The Same Playbook. Four Women. One Prosecutor.

Kellie Bartlett was a clerk at the Eaton County Sheriff’s Office. She and Eaton County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Gillentine began a relationship in 2015. When Gillentine ended the relationship in spring 2017, Bartlett said he sexually assaulted her in March 2017. In January 2018, she filed a complaint with Michigan State Police.

The Eaton County Prosecutor’s Office recused itself because of conflict of interest. The case was transferred to Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor Pratt, who was appointed special prosecutor by the Attorney General’s office in spring 2018. Nakfoor Pratt reviewed the evidence from both the MSP investigation and the Mission Team investigation and announced publicly that her review “raised suspicion that the allegation against the deputy could be false.” Not was false, not is false, COULD be false. She issued a detailed press release laying out a timeline of Bartlett’s conduct, naming Bartlett publicly, while Deputy Gillentine was not named because he had not been charged. His name however, appears on the court docket, as evidence from his phone was also seized.

In September 2018, Bartlett was charged with nine felony counts and five misdemeanor counts, a total of 14 charges, including filing a false report of a felony, stalking, identity theft, and using a computer to commit a crime. LSJ later reported she was facing 16 charges after additional charging. The deputy was never charged.

MSP Detective Sgt. Erik Darling testified in the hearing that led to criminal charges against Bartlett. Darling told the court the investigation had determined Bartlett was a willing and consenting partner in the sexual encounter with Gillentine. He described text messages she sent her husband the morning after she said she was raped as sexual in nature and said they mocked the encounter.

Bartlett’s attorney, Neil Rockind, filed a motion in Ingham County Circuit Court to disqualify Nakfoor Pratt from the case. The motion documented that Nakfoor Pratt had made herself a necessary witness by conducting independent investigations into Bartlett and by destroying evidence. It documented that she had exceeded the scope of her authority by filing out-of-county charges without proper AG appointment. It documented that she passed notes to the accused deputy and his attorney during a Friend of the Court hearing in the custody case between Gillentine and Underhill, and that those notes were subsequently destroyed. LSJ reported that Rockind said Nakfoor Pratt had no reason to attend that custody hearing and interrupted it to tell the judge Underhill was lying. The MiCOURT docket for Lisa Underhill v. Robert Kenneth Gillentine lists Judge John D. Maurer as judge of record. Rockind wrote that there was a clear pattern: at all turns, the Barry County Prosecutor always comes back around to focusing all of her energy and wrath on Bartlett. Rockind also documented that Nakfoor Pratt threatened to charge Bartlett’s husband if Bartlett did not plead guilty. That was a threat that Pratt made good on, because on April 30, 2019, she issued a press release charging Potterville Police Chief Shane Bartlett with three felonies. The threat mattered because Shane was not just a spouse. He was a potential defense witness to the communications MSP used to attack Bartlett’s rape report and a public supporter who could keep the accountability narrative alive.

The motion was heard by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Clinton Canady III. Canady denied it. He told Rockind that threatening to charge a defendant’s spouse happens “all the time.” The campaign finance record for Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor Pratt’s committee shows contributions from donors connected to the same professional network her prosecution of Bartlett protected, including Judge John Maurer.

Bartlett entered a no-contest plea. Under Michigan law, a no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt. It is a plea that ends proceedings without the defendant conceding the factual allegations against them. Bartlett’s husband was also being charged, faced proceedings separately.

The public docket adds a second woman to the Gillentine/Bartlett record. Lisa Underhill filed an Eaton County Circuit Court case against Robert Kenneth Gillentine on February 16, 2017. Judge John D. Maurer is listed as judge of record. Judgment was rendered on February 27, 2017. The docket later shows Friend of the Court activity, transfer orders, and a February 2018 order of disqualification or reassignment. This is the same custody record LSJ described when reporting Rockind’s allegation that Nakfoor Pratt interrupted a hearing to tell the judge Underhill was lying.

Months after Bartlett reported Gillentine to Michigan State Police, and within the same September 2018 charging window, Lisa Renee Underhill-Dietz was charged in 56A District Court. The Lansing State Journal identified Underhill as the deputy’s ex-girlfriend and Bartlett’s co-defendant. LSJ reported that Bartlett and Underhill were accused of creating a fake Facebook profile for the deputy using his personal identifying information and creating a fake email address in his name. The case entitlement is State of Michigan v. Underhill-Dietz, Case No. 2018-18-1863-FY. The judge of record is Michael L. Schipper. The investigating agency listed on each count is MSP Post 11 Lansing.

