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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
‘Big Boys' Club': The ‘womanizer'
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – A woman in a blue jacket is seen leaving a home in Greenville, while a male voice repeatedly says, 'I'm going to shoot you.' The voice is former Michigan State Police Trooper Trevin Antcliff, and the woman was identified as his then-girlfriend. He is heard in one piece of video evidence related to domestic violence incidents on Dec. 4-5, 2023, in which Antcliff, who was a trooper at the time, was charged criminally two days later, on Dec. 7. Facing a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in Montcalm County and a pending felony perjury charge from former Newaygo County Prosecutor Ellsworth Stay and incoming appointed Newaygo County Prosecutor Rachel Robinson, Antcliff resigned from the Michigan State Police in January 10, 2024, ending a nearly two-decade long career that had begun on July 18, 2004, one during which he became entwined in a years-long legal dispute involving a former officer who had become his lover and ultimately was fired because of all that. 'Big Boys' Club': Frequently Asked Questions A special plea deal that allowed Antcliff to admit guilt, serve a term of probation and see his conviction disappear was approved by a process authorized under a that permits first-time perpetrators of domestic violence to avoid a criminal record. In exchange, the Newaygo County Prosecutor's Office agreed not to charge him with perjury stemming from his testimony on Oct. 9, 2018, during his divorce hearing in a Montcalm Circuit Court. Because he was allowed to resign and avoid felony prosecution or a public misdemeanor conviction, Antcliff walked away with his state pension intact, a male officer given an opportunity that a former female colleague may not have been afforded. Antcliff 2023 domestic violenceDownload Moryc tells 6 News she was never offered an opportunity to resign during her 2021 or 2025 disciplinary hearings or investigations. Her class was the first to begin a 401K retirement program rather than a traditional pension, as Antcliff qualified for. PSS-239-23-eAICS-Original-Incident-Report-1Download MSP brass had known for years that Antcliff was a risk to women, internal reports show. A Professional Standards Section report expressed concerns about assigning Antcliff as a training supervisor for a female probationary officer because he was a 'womanizer' with a 'negative reputation with women.' But that didn't stop officials from placing probationary trooper Megan Symonds under his supervision during her second phase of field training officer and shadow phase officer. The reason, the report reveals, was that she, now known as Megan Moryc, was married. That was in 2016. And her marital status and Antcliff's supervisory role apparently didn't matter. They developed a friendship that quickly became sexual. It would later become romantic. Moryc was ultimately divorced and testified at Antcliff's divorce trial, for which both of them were accused of perjury. They at one point lived together. That relationship ended in 2023, when Antcliff moved out of the home the two shared in Ionia. His move was supervised for hours by a lieutenant from his post. And their relationship is one of the key issues at the heart of a nearly 5-year legal dispute as Moryc, 40, tries to earn back a job and career the MSP ended because it says she broke the law and violated policy. She says her job was taken from her because of sex discrimination and harassment in 2021. She appealed that decision, but command staff in the 6th District, located in Grand Rapids, fired her a second time, in February 2025. The 6 News Investigates Team has been investigating since August 2024, the ongoing conflict between Moryc and the MSP. The Team has reviewed hundreds of pages of internal investigations, court filings, court opinions, emails and prosecutorial communications. Moryc has sat for hours of on-camera interviews, but officials for the state of Michigan have declined to respond to specific questions from the 6 News Investigates Team. She also submitted to a lengthy follow-up interview in December. She has also willingly responded to phone calls and text messages to clarify details raised by this reporting, as well as related to the investigation and police standards as she understood them. Antcliff did not respond to repeated messages left on a voicemail associated with a lawn-care business he started after he resigned from the MSP. This dispute, which at one point reached the Michigan Supreme Court, is chronicled in this ongoing report by 6 News Investigates about a sexualized 'big boys' club' at the Lakeview Post of the Michigan State Police. Moryc's first firing, in 