One of Flint's leading attorneys for lead poisoning residents is under fire after a leaked recording shows him making disparaging comments about the city of Flint and lead poisoning survivors on a 2018 podcast.
New York City attorney Corey Stern called Flynt a “terrible guy” during an Aug. 2, 2018, appearance on the podcast “Race Wars.”
Those comments and others from Stern's podcast were featured this week on Roland Martin Unfiltered, a digital public affairs show.
On Friday, Stern criticized one of the Flint contractors in the lawsuit, Veolia North America. A spokesperson for the company issued a news release about the “Roland Martin Unfiltered” program's coverage of the incident, which is accused of taking isolated statements out of context and attempting to resurface the incident. His five-year-old podcast is about “changing the narrative.”
But Nayira Sharif, a Flint resident and director of Flint Rising, a coalition of community organizations working to help those affected by Flint's water crisis, said Stern's comments on the podcast called it “extremely racist.”
Stern's comments come as Michigan marks the 10th anniversary of the Flint drinking water lead poisoning in April. No Flint residents have yet received a check from the $626.25 million civil settlement approved by a federal judge in 2021, but Stern's lawyers, who are expected to receive nearly a third of the settlement, have asked for a partial payment. The company also requested interest on the principal amount of the settlement. Officials said last April that they hoped to begin distributing checks to Flint residents by the end of 2023, but that hasn't happened.
“Nobody wants to be there. I'm there every week,” Stern said, referring to work he did in Flint in 2016 related to lawsuits against the state of Michigan and other defendants.
At another point in the podcast, Stern expressed concern that young victims of lead poisoning, like the Flint victims, would spend their lawsuit settlements on prostitutes and drugs.
Mr. Stern spoke not about the Flint case specifically, but about lead poisoning case settlements in general, and said part of his job as a lawyer is to protect the plaintiffs in his cases from themselves.
“When you get $2.5 million…you spend it quickly. But when you give it to someone who's never had money in their life, all of a sudden that person has aunts, cousins, , I have a brother…and they get lead poisoning…part of the job is to protect them from themselves and put them in a place where it will last for some period of time.”
Chicago comedian Bill Betito, another guest on the podcast, said that if a “kid” suddenly received a check for $2 million, “there would be dead prostitutes.”
Mr. Stern laughed and replied, “You're right. And a lot of cocaine,” followed by more laughter.
The majority of the more than 40,000 Flint residents who receive proceeds from the settlement are not expected to receive six-figure checks. Most checks can be in the low thousands of dollars.
“Veolia has used its public relations machine for years to shift the narrative away from its role in the Flint water crisis,” Stern said in an emailed statement Friday. “Veolia's latest public relations move is selling four-second snippets to the media,” from a podcast from five years ago. During that podcast, which lasted more than an hour, I detailed the toll of childhood lead poisoning and the tragic consequences it can have for Flint's children. But Mr. Veolia denies that children were poisoned with lead in Flint, or even that the water was unsafe. Instead, Veolia continues to try to distract from her company's role in the water crisis by attacking victims' lawyers. ”
A Free Press reporter listened to Stern's podcast “Race Wars'' in its entirety. Although many of the comments were disrespectful and clearly in jest, Stern's remarks did not appear to be taken out of context.
Veolia issued a statement saying Stern's “disgraceful comments attacking and disparaging the people of Flint speak for themselves.”
Sharif said if Stern were to joke about the city and legal settlements stemming from lead poisoning on his podcast, it would only make it more offensive.
One of the implicit racist ideas that led to the appointment of the city of Flint's emergency manager and the subsequent disastrous decision to switch the city of Flint's drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. is the idea that black people can do it. Don't worry about yourself or your money, Sharif said Friday.
“We have to send someone to take care of them” is a racist message, she says.
She said the same message underlies Stern's statements about protecting lead poisoning plaintiffs from themselves.
Sharif said his criticism of Stern's comments should in no way be seen as an endorsement of Veolia, saying Veolia had spent “an untold amount of money to cover up any kind of responsibility for the water crisis.” ” he said. Flint Rising opposes the privatization of public water systems, which are part of Veolia's operations, she said.
Arthur Woodson, another Flint resident and activist, said he supports Stern and also believes Veolia is trying to dig up dirt on Stern.
In a letter Friday to U.S. District Judge Judith Levy, who is overseeing the Flint case, Woodson said Stern “seems to be one of the few lawyers willing to continue fighting for the residents of Flint.” ” he said.
In the letter, Woodson said he had been contacted by Veolia's public relations firm about Stern's comments on the podcast. Woodson said an employee at public relations firm Actum told him they were looking for Flint residents to comment on an article to be published in the New York Post.
Late Friday, Mr. Levy issued an order for Mr. Stern and Mr. Veolia's attorneys to appear before her on Tuesday at 2 p.m. Levy said in her order that she learned that Veolia's public relations firm had “contacted attorneys in the litigation” and issued a news release “attacking the integrity and motives of the plaintiffs' attorneys.” She said Tuesday's hearing was “to determine what action from the court is appropriate.”
Flint's water crisis began in April 2014 after a state-appointed emergency manager switched the city's drinking water supply. It was intended as a temporary cost-cutting measure, but it turned out to be a disastrous mistake. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality admitted that it did not mandate the use of required corrosion control chemicals as part of the water treatment process.
After the Flint River water began flowing, the corrosive water leached lead from fittings, pipes, and equipment, causing a spike in toxic lead levels in the blood of Flint's children and other residents.
Flint switched to Detroit Water in October 2015, but risks remained due to damage to the city's water distribution infrastructure.
The city announced that work to replace residential service lines in Flint, funded primarily by federal and state funding, is nearly complete.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X (@paulegan4).
