A former assistant Macomb County prosecutor who served as interim prosecutor following the Eric Smith scandal is expected to be confirmed this week as a magistrate for the 41A District Court in Sterling Heights.

Jean Cloud has been appointed to the position by Chief District Court Judge Stephen S. Sierawski, along with district court judges Kimberly A. Wiegand and Annemarie M. LePore. Her selection is expected to be confirmed Tuesday night by the Sterling Heights City Council.

Cloud will replace outgoing Magistrate Michael Piatek, who has announced his retirement after a “long and distinguished career of service to the 41A District Court,” City Attorney Marc Kaszubski said in agenda materials.

“Based on her academic credentials and professional accomplishments, request is being made that the City Council approve the appointment,” Kaszubski said in a memo to the council.

Cloud was an assistant county prosecutor when she was named interim prosecutor following the resignation of Eric Smith in 2020. She prosecuted several high-profile cases over the years and had been included in a critical report about current Prosecutor Peter Lucido.

Smith left office and was disbarred after a lengthy investigation centering on racketeering and embezzlement by a public official charges.

He served seven months of a 21-month sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to cover up his theft of $75,000 from his campaign fund. He also was sentenced to four years of probation after pleading guilty in a separate state case alleging he embezzled thousands of dollars from his former office’s drug and forfeiture funds.

Cloud, who served as prosecutor for about nine months until Dec. 31, 2020, was in a report released by the Butzel law firm and commissioned by County Executive Mark Hackel. The report says Lucido, who was elected to office in 2020, told Cloud to provide a positive quote about James Langtry, Lucido’s prospective deputy chief assistant, in order to maintain a top position in the office: chief of circuit court and trials. Or, Lucido told her, if she could not provide a quote she would face a demotion, which would include a substantial salary cut, to a staff assistant-prosecutor post, she told the Butzel investigator. She “reluctantly” chose the first option “but that she now feels like she ‘sold her soul to the devil,” according to the report.

She started with the county Prosecutor’s Office in 2000 and served as chief of the Sex Crimes Unit and as chief trial attorney, during which she prosecuted many murder and rape cases, most recently garnering the first-degree murder conviction of Jonathan Jones in the abuse death of his live-in girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter, Ivy Yurkus.

Before she was named interim prosecutor she was chief trial attorney.

Prior to joining the Prosecutor’s Office, Cloud was in private practice following her graduation, cum laude, from Detroit College of Law. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Boston University.