Tresa Baldas, and Robert Allen

Detroit Free Press

Over the last year, the accusers came one by one: Three men claimed former Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh hit on them when they were teenagers.

Criminal charges were never filed.

Then came accuser No. 4.

On Thursday, three years after fleeing Detroit in the middle of the night amidst a sex scandal that would destroy his career, Pugh was arraigned on six counts of child molestation in a Manhattan courtroom.

A 27-year-old Detroit man — accuser No. 4 — claims that Pugh molested him when he was 14 years old, and that it happened in Pugh's apartment while he worked as an anchor for Fox 2 Detroit.

Pugh, 44, who now lives in New York City, was arrested Thursday morning and will be extradited to Detroit to face charges for a crime he has previously adamantly denied: having sex with underage youth.

During his 2015 sexual grooming trial — a civil case that ended with a jury awarding Pugh's accuser $250,000 — Pugh convinced a federal judge to ban the use of the word pedophile, defined as having an erotic attraction to prepubescent children, at trial. He didn't think it was fair or accurate, court records show, and that it unfairly tainted his image.

But that was a civil case, involving a 20-year-old man whose claims never triggered criminal charges.

That's not the case this time as Pugh faces six counts of criminal sexual conduct, including three first-degree charges that carry a maximum life prison sentence. According to prosecutors, here's the story that triggered the charges:

A teenage boy had gone to Fox 2's station to perform with a theater group when he met Pugh for the first time. It was 2003. He approached Pugh, who was working as a reporter and anchor at the time, and asked about an internship. They exchanged phone numbers.

That summer, Pugh invited the teen to his apartment several times, and they kept in touch by phone and text messages. The teen never worked as Pugh's intern, but became his assistant. During the course of their relationship, Pugh had "inappropriate sexual contact" with the boy multiple times in his apartment, prosecutors said.

Charles Pugh faces new legal troubles in 2003 sex case

Why charge him now?

Because the accuser just came forward, according to prosecutors, who say the 27-year-old man went to the Detroit Police Department in recent months and filed his complaint.

“Our office conducted an investigation, in conjunction with the Detroit Police. After that investigation we concluded that we had truth beyond a reasonable doubt to charge the case,” Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Maria Miller told the Free Press.

Pugh also faces three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

"Despite what the defendant has meant to the city in the past, and the positive work he did here, we cannot and will not turn a blind eye to these alleged facts," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a news release.

The criminal charges follow a lengthy sex scandal that destroyed Pugh's career after a high school student accused him of sexually grooming him during a mentorship program at Frederick Douglass Academy, an all-boys school in Detroit.

The allegation triggered a lengthy trial that ended with a jury ordering Pugh to pay his accuser $250,000 for sexually pursuing him when he was supposed to be mentoring him. The plaintiff alleged, among other things, that Pugh took him shopping for clothes and a cell phone, sent him dirty text messages, and pressured him into making a video of himself masturbating in exchange for $160 the youth needed for senior prom.

The boy, identified only as K.S., claims he obliged. Pugh appealed the verdict, but gave up on his appeal in April and agreed to pay the plaintiff the judgement.

Among those who testified at trial were Kapria Jenkins-Banks, a former friend and colleague of Pugh’s who worked with Pugh at WJLB-FM (97.9) and at City Hall, and used to promote his mentorship program.

Jenkins-Banks testified that Pugh once told her that he convinced an intern to come over to his place “because he really needed money.” She also said that Pugh once told her, “‘If a guy was poor enough, they would be desperate to do anything for money.’"

Before his case went to trial, other accusers also came forward with allegations that Pugh pursued them when they were teenagers. They include:

Marcus Bright, now 27, who claims that Pugh hit on him when he applied for an internship at the radio station where Pugh worked. At the time, Bright was a 17- or 18-year-old senior at Detroit School for the Arts. He claims that Pugh sent him texts with “unmistakable sexual overtones," but that he deleted the texts, according to his affidavit on file in federal court.

Nathaniel Hill, a former Cass Technical High School student who is now 23 and in prison for carjacking. He claimed that Pugh hired him when he was 14 to be his intern, had him over to his house numerous times, and often played pornographic movies while the teen visited or cleaned his house, court records show.

Pugh's lawyer, Marc Deldin, argued the accusers were not credible. They did not testify at trial.

Deldin repeatedly argued at trial that Pugh's accuser was old enough to know what he was doing, and that he welcomed Pugh's sexual advances because he wanted money.

“This case is about regret," Deldin told jurors, arguing Pugh's accuser was never harassed or abused by his client, but rather did some regrettable things because he wanted money.

"He's embarrassed. He's ashamed of what he voluntarily did. He sold his self-respect and he regrets it."

The former broadcast journalist, who served as a weekend TV news anchor, was elected to City Council in 2009, serving as president. He mysteriously vanished from Detroit after allegations surfaced in 2013 involving his relationships with teenage boys and he later resigned his council seat.