Courser said he is taking responsibility for his share of the saga, saying "my actions are my own.” | Detroit News via AP Michigan lawmaker won't resign after claiming sex with male prostitute

A Michigan state lawmaker is refusing to resign after he sent an email in which he falsely claimed to have had sex with a male prostitute, allegedly in order to cover up an affair with a woman.

Michigan state Rep. Todd Courser now says he sent the email because he was being blackmailed.


Courser released a 27-minute audio recording Monday morning in which he claimed the blackmailers knew information about an alleged affair between him and fellow state Rep. Cindy Gamrat.

“The email was put in motion to disrupt the blackmailer and give me some clues as to the surveillance of my life. It was all done in a pressure cooker and … it put me in a situation where a bad choice was the choice that I made,” he says on the tape.

In the recording, Courser accuses three former staffers of the blackmail and says they are part of the Lansing “mafia.”

“In Lansing, you either go along and you play along or they set out to destroy you by doing what they can to malign, smear and undermine you — in essence, get rid of you,” the lawmaker says.

Courser says that although the blackmailers wanted him to resign, he will remain in office, citing a duty to reveal corruption.

Courser, a married father of four, and Gamrat, a married mother of three, haven’t denied the affair. In the recording, he apologizes to and asks for forgiveness from his family and Gamrat and her family, specifically her husband.

Michigan state Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter on Friday ordered an investigation by the House business office to see if there were any violation of House rules or illegal action by the two lawmakers, both of whom are Republicans.

“If this weren’t so offensive, it might be funny. He sends out these ridiculously long email rants, about the so-called establishment, and uses words like mafia and cartel,” Cotter said in the Detroit Free Press. “But no one else did wrong here. These two representatives voluntarily engaged in the affair and they need to own up to that. There are 107 other members of the House currently serving. It’s so unfair to this institution as a whole and it’s so unfair that we have this type of distraction.”

Courser and Gamrat did not immediately respond to requests for comment.