The charges against Underhill-Dietz mirror the digital architecture used against Bartlett: using a computer to commit a crime; conspiracy to commit unauthorized access; identity theft; attempted identity theft; and stalking. The allegations described in the reporting and court record centered on online speech and alleged Facebook activity involving Gillentine. The stalking count was amended to attempted unlawful posting of a message. On February 8, 2019, the computer-crime count was nolle prossed, the unauthorized-access and identity-theft counts were dismissed, and Underhill-Dietz entered a no-contest plea to the amended unlawful-posting count. Sentencing was set for March 27, 2019. The docket shows $200 in total fines and costs.

That matters because the public story has often been framed as if Kellie Bartlett alone was targeted after reporting Gillentine. The docket record and LSJ’s co-defendant framing say otherwise. A second woman connected to Gillentine was charged in the same period, by the same law-enforcement apparatus, using the same online-speech and computer-crime theory. Underhill-Dietz had filed against Gillentine in February 2017. Bartlett reported Gillentine in January 2018. By September 2018, both women were criminal defendants. Nakfoor Pratt was the special prosecutor driving the Bartlett/Gillentine criminal record. Schipper was the judge of record on the Underhill-Dietz criminal docket. Underhill was not merely a side character. She had her own court record with Gillentine and could supply facts that complicated the prosecution’s presentation of Bartlett as a lone, vindictive actor.

Megan Moryc was a Michigan State Police trooper. WLNS 6 News documented her gender-discrimination and retaliation case in a multi-part series titled “The Big Boys’ Club.” WLNS reported that Moryc’s concerns escalated when a female law enforcement agent told Moryc she believed she had been secretly videotaped while having sex with MSP Trooper Timothy Moreno. The agent later told Moryc she was prepared to file a formal complaint against Moreno; Moryc reported the situation to her Post command. WLNS separately described the October 2020 resort incident that led to criminal charges against Moryc as drunken horseplay during a union gathering.

The Isabella County FOIA response on the Moreno criminal investigation makes the institutional contrast sharper. In the MSP original incident report, the complainant said she did not know Moreno filmed one of their sexual encounters, did not give him permission, was not okay with him having the video, and said he refused to delete it. She told investigators she had talked to Moryc about filing a report. The same report lists D/Sgt. Erik Darling as an investigator, states Darling drafted the search-warrant affidavit, and lists him among the personnel who executed the warrant at Moreno’s residence. The search seized phones, computer hardware, and storage devices. The report states Moreno was not under arrest, was told he was not going to be under arrest, was not Mirandized, and was free to leave. The MSP Computer Crimes Unit later located the two videos on Moreno’s laptop and in a separate photo-vault app on his phone; the investigator wrote that in reviewing both videos, there were no actions by the victim showing she knew the video was being taken. Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney David R. Barberi declined to charge Moreno.

Moryc was charged with two counts of assault and battery and two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree related to an October 2020 incident at a resort near Traverse City during a union gathering. She entered a no-contest plea to the two assault and battery counts. She was fired twice by MSP. Both times, she won her position back through arbitration. The second arbitration was appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which declined the appeal in 2024.

Nakfoor Pratt’s office was also appointed special prosecutor in the Trevor Antcliff matter, where Moryc was the victim, and declined charges. MSP subsequently pursued a separate perjury allegation against Moryc stemming from a divorce proceeding in Montcalm County. MSP brass found Moryc had committed perjury and fired her a second time. An administrative law judge overturned that termination, explicitly stating Moryc had not committed perjury and chastising MSP for pursuing her with what he called animus.

Erik Darling, the MSP Detective Sergeant who testified in the Bartlett matter, also appeared in connection with the Moryc case. The specific nature of his role in Moryc’s proceedings is documented in the WLNS Big Boys’ Club series and in Moryc’s federal complaint.

The charges in the Bartlett case included stalking, using a computer to commit a crime, identity theft, and filing a false report. They initially totaled 14 counts across nine felonies and five misdemeanors; LSJ later reported Bartlett was facing 16 charges. The charges in the Underhill-Dietz case included using a computer to commit a crime, unauthorized access, identity theft, stalking, and unlawful posting of a message. The charges in the Moryc matter included criminal sexual conduct and assault and battery. Bartlett, Underhill-Dietz, and Moryc entered no-contest pleas to reduced or amended charges. None of those pleas is an admission of guilt under Michigan law. In the Bartlett matter, Gillentine was not charged. In the Moryc matter, the trooper was not charged.

The use of computer-related charges, stalking charges, unlawful-posting charges, and identity-theft allegations as the mechanism of prosecution against women in the orbit of law enforcement misconduct allegations is not accidental. These charges are difficult to defend against because they encompass broad categories of digital behavior that most people engage in routinely. Accessing a social media account, sending messages through third parties, creating online profiles, forwarding information to others: all of these can be charged under Michigan’s computer crime statutes if a prosecutor is motivated to find a crime in the behavior. When the target is a woman whose speech, relationship, or record complicates the institutional story protecting a law enforcement officer, the template produces a predictable outcome.

