House Oversight Committee Chair Jay DeBoyer today said the actions of state Attorney General Dana Nessel and her office when handling a case with clear evidence of wrongdoing show either gross incompetence or corruption through a conflict of interest.

“This continues to show a stunning lack of transparency from AG Nessel,” DeBoyer said. “We saw today clear instances of financial exploitation in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We saw evidence of elderly abuse which would violate a conservatorship arrangement, and we saw an account from an Adult Protective Services case worker that a conversation had been recorded without consent. These are extremely troubling allegations that require thorough investigation.

 “But at the state level this has already been shuffled through and filed away as nothing. We know the person in question in this case is politically connected to the AG. But this investigation from the AG’s office is closed and there is no evidence that any enforcement occurred with all this evidence available. This is highly suspicious given everything we know about what happened, and it’s our duty to look into it given that our Attorney General is the state’s chief law enforcement officer and serves the people of our state.”

A presentation to the Oversight Committee continued to provide background into a 2022 allegation involving Traci Kornak, who was accused of using the account of an elderly client to fraudulently bill an insurance company. Kornak is a former treasurer of the Michigan Democratic Party and a friend of Nessel’s who served on the AG’s transition team when she was elected in 2018.

The presentation offered significant detail into allegations surrounding Kornak’s conduct while acting as a conservator. The elderly client in question, Rosalene Burd, reported to Adult Protective Services (APS) that she was being “watched” by Kornak and cameras were placed in two different rooms in her residence to monitor her activity. Nearly $420,000 in transfers, claim payments and withdrawals were flagged as questionable transactions by a prominent investigative firm that had looked into Kornak’s conservatorship role with Burd, and in multiple instances billing was being done for conservator visits when the visitor log book at Burd’s residence listed nothing for a particular day.

APS concluded in its investigation that began in 2023 that there was enough information for a case worker to believe that exploitation had been occurring. In an interview APS conducted with Burd in December of 2024, a case worker noted that in one instance Kornak was present in Burd’s residence and was asked to leave while an interview took place. Kornak, however, left her phone on a TV tray with recording enabled to capture the conversation, according to the case worker. The recording was stopped due to privacy requests, and the case worker reported that Burd wanted a new guardian who wasn’t Kornak.

A previous presentation to the committee covered instances where Nessel’s communication broke an “isolation wall” that was put in place to separate her from the case and its progress as the AG’s office investigated.

“Our Oversight Committee continues to bring these facts to light. The Attorney General’s office can re-open this investigation at any time with these particulars available,” DeBoyer said. “Not doing so curtails justice and further points to someone insisting there’s just nothing to see here.”