2021, came after she was charged with two counts of assault and battery and two counts of criminal sexual conduct 4th degree stemming from a drunken incident with fellow troopers in Traverse City in October 2020. She entered a 'no contest' plea to the two counts of assault and battery, a plea where a defendant accepts conviction but does not admit guilt. The criminal sexual charges were dismissed as part of the deal. Moryc District Court Register of ActionsDownload She spent 21 days in jail and was promptly fired by the department when state lawyers argued she was a threat to the safety of other officers. An arbitrator and, ultimately, state courts, cited overreach in the charges and ordered the MSP to reinstate Moryc, but officials in early 2024 found a new reason to fire her. 2024 DEC 20 PSS-627-23 Moryc – SOC TERMINATIONDownload Even though a prosecutor declined to charge Moryc with perjury, an internal investigation, resumed the day she was re-enrolled on state payroll, found she had lied during Antcliff's divorce from his then-wife, Nina Antcliff, which began in 2017 and was finalized Oct. 29, 2018. Court records led the MSP to assert Moryc had committed perjury during that divorce trial because she and Antcliff had developed a sexual relationship, but failed to admit that under oath. After a hearing in January, she was fired in February. That firing remains in legal dispute. What isn't disputed is that MSP officials ultimately found Antcliff had violated sexual harassment and discrimination laws in his supervision of Moryc. He resigned shortly after, while facing felony perjury charges and a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. A reputation In 2023, Nina Antcliff told an investigator from the MSP she was surprised her husband was overseeing a female trainee. 'So when he told me that he had a female trainee because of the whole thing with the counselor that she had told him, 'You do not possess the ability to not sleep with anyone that's nice to you,' Nina Antcliff said. 'You cannot have female friends. And then he came home one day, and he was like, I have a new trainee.' That trainee was Moryc, who became a trooper with MSP in August 2016. Within weeks of Antcliff's training supervision of Moryc, he was pressuring her for sex, multiple internal investigation reports reveal. During the Antcliffs' divorce, Moryc said she learned he had been diagnosed with a sexual addiction in February 2013 by David UitdeFlesch, a psychologist then with Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services in Grand Rapids. Moryc provided the 6 News Investigates team with progress notes from UitdeFlesch, which she obtained while she and Antcliff were living together beginning in September 2018. Divorce records in Antcliff's case also reveal that he had left his wife and young children for another woman for several days in 2013. Violation of rights Wendy Murphy, a professor at New England Law in Boston and leader of the Women and Children's Advocacy Project at the school, says the situation with Antcliff and Moryc during the training phase is illegal under civil rights laws. 'Quid pro quo sexual harassment doesn't involve a question of wantedness,' Murphy said. 'It's per se improper.' She said the threat of ending the career of a subordinate is 'inherent in the relationship.' MSP officials determined in September 2023 that Antcliff had committed quid pro quo sexual harassment when he engaged in a sexual relationship with Moryc. 'After review of the attached PSS Investigation, there are several Official Order violations to include Sexual Harassment (Quid Pro Quo), impairing the efficiency of the agency, and the below code of conduct,' the charging document states. MSP records reveal Sgt. Aaron McCormick, who had served as Moryc's first FTO, had warned Antcliff and post leadership of the rumors of a relationship between Antcliff and Moryc. 'We had heard some rumors from the other guys on day shift that they were having a relationship,' McCormick stated in a recorded interview on Aug. 11, 2023. 'And I'll tell you that I made a phone call to him and this kind of ruined our friendship – which, whatever. It's a great sign, obviously, but I told him, 'There's rumors going on about you and the cub. Don't know if they're true. You need to know if it is true. Can you stop?' OK?' McCormick reported that Antcliff became angry with him, accusing him of spreading the rumor. McCormick said the two never spoke again, but also said that Antcliff never directly denied an inappropriate relationship with Moryc. He never admitted it, either, McCormick said. An MSP investigation determined Antcliff's statements to investigators about his interaction with McCormick were 'untrue.' McCormick did tell the investigator that command staff at the post knew about the – as then-investigator Kandace Herr called them – 'rumors, rumblings, scuttlebutt' about Antcliff and Moryc having sex. 