Jeff Pratt served as Hastings Chief of Police from 2014 until April 2021. He is Julie Nakfoor Pratt’s former spouse. His career in law enforcement began in March 1987 at the Barry County Sheriff’s Office, the same institutional network within which Nakfoor Pratt has served as prosecutor. He moved to the City of Hastings Police Department in December 1987 and rose to chief.

His April 2021 departure was announced mid-week, with his last day set for that Friday. Published reporting from WBCH noted that most City Council members were surprised by the announcement. The city manager described it as a mutual agreement reached over the prior couple months. No public explanation was provided for the timing. Community members in Hastings have raised concerns, attributed to local Facebook posts and community sources, about Pratt’s demeanor in his role as a school resource officer prior to his departure. Those accounts are community sourced and have not been independently verified through official records.

Jeff Pratt’s position as Hastings police chief during the period of his former spouse’s tenure as Barry County Prosecuting Attorney places him within the same institutional geography that connects every documented actor in this investigation: the Barry County and greater Hastings law enforcement network, the same network that includes the former Hastings MSP Post, the same network whose members appear across documented cases of prosecutorial conduct that consistently produces the same outcome when women report law enforcement misconduct.

In 2017, Nakfoor Pratt was appointed special prosecutor in a case against Lowell Police Chief Steven Bukala after the Kent County Prosecutor recused himself due to a conflict of interest. Bukala was charged with five misdemeanor counts of unauthorized use of LEIN, the Law Enforcement Information Network, a restricted database accessible only to law enforcement that contains personal information and criminal history records. Bukala had been placed on paid administrative leave while MSP investigated. When charges were authorized, his suspension was switched to unpaid.

The case resolved with Bukala entering a plea to a single count of willful neglect of duty. The remaining four charges were dismissed. He received $1,425 in fines and was ordered to complete LEIN retraining within 90 days. He was not sentenced to jail. He kept his job.

Nakfoor Pratt made her reasoning explicit in a public statement: “I wanted to ensure that Chief Bukala takes responsibility for what he did without losing his ability to work as a police officer. From this point on, whether Chief Bukala succeeds in maintaining his career and improving his integrity is up to him.”

A police chief who abused a restricted law enforcement database received a plea deal explicitly structured to preserve his law enforcement career. The prosecutor who structured that deal is the same prosecutor who initially filed 14 charges against a woman who reported being raped by a law enforcement officer, with LSJ later reporting she faced 16; set her bond at $100,000; issued a public press release naming her before charges were filed; attended hearings she had no obligation to attend; threatened to charge her husband if she did not plead; and then charged her husband anyway.

In the Bartlett matter, social media access was restricted as a condition of Bartlett’s release. The restriction is not a standard feature of every prosecution. It is a targeted condition applied in cases where the defendant’s public voice is the specific threat the prosecution is managing. Bartlett was speaking publicly about what the deputy had done to her. Her attorney was giving interviews to television stations. Documents were being shared with journalists. The restriction was a mechanism to contain that public voice while the prosecution proceeded.

Bartlett’s husband, who was speaking up for her and amplifying her account, was charged separately. Nakfoor Pratt had threatened to charge him as leverage before the plea. Then she charged him anyway. The threat and the follow-through serve different functions: the threat is coercive, designed to extract a plea by making the cost of resistance extend to the person the target loves most. The charge itself is punitive and silencing. It also burdens a potential defense witness, because Shane Bartlett was tied to the communications MSP used to argue Kellie had lied. Both tools appear in the Bartlett matter. The social media restriction appears alongside both.

In at least one Barry County matter connected to this investigation, Nakfoor Pratt sought and obtained a modification to a probation term approximately one year into supervision, adding a condition prohibiting the probationer from speaking about or complaining about Nakfoor Pratt or APA Christopher J. Elsworth. The modification was not imposed at arraignment. It was sought after the probationer began publicly documenting Elsworth’s January 2025 move to the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office.

A probation condition prohibiting criticism of the prosecuting attorney and her APA is not a standard condition. It is not reasonably related to rehabilitation or public safety, the legal standard Michigan courts apply to probation modifications. It is a content-based restriction on protected speech about identified public officials, sought by the official whose conduct the speech concerns, imposed through the criminal justice system that official controls. It is a gag order obtained through a probation modification hearing. It appeared alongside a social media restriction, also imposed in the same matter, that required negotiation to address.

