Michigan State Police | Susan J. Demas
According to a complaint filed with the State Board of Ethics, both the director of the Michigan State Police, Col. James Grady, and his chief deputy, Lt. Col. Aimee Brimacombe, improperly received nearly $20,000 in bonuses.
The panel’s members are appointed by the governor and it has only advisory powers. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer tapped Grady for the post in September 2023.
The complaint, filed Jan. 6 by the Michigan State Police (MSP) Troopers Association and the MSP Command Officers Association, allege that Grady in 2024 awarded himself a performance bonus of $10,145, as well as a $9,156 bonus to Brimacombe, in violation of both MSP policy and state guidelines for ethical conduct.
“The steps taken by Col. Grady and Lt. Col. Brimacombe undoubtedly were taken for their own personal economic gains. Apart from the Department’s own Code of Conduct provisions to which other MSP personnel are responsible, their actions raise ethical concerns under the State Ethics Act,” stated a letter sent to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, signed by both Nate Johnson, president of the MSP Troopers Association, and Paul Pummill, executive director of the MSP Command Officers Association.
The complaint, provided to the Michigan Advance through a Freedom of Information Act request, included emails from Stephanie Horton, who served as MSP’s director of human resources until April 2024, objecting to the bonuses and ultimately refusing to sign off on them.
“The policy indicates that you are not eligible for performance pay if you have not been in your current position for at least one year during the first full pay period in February,” Horton wrote to Grady on April 1, 2024. “My advice is to hold yourselves to the same standard that you hold other members of the department to … I cannot recall an instance where we have deviated from this performance pay policy for probationary members.”
Horton resigned from MSP later that month after 23 years with the department, and now works as the interim director of employee and labor relations at Michigan State University.
In their letter to Nessel, Johnson and Pummill noted that in response to their complaint, they were told by Whitmer’s office that because Grady and Brimacombe are considered “unclassified” state employees, they “are not governed by MSP’s internal policy related to performance pay,” a conclusion they said further raised their concerns.
“In essence, the response suggests that appointed personnel are not subject to the same rules and restrictions of all other MSP personnel, including MSP’s internal policies and related past practices,” they wrote. “To suggest that deviating from an established past practice for personal economic gain is permissible and condoned raises grave concerns as to the accountability of MSP leadership.”
A request for comment was sent to Whitmer’s office but has yet to be returned.
2025-03 Responsive Records Part 1
MSP spokesperson Shanon Banner sent the Advance a statement when asked about the complaint.
“Integrity is a core characteristic of the Michigan State Police. We are confident all actions by department leadership were in line with the State of Michigan’s ethics standards,” said Banner.
The complaint further alleged that questions of integrity surround Brimacombe’s appointment by Grady as MSP’s chief deputy director, despite a two-year moratorium that was placed on her promotion following a 2021 incident in which she was sanctioned for using a state-owned vehicle and being insubordinate when told to return it.
The complaint noted that after taking office in September 2023, Grady did not initially appoint a deputy director, but instead waited over three months to appoint Brimacombe to that role, allowing the two-year restriction against her promotion to expire.
However, they say that in doing so, Brimacombe “leapt four ranks (from F/Lieutenant to Lt/Colonel), which was a promotion over longstanding Department members who were already established throughout those higher ranks in between.”
The complaint also said questions were raised surrounding Grady’s “lack of integrity and disregard for policy when he was less than truthful during his witness interview in the 2023 Flint promotion investigation,” and included a copy of an April 2024 news story about the incident, which involved cheating on promotion exams in which Grady was accused of “not being fully truthful about his relationship with Yvonne Brantley, the former Flint Post commander who had to retire in lieu of being fired.”
Johnson and Pummill said there appeared to be a double standard between Grady and rank-and-file MSP members when it came to the very serious allegation of misleading investigators.
“[I]n his case, it was ignored by the Department’s Professional Standards Section as immaterial and dropped altogether,” they said.
The State Ethics Board is expected to take up the complaint at its next public meeting, which is scheduled for March 6 in Lansing.
2025-03 Responsive Records Part 2
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