'I think everyone at the post was aware,' McCormick said in the interview. He also said post leadership had 'not handled' the situation 'very well.' 'We felt that we can't consider what are essentially rumors and conjecture in how we do our assignments,' Lt. Rob Davis told investigators about assigning Moryc to Antcliff. Davis said that a command staff member referred to the situation as 'putting a wolf in the hen house or something like that.' The law professor Murphy said the acknowledgment by MSP leadership of Antcliff's being a 'womanizer' meant they had an obligation to keep him away from women, 'period.' By failing to do so, they opened up a legal problem under federal civil rights law, known as Title VII, she said. 'What you're really saying is these regulations under Title VII and under state civil rights laws, they're very explicit that you have a duty once you are on notice, you have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the harm from happening again,' Murphy said. 'Not only to the individual that it happened to the first time, but to people in that class. So not just to that one woman, but to all women. So really it opens up another layer of liability.' Murphy said it does not matter if the 'notice' is 'rumor,' as Davis suggested. 'If the rumor is specific about who it is, what the person did – the credibility of the information is corroborated by awareness of other similar problems,' she said. 'It's not just a rumor. It's really a highly credible package of information. We use the word rumor loosely, sometimes to dismiss things we know about.' A record of domestic charges Antcliff's arrest on Dec. 7, 2023, on charges of domestic violence was not the first allegations of domestic violence – or worse – leveled against him by intimate partners. On May 23, 2017, Antcliff was accused by his then-wife, Nina Antcliff, of assaulting her in the parking lot of Grandville High School and later at their residence. Antcliff-2023-domestic-violence-1Download Trevin IA-72-17 (1)Download Trevin IA-72-17 Admin Inter Notice (1)Download A report by MSP internal affairs investigators alleged Antcliff 'became involved in an altercation with your wife in the parking lot of Grandville High School, calling her profane names and arguing with her. During this altercation, you committed battery by throwing items you found in her vehicle (nipple clamps and crotchless underwear) at her, striking her.' Judgment of Divorce and OpinionDownload Montcalm County Circuit Court Judge Suzanne Hoseth Kreeger determined the items in question had been placed in Nina Antcliff's car in an effort by her to prove Trevin Antcliff was going through her car. Nina Antcliff told Special Lt. Christopher Tuckey during an internal investigation into allegations of perjury against Moryc that there were other times she and her children had called law enforcement because of her husband's alleged violence. 'But all the ones [investigators] that I met during the divorce, even the ones that showed up at my house and put in their report that he was wrong, still backed him,' she told Tuckey in a recorded interview, referring to law enforcement dispatched to the marital home the Antcliffs shared with four children. She accused law enforcement of refusing to investigate the allegations, alleging a conspiracy of 'back-the-blue' thinking. 'Like when I called 911, they told me not to call them anymore, that he was one of you,' she told Tuckey. She ultimately withdrew from assisting the perjury investigation. A five-day suspension for Antcliff was recommended, which he served. The internal document reveals he also had served a 10-day suspension in 2006, but the reasons for that suspension were unclear. The divorce and Moryc Filings in the Antcliffs' divorce proceedings, which began on March 10, 2017, reveal they accused each other of violence during their relationship. Trevin Antcliff went so far as to seek a personal protection order from the court, arguing she was violent towards him and the children. That order was denied. After they had become sexual during her training period, Moryc, who went on to divorce her husband Christopher Symonds, and Trevin Antcliff moved in September 2018 into a home she had purchased in Ionia. Because the duo had become public about their relationship, they were assigned to different squads. But in 2017, when Moryc had completed her training and she was assigned a shift opposite of Antcliff's, their sexual intimacy was still a secret. Moryc has consistently contended that the friendship between the two did not become 'romantic' or 'dating' until at least December 2017, when they began to discuss moving in with each other. Unredacted perjury investigationDownload She says their initial interactions were as 'best friends' who happened to have sex, often initiated while they were under the influence of alcohol and preceded by wrestling, which involved using self-defense tactics on each other. Trevin Antcliff had denied for years that the duo had been involved in any inappropriate interactions. At the same time, he was her field training officer, but in an interview on Oct. 11, 2023, he reversed that position. 