One additional documented fact belongs in the record. John D. Maurer is the judge of record on the Bartlett case in Eaton County Circuit Court, the case in which a woman who reported being raped by a law enforcement officer was initially charged with 14 counts and later faced 16, according to LSJ. Maurer is also the Eaton County Circuit Court judge who dismissed all charges against former MSU President Lou Anna Simon in May 2020 in the Larry Nassar case, ruling that prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence. The Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously upheld that dismissal in December 2021. Both are documented facts. Readers may draw their own conclusions about what it means that the same judge presided over both matters.

A pattern is not established by two cases. But a pattern is documented by multiple cases when the same actors appear, the same charges are filed, the same institutional posture is applied, and the same outcome is produced. The documentation here meets that standard.

Women who report law enforcement misconduct, or whose records and speech complicate the institutional defense of law enforcement misconduct, face a documented risk of being charged themselves in the orbit of Barry County’s prosecutorial network. So do witnesses and supporters who could assist the defense. The charges follow a template: stalking, computer crimes, identity theft, false report, unlawful posting. The accused law enforcement officers are not charged. No-contest pleas are extracted under prosecutorial pressure. The prosecutor attends hearings she is not required to attend. The institutional weight of the office is deployed in a personal and documented way against the woman who filed the report, the woman whose record supports the accountability narrative, and the spouse or witness who could help defend her.

When the person with law enforcement connections is not a victim but a perpetrator, the pattern reverses. Richelle Spencer was an active Barry County Sheriff’s Office deputy who stalked a Hastings-area physician during her working hours in 2023, while simultaneously campaigning for sheriff. The Sixberry notes, handwritten documentation by Barry County Undersheriff Jason Sixberry of an internal investigation, show Spencer acknowledged needing medical intervention. A personal protection order was reportedly issued. Spencer remained employed by BCSO and on the ballot. The charging decision was in the hands of an APA per dialogue documented at a Barry County Board of Commissioners meeting. No charges were filed. When FOIA requests were submitted for the Sixberry notes in July 2024, Nakfoor Pratt denied all three, determining the documents were not subject to disclosure. Sheriff Dar Leaf released them directly, stating the public had a right to know. Spencer lost the August 2024 primary. Michigan State Police arrested her in October 2024 after a second stalking offense in a different county. Her case is now indefinitely adjourned in Kent County with a competency finding and insanity defense filed. Barry County’s declination did not stop the harm. It deferred it to a second victim in a different jurisdiction.

Kellie Bartlett reported a rape. Initially 14 charges, later reported by LSJ as 16. A $100,000 bond. A prosecutor who attended every hearing. A threat against her husband. A no-contest plea. Richelle Spencer stalked a physician during her working hours as an active deputy, acknowledged needing medical intervention, reportedly had a PPO against her, and faced no charges from the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office. Those two outcomes come from the same office, in the same period, under the same prosecuting attorney.

The MSP command structure that produced Erik Darling in both matters is the same command structure that kept Bryan Fuller working after a $14.5 million verdict for fabricating evidence. It is the same command structure that filed sworn affidavits in Eaton County Circuit Court that subordinate officers’ deposition testimony contradicts. It is the same command structure that received a formal written complaint about Fuller’s Barry County conduct in March 2023, while a federal jury was deliberating in the McCann case, and took no documented action. The pattern is consistent with the Fuller record: when MSP or law enforcement misconduct is exposed, the accountability mechanism turns back on the person exposing it, documenting it, or standing too close to the record.

There is one additional institutional question the documented record raises and does not answer. The Michigan Attorney General’s office is the body that appoints special prosecutors when county prosecutors have conflicts of interest. In the Bartlett matter, the AG appointed Nakfoor Pratt after Eaton County recused itself. In the Bukala matter, the AG appointed Nakfoor Pratt after Kent County recused itself. Both cases involved law enforcement misconduct. In the Bartlett matter, the accused officer was never charged. In the Bukala matter, the police chief received a plea deal explicitly structured by Nakfoor Pratt herself to preserve his law enforcement career. The AG’s office is also the office that defended Bryan Fuller at trial through AAG Mark E. Donnelly, arguing that Fuller followed the process, while Fuller was simultaneously building cases in Barry County that Nakfoor Pratt’s office prosecuted without disclosing his active federal civil rights litigation to the defense.

The question the documented record raises is this: the Michigan Attorney General’s office appointed a prosecutor with Nakfoor Pratt’s documented institutional posture toward law enforcement accountability to handle at least two law enforcement accountability cases. The same AG’s office defended the detective whose constitutional violations are documented across those same proceedings. Whether those appointment decisions reflect a pattern of institutional intent, a failure of institutional oversight, or something in between is a question the AG’s office has not been asked publicly. It is being asked now. Clutch Justice has contacted the Michigan Attorney General’s office for comment. No response has been received by the time of publication.