DETROIT — A federal judge on Monday denied motions to quash subpoenas requiring testimony by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and others criminally charged in the Flint water crisis case in a civil trial underway involving the city's engineering consultants.
But U.S. District Judge Judith Levy set a Friday hearing when the attorneys representing the governor, former top Snyder aide Richard Baird and others can argue about whether the defendants can be asked questions beyond those they answered in their civil depositions. The judge indicated the scope of their waiver of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during civil litigation testimony "will be narrowly construed.”
Snyder, Baird, former Flint emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, and former city public works director Howard Croft have been trying to avoid testifying in the Flint water civil trial because they could be subjected to questions that overlap with their criminal cases related to the lead-contaminated drinking water and Legionnaires' disease cases.
