie Chatfield, whose interview with police echoes the statement she released publicly in February 2022.
According to a MSP report, Stephanie Chatfield, whose name is redacted, described a Dec. 20, 2022, phone call with Rebekah Chatfield who indicated she was about to share information that would “uproot this whole family.” She describes the “allegations as a ‘character assassination.’”
“There is nothing you can say that will make me believe that Lee is a loving and good husband,” the caller, presumably Rebekah Chatfield, is quoted as telling Stephanie Chatfield.
During her interview, Stephanie Chatfield questioned the truth of the allegations, saying in order for her husband to enter the complainant’s apartment, the complainant would have had to leave her apartment, go down an elevator and open the front door to allow someone to enter the building.
“First of all, if this was happening … you had that door blocking you, from him coming in, and hypothetically let’s say he does get in, you have a lock on your door,” the report reads. “Like, who’s letting him in? Tell me that, that’s what I want to know.”
Stephanie Chatfield also told police that the media reports about her husband haven’t been accurate and in “the media’s eyes and the people’s eyes, Lee is already tried and convicted, which is ‘so, so incredibly unfair.’”
The police reports also mention Rebekah Chatfield’s journals, which she acknowledged were her writing. In the journal, Rebekah Chatfield wrote about wanting to be rich and famous within the year.
Paternity A Possible Issue
The paternity question was mentioned briefly in the LPD report.
When asked about it today, White told MIRS that the former Speaker “hasn’t been involved in the process” to date, but “paternity is a question” as the preliminary steps are put in place to ensure DNA testing is “proper, admissible and legal.”
When asked if his client believes the former Speaker is potentially the father, White replied bluntly: “Yes.”
Chartier told MIRS that she fails “to see how this is a story that any media outlet should run. Dragging a child into Rebekah Chatfield’s sordid claims in inappropriate.”
White declined to comment on how paternity might affect the ongoing criminal investigation, and he referred further inquiries to Rebekah Chatfield’s family law attorney, Jacquelyn A. Dupler, of Foster Swift Collins & Smith, who said her policy is not to comment publicly on “private family matters relating” to her clients.
“If any legal action is necessary, my client and I will address those issues in court,” she said. “We sincerely hope that this rumor does not distract or divert law enforcement in their investigations relating to Mr. Lee Chatfield. I thank you for respecting my client’s privacy.”
Police Interviews
In the MSP report, Rebekah Chatfield indicated “this incident was part of an organized effort by Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement to manipulate, isolate, and rape,” and the word after “rape” is redacted.
A separate interview with a person believed to be a Chatfield family member, indicates that Rebekah Chatfield was “ripping Independent Fundamental Baptist” in a 90-minute phone call as he was driving.
This same person, whose name is redacted, indicating that in a group call involving Rebekah Chatfield, it was stated that “they needed a certain judge because certain judges don’t need proof for allegations like this” and when asked if Rebekah Chatfield had proof, the alleged reply was: “You don’t ask victims about proof and you don’t need proof anyways.”
Search Warrants Served
In January 2022, five MSP officers served a search warrant for personnel and student records at NMBBC – Northern Michigan Baptist Bible Church – in Burt Lake and its related school, Northern Michigan Christian Academy.
The officer indicated that he obtained the student file for Lee Chatfield, but the second file – presumably for Rebekah Chatfield – was not found.
When asked, an employee said an undisclosed person wanted the second file to “check the dates that she was enrolled at the school,” but the employee could not say if anything had been removed from the file.
The police report doesn’t indicate whether the file was ever found.
Police also learned that personnel records did not exist at NMBBC as one person, presumably NMBBC owner Rusty Chatfield, told officers that “he doesn’t keep personnel records at all.”
Officers asked a secretary, principal and athletic director for the personnel files and none could say where, if at all, files were kept. School staff also told authorities that they had never had a background check completed for their employment, according to a MSP report.
The police reports indicate that more than 20 items were seized or gathered during the investigation, including books, teacher biographies, resumes, class schedules, staff lists and student records.
In other searches, police also seized a cell phone belonging to Rebekah Chatfield’s husband, Aaron Chatfield, and searched the former Speaker’s home. They also raided the home of two Lee Chatfield associates.
AG’s 2nd Investigation Nets Charges
The Attorney General’s team, who participated in the MSP criminal investigation, also began investigating allegations against Lee Chatfield related to financial improprieties.
That investigation led to a search at the home of Robert Minard and Anné Minard, former staffers for then-Speaker Chatfield.
Nessel initially said Dec. 8 that resolution of the criminal probe would come in “short order.”
Less than two weeks later, however, Nessel said any announcement about potential charges against Lee Chatfield would not be quick, but she announced financial exploitation charges against the Minard couple.
White said his client isn’t necessarily looking for criminal charges against Lee Chatfield, rather she wants “accountability, wherever that falls.”
White said they haven’t discussed if accountability includes a civil lawsuit.
“She escaped from what she describes as a cult-like atmosphere. She’s moving on with her life and her children,” he said. “If the state determines that having sex with a child is not illegal, then we’ll deal with it.”