'I guess you could say romantic, dating, yes,' he said in a report from Det. Sgt. Kailee Schuett during a criminal investigation into whether he and Moryc had committed perjury during that divorce hearing on Oct. 9, 2018. Both Moryc and Antcliff testified that the relationship was a friendship and a professional one, transcripts from the hearing and investigatory reports reveal. The testimony focused on an incident in late January 2017 when Nina Antcliff said she returned to her marital home and found Trevin Antcliff and Moryc in their long underwear. They testified they had been at a scene where a suspect shot and killed himself. They were covered in blood, they said, and had gone to the Antcliffs' home to change out of their bloody uniforms. 2018 divorce transcriptsDownload Throughout their ensuing relationship, Moryc had raised concerns about Antcliff's drinking and abuse with Sgt. Scott Ziesman. No prosecution Barry-county-prosecutor-declination-of-Antcliff-DV-charges-1Download Text messages between Moryc and Ziesman, contained in one of the PSS investigations, reveal Ziesman had intervened between the duo on several occasions regarding violence and excessive alcohol consumption. Moryc did not report, officially, the violence she was alleging until April 9, 2023, and Det. Sgt. Kandyce Herr investigated Moryc's allegations that Antcliff had physically and sexually assaulted her during their relationship. 'I'm still struggling, and I feel shame, too, that I let things go on for so long,' Moryc told Herr during an interview. She alleged multiple instances of violence by Ancliff and her efforts to fight him off. Herr referred the case to the Ionia County Prosecutor's Office for a charge of nonaggravated assault. The charge sought did not include a domestic violence charge or sexual assault charges, as Moryc had accused Antcliiff of repeatedly sexually assaulting her while they were living together. To avoid a conflict of interest, Ionia County officials referred the case to the Department of the Michigan Attorney General, which assigned the Barry County Prosecutor's Office to review prosecutorial options. But that office on April 27, 2023, denied prosecution, citing in its report that there were 'no witnesses; no confession; lengthy delay in reporting; given facts/circumstances, cannot be proven BRD [beyond a reasonable doubt] by jury.' 'Sleep sex' or assault? Later that year, on Aug. 17, Moryc alleged additional sexual assault and domestic violence during an interview with Special Lt. Ryan Tabaczka of the Professional Standards Section. She told Tabaczka that when their relationship began falling apart, Antcliff began what he called 'sleep sex,' when she would be awakened in the night with Antcliff attempting to penetrate her. 'I woke up in pain because he was trying to penetrate me, and I had to hit him to get him off of me, and he, you know, blamed it on sleep sex, or he said he didn't recall,' Moryc told Tabaczka. This was not the first time Antcliff was accused of this 'sleep sex.' His ex-wife Nina, in divorce proceedings, accused him of 'sleep sex,' which she attributed to his use of 'Ambien,' a powerful sleep aid. Counseling progress notes provided by Moryc to the 6 News Investigates Team reveal Trevin Antcliff admitted to the 'sleep sex' as early as 2011 in counseling. Those progress notes indicate he would view pornography, then engage in the so-called 'sleep sex.' The notes reveal Nina Antcliff had characterized the incidents as assaults. The progress notes also indicate Trevin had admitted the 'sleep sex' incidents were aggressive and rough. Moryc also accused Antcliff of sexually assaulting her in the couple's shared Ionia home. She was sick, vomiting in the toilet, she told investigators, but Antcliff demanded sex. She refused, and he responded by trying to pull her from the bathroom. She said she grabbed and kicked his groin to stop the assault. In an administrative interview conducted by PSS investigators, Trevin Antcliff was asked specifically about the bathroom incident with Moryc. He neither confirmed nor denied the incident, instead focusing on what he said was an error in the date of the incident. Neither Herr nor Tabaczka investigated the sexual assault complaints in any depth, the reports reveal. And no prosecutor was asked to review Moryc's sexual assault allegations for criminal charges. Katherine Redmond is the executive director of WeLead, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending sexual violence in general, but with sports particularly. 