As Bridge reported, state officials didn't vet Corker and DeMasi before awarding the grants, and as with many profit-inducing grants, the law was vague, leaving some state officials struggling to figure out who should receive the money.
In the end, lobbyists told state health officials that Corker's nonprofit was the grant recipient, and the money was awarded after state officials told colleagues that the grant recipient was “politically well-connected and a little restless.”
The state health department sent $10 million to Coker's nonprofit before halting the grant.
DeMasi, a longtime friend of Coker's, provided consulting services to the so-called Complete Health Park and stood to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from the project.
He then sued Mr Coker, alleging that Mr Coker had failed to pay him and conspired with Mr Wentworth to profit from the project, which included buying $3 million of land from the family business of Republican Congressman Tom Kunce, R-Clare.
Kunce later publicly questioned the subsidy and said he sought legal advice before completing the sale, which closed in January 2023, two weeks after he took office.
Wentworth, whose term expires at the end of 2022, has criticised DeMasi's claims as “complete nonsense,” “absurd” and “false”.
Coker also maintains that the projects, which he proposed to the state as an effort to combat high rates of poor health among Clare County residents, are entirely legal.
