RYAN Friedrichs is a former Detroit city employee and the husband of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Friedrichs and Benson have been married since 2006.
Ryan Friedrichs, formerly Detroit’s chief development officer, was accused of abusing his authority, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The allegations included a plot to delete city emails, the newspaper reported.
Friedrichs resigned from the city post earlier this year to take a job in the private sector.
He received degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard before enlisting in the US Army.
He was attending orientation at Harvard when the September 11, 2001, terror attacks took place.
“I thought about joining then, but I had already committed to a job in Detroit after graduate school,” he told DVIDS (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service) in 2014.
He is married to Benson, who as secretary of state oversees elections in Michigan.
Benson said armed protesters came together outside of their Detroit home on December 5.
Benson tweeted: “The individuals gathered outside my home targeted me as Michigan’s Chief Election officer. But their threats were actually aimed at the 5.5million Michigan citizens who voted in this fall’s election, seeking to overturn their will.
“They will not succeed in doing so.”
She said the protesters arrived after she and her young son completed decorating for Christmas.
They were “shouting obscenities and chanting into bullhorns in the dark of night,” she said.
President Trump has been trying to wrestle the state’s electoral votes from President-elect Joe Biden.
Friedrichs and Benson were married in 2006 after meeting at Harvard, according to DVIDS.
Benson would become the Dean of Law at Wayne State University and was the youngest female ever to run a law school, the outlet reported.
The couple have a 4-year-old son Aiden.
Benson is co-founder and former president of Military Spouses of Michigan.
The organization is dedicated to providing support and services to military spouses and their children.
Benson and other military spouses launched the network in 2012.
She has also served as CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE), a nonprofit “using the unifying power of sports to improve race relations,” according to her bio.