'The investigator needs to investigate fully and without bias,' Redmond said. 'This is a serious issue in law enforcement where the fact that sexual assault is not charged much of the time has contributed to an epidemic of sex assault in this country.' 'Law enforcement has a culture of minimizing violence against women. Does it provide further proof? Absolutely. Will anyone step up and hold them accountable? Based on decades of the same behavior, likely no.' The investigation Moryc says she was invited in August 2023 to the PSS investigation under the guise that she was there to discuss her sexual assault and domestic violence allegations. She provided text messages to support her assertion. Instead, Tabaczka's investigation focused on establishing a timeline of the relationship between Moryc and Antcliff, an audio recording of the interview and the final report reveal. Brimacombe-Involvement-1-1Download As MSP investigators were reviewing Moryc's complaints, and expanding their investigation into allegations of perjury against her and Antcliff, lawyers for the agency were in court fighting the Michigan State Police Trooper Association over Moryc's firing in 2021 after the department accused her of sexually assaulting three of her fellow troopers and assaulting them, during a drunken outing at a union-sponsored event in Traverse City in 2020. Shanon Banner, a spokesperson for the Michigan State Police, declined to answer specific questions from the 6 News Investigates Team regarding Moryc or other internal investigations. She issued the following statement in response to a series of questions:'The Michigan State Police is committed to fostering a work environment free from all forms of harassment, and will not tolerate, condone, or allow harassment by members. All allegations made known to the MSP by Trooper Moryc, to include allegations of harassment and discrimination, were investigated by the Professional Standards Section at the time the allegations were made in 2020.' 6 News Digital Producer and 6 News Digital Content Manager Duncan Phenix contributed to this report. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or sexual violence, there is help. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or your local law enforcement agency. For support related to domestic violence, call: 1-800-799-7233 For support related to sexual assault, call: 800-656-HOPE (4673) Read this series in order: Discontent in the Michigan State Police 'Wolf in the hen house' 'I never wanted to cheat on my husband' The 'womanizer' 'Too much room in the law … to discriminate' Frequently Asked Questions 'The degradation of women' 'Gender discrimination and harassment, including sexual' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
28-06-2025
- Climate
- Boston Globe
We're depressed about all the recent rain. So we asked a Seattle advice columnist what to do.
Rain is another thing. I've found that rain is hard for everyone, but especially for singles around Boston who want a summer of finding love. It feels like everyone is getting a very late start. This is why I sought advice from sex and relationships columnist We spoke via Zoom. Two advice columnists, Advertisement Q. It's rained so many Saturdays . I know you're used to it in Seattle. Am I wrong to think that people in New England let weather become part of their psychology? A. Certainly weather affects mood, and our moods affect our relationships. In a big city with terrible weather, there's this sense that you've endured the winter and you deserve the summer. But also summer — outside, when it's nice and beautiful — is when people have chance encounters, when people leave the house ... it is your opportunity, potentially on the days you have off, to have a rom-com style meeting where you're not interviewing potential first dates on Hinge, but just bumping into someone because you're moving around. ... If the weather is [bad] long enough, it can impede the forming of a new relationship. Advertisement savageconversation - Dan Savage. (Rachel Robinson) Rachel Robinson Q. Are we misunderstanding the potential of the rain here? Because I know that in movies, a lot of sexy things happen in the rain. A. Sexy things happen in the rain to already-established couples. People don't hang around outside in the rain in hopes of a chance encounter. Q. Does that mean things are doomed in Seattle? A. The secret about Seattle's rain is what you'd call drizzle. This is drizzle. ... But the gloom does get to people. It's June. It's cloudy. It's been cloudy for weeks. It hasn't really gotten above 