Former GOP aide admits to sexual battery
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Jim Nichols
Plain Dealer Reporter

The former head of the Michigan Federation of Young Republicans admitted Tuesday that he sexually abused a colleague during a national convention in Cleveland last summer.

Michael Flory, a 32-year-old attorney from Jackson, Mich., pleaded guilty to sexual battery on the day his rape trial was to begin in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

The college student he overpowered in a downtown hotel room gasped and dabbed her eyes as Flory replied to Judge Peter Corrigan’s question, “Are you indeed guilty?”

“Sure yeah,” Flory said.

Sure, yeah….That’s showing remorse.

Assistant County Prosecutor Carol Skutnik said Flory’s lawyers, Henry Hilow and Bill McGinty, surprised her with a plea offer as trial witnesses from several states arrived to testify.

Translation, when the other half dozen or so victims showed up, he decided to cop a plea.

The plea bargain, she said, doesn’t include any suggestion of leniency, and the state will seek incarceration. She also said she hopes to present evidence of several “other incidents of sexual misconduct” in which Flory took advantage of vulnerable young women.

…..

She and some supporters lamented when the incident became public last winter that Flory and his followers within the Republican organization smeared her reputation in retaliation for accusing Flory of rape. Skutnik said she found that to be true.Lovely fellow, huh?