Mayor Mike Duggan's chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, and two other city workers involved in deleting emails about a controversial program supported by the mayor will not be punished, Duggan announced Tuesday.

Although a blistering Detroit inspector general's report found that Wiley abused her authority by twice ordering city staff to delete dozens of emails, Duggan excused Wiley's decisions and said she would undergo public records training.

"They made a mistake in judgment, there's no question that is what they did," Duggan said. "I believe this is the appropriate action to be taken."

Two officials who carried out Wiley's orders to delete emails, chief development officer Ryan Friedrichs and his deputy, Sirene Abou-Chakra, also will receive training on document management, the Freedom of Information Act and laws about preserving records.

The deleted emails — which were later recovered and revealed information about the city's fundraising activities for the Make Your Date maternity program — remain the subject of a criminal investigation by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's Office. Several of the recovered emails directly contradicted previous administration statements about city involvement in fundraising efforts on behalf of Make Your Date.

Duggan addressed the deleted emails and other aspects of the inspector general's report during a news conference at City Hall Tuesday morning.

He repeated earlier written administration statements that the emails were deleted to protect less experienced staffers. Wiley's decision-making, he said, was influenced by what he described as a threatening, paranoid environment created by local businessman Bob Carmack, who had hired a private investigator to follow the mayor.

Senior administration officials feared what would happen to staff members if the emails were released, Duggan said. The messages involved two development officers who carried out a Make Your Date fundraising campaign that Duggan ordered in 2017.

Duggan recalled for reporters a discussion with senior staff after he found out about the deleted emails in May: "We had two junior staff people who had done nothing except their jobs. And it's a matter of concern to us that Carmack and his surrogates continue to file Freedom of Information Act requests," he said at the news conference.

"At some point, these two junior staff people are going to end up on (Carmack's) radar screen. They're going to become part of the media circus, they're not in the cabinet, they haven't been warned. They aren't ready for this. And so we thought, in order to protect them that if they deleted the emails, their names would never surface and they'd be left out. Obviously, that isn't the way it has turned out."

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The inspector general's revelation that Wiley was behind more than 200 pages of mysteriously deleted emails was one of several instances of misconduct cited in the report surrounding the city’s relationship with Make Your Date. City Inspector General Ellen Ha described the email directive as the most egregious element of the issues her office reviewed during its months-long investigation.

"When a public official, especially somebody from very high up, when that person orders his or her subordinates to delete certain emails, we believe that's contrary to open government," Ha said in an interview with the Free Press on Monday.

Wiley's first order to delete the emails was in December, after the city began receiving Freedom of Information Act requests about Make Your Date. Though the city had not yet received a FOIA request for the emails that Wiley had deleted, "any reasonable person could assume the request was coming," Ha's report reads.

"She (Wiley) did have an intention to make those emails disappear, which we find egregious because the whole point of open government is so that people see what went on. And to have those records disappear is just not only a violation of spirit of openness but quite frankly it really puts a shadow over the government that's supposed to be transparent."

It is illegal in Michigan to destroy public records, but the inspector general’s report did not determine whether Wiley or any other staffers involved in deleting the emails broke any laws. That could be determined through the investigation by Nessel’s public integrity unit.

The OIG recommended discipline for Wiley, Friedrichs and Abou-Chakra for their roles in having the emails deleted. Ha also recommended that Wiley be disciplined for providing misleading statements about Make Your Date's funding.

Ha's office stood by its findings on Tuesday after Duggan's news conference.

"All of the items covered in the press conference were considered before we finalized the report, so we're going to let our report speak for itself," said Deputy Inspector General Kamau Marable

The inspector general's report rekindled unanswered questions about Duggan's relationship with Hassan.

But the mayor again refused to discuss it on Tuesday.

“I’m never going to discuss my personal life and you guys know that,” Duggan said Tuesday when asked whether he had an extramarital affair with Hassan. “The OIG concluded it wasn’t relevant.”

Duggan was seen meeting with Hassan after hours at a suburban location in surveillance video captured by Carmack's private eye and broadcast outside City Hall last November. Carmack said he broadcast the video so the public could see how the mayor behaves.

Fearing what Carmack might do next, Duggan said he apologized to his cabinet for the bad spot they were in.

“You all need to be conscious of the fact, you don't know if you're being followed tonight,” Duggan said he told his staff. “You don't know if you're being recorded, if you're being taped. You're going to have to live your life as if you may be the next person, subject to these kinds of personal pressures and if anybody thinks that was paranoid, look what's happened since.”

The inspector general launched its investigation into Make Your Date in April following a Free Press report about Duggan’s relationship with Make Your Date and Hassan. Duggan worked with Wayne State University officials to create the program, handpicked Hassan to lead the initiative and ordered city staff to raise money for Make Your Date. The city also directed more than $358,000 in federal grants to the program.

The inspector general concluded that Duggan showed Make Your Date preferential treatment by selecting the program to partner with the city in its fight against infant mortality.

Duggan defended the program's selection on Tuesday. He said addressing preterm birth and at-risk pregnancies has been a top priority for his administration and Hassan's program had the expertise to help Detroit expectant mothers.

"We picked the right program," Duggan said. "The program has worked and there is no finding anywhere in this report that says Make Your Date doesn't work, that $1 was misspent, or that says this wasn't the right program.

"I strongly believe in this program and I believe it was the right thing for pregnant moms in the City of Detroit."