70 more than once or twice, we call it June-uary . Like, psychologically, you feel like it should be June – you should be able to go out – and yet it's January weather into July. How do you get through it, Boston? You leave the house anyway, even though it's raining. ... If you go to Europe, even in [bad] weather, restaurants/outdoor seating are open, and people are sitting outside and enjoying, aesthetically, what it is about that weather, too. It is possible to leave the house and go places and do things. We just have it in our head as Americans that we can't. Q. I do think there is something exciting about [a nice day] after so many weekends of rain. Everybody wants to do all the things . Any advice you would give for people who finally get a nice Saturday? Advertisement A. Don't wait, which is the lesson of the weather in Seattle. It can be super nice, and if you do that thing, like, 'Oh, it's going to be a nice day,' and then you dink around the house until 1 o'clock before you leave, you may be walking out to a 20-degree temperature drop and rain, even though it was sunny and 70-something for most of the morning. So get out the door, especially if you're one of the people who's been sitting at home complaining. Get out the door as soon as you can, as early as you can. People write to me – they write to you – 'How do we meet people?' The apps are really frustrating. People feel like the apps are conning them into remaining perpetually single, and the advice is to go places, do things, run into people, and it doesn't have to be nice out to do that. But boy, when it's nice out, it's easier to do that. It facilitates doing that, and the people you might meet are going to be in a better and more receptive mood. So get out of the [expletive] house or your apartment. This interview has been edited and condensed. Meredith Goldstein has appeared on Dan Savage's to talk about relationship problems. She can be reached at You can write an anonymous relationship question to Love Letters at .
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
‘Kind of messed me up this morning' Knoxville community shares thoughts on springing clocks forward
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — On Sunday, East Tennesseans turned their clocks forward in observance of daylight-saving time, making the most of longer daylight hours with Spring approaching. Daylight-saving time has been a topic of debate in recent years, even sparking a proposed bill in the Tennessee legislature in 2023. Some support permanent daylight-saving time, while others wish to eliminate it altogether. Knoxville named one of America's most coveted creative communities: survey News 6 asked people in Market Square about their thoughts on daylight-saving time. For some, the shift means losing an hour of sleep, leaving them feeling fatigued. 'Kind of messed me up this morning. We had to be up at like, I think like 6:30 a.m. So, like, it totally messed me up. I'm very exhausted right now. I don't like daylight-savings. I guess I just don't see the point in it. I love consistency. I'm all about consistency. So, I would prefer it just to be one or the other,' explained Nathaniel Morris a Knoxville visitor from Colorado. 'We love sunshine. We hate the change. So, this morning, I thought I was getting up at seven… and it wasn't. So that was rough, but I don't know that we have much use for it anymore. So, I think it would be really nice to have it where we don't have a week at the front end and a week at the back end trying to adjust, and it's especially hard on kids,' added new resident Rachel Robinson. Another Knoxville local Alecia Johnson works in healthcare and shares the effects of the time change can be harmful. 'It's a little bit harder on seasonal depression and things like that, sundowning stuff like that and dementia,' said Johnson Others are either indifferent or all in favor of the extra sunlight. 'Daylight-savings don't matter to me. I get up at 5:00 every morning. It don't matter if it's snowing, raining, dark, light, don't matter to me,' said Eric Harrison. One Knoxville SC introduces pre-professional women's team 'I really feel like the time needed to just move forward, right? Like I was ready for some daylight in the evenings. I really don't love the winter time change. It really causes the sleep cycle to change a little bit. It really makes the nights sort of feel a lot longer, even though it's the same amount of time. It just starts a little earlier, causing us to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. So, I'm really thankful that the time changed. I hope they don't ever change it back,' shared John Miracle, Knoxville resident of over 20 years. Daylight-saving time will end on November 2nd this year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
