Charles Pugh

Charles Pugh (born August 3, 1971) is an American television journalist, radio personality, and politician best known for his career for ten years for being the weekend anchor at WJBK in Detroit from 1999 to 2009. Pugh was elected council president of Detroit City Council in Detroit's city elections in 2009. He also served as the radio personality on CoCo, Foolish and Mr. Chase in the Morning and his own talk show, That's What's Up, which originally aired Sunday evenings on WJLB.

Controversy

Pugh, who came out as gay in 2004, is the city's first openly gay elected official.

Pugh resigned from the station in March 2009 to pursue his political campaign. He won the most votes of any council candidate on election day, giving him the title of council president, despite a controversy late in the campaign when he acknowledged that he had been struggling financially and his home had been foreclosed.

In 2012, Pugh made headlines in what local newspapers termed a "Twitter war" with an intern at Automotive News. After a brief disagreement on the social network, Pugh tweeted Automotive News requesting that they speak with the intern about his "offensive" posts. Pugh's action was widely derided.

On June 26, 2013, Pugh made headlines again, when it was alleged that while serving as president of Detroit City Council he had an inappropriate relationship with an underage 17 year old high school student boy whom he mentored. Family spokesman Skip Mongo told reporters Pugh “was in a position of authority and he tried to seduce this young man.” News broke of the allegations, and Pugh went into hiding requesting a four-week medical leave, which was denied.

On June 27, 2013, Detroit emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr removed Pugh of his responsibilities and pay as president of Detroit City Council.

On June 29, 2013, A police report was filed claiming a teenager was the victim of inappropriate behavior by Pugh.