Trump couldn't afford it, having beaten Clinton four years ago by just 10,704 votes, or about two-tenths of 1% of the vote. I was floored. And despite the fact that Detroit is part of Wayne County and Trump has claimed it iscorruption there that cost him the state, it's worth noting that Biden got about 1,000 fewer votes than Clinton did out of Detroit proper, while Trump's support in the city grew by about 5,000 votes. You cant give that stuff to them. "But what happened was the Democrats got their voters out it wasn't enough to overcome what they were able to get out in voter-rich southeastern Michigan.". And it tells us about Trump, a combativeand polarizing politician who has continued to shock with his claims and surprise with the resilience he has shown in drawing support in places like Michigan. Nessel claimed that the Task Force was working in concert with the Supreme Court Justices. Never had I heard of a news organization siding with a public official over a journalist, freelance or not. Miss Manners: I shouldn't call because the phone scares people? While I was still working Oakland County, Catallo was doing sterling work in neighboring Macomb. Whether Moody had jurisdiction over them or not, even after public administrators like Munger had been fired by him in 2017, Munger still took and was taking deceased estate as well as guardianship and conservatorship cases at the Oakland County Probate Court. We can do something right now. Gretchen Rachel Hammond is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist based out of Chicago. The Friend of the Court workers are not accurate in their reporting of the facts and they are defrauding children and their parents of justice. So, I never took for granted the honor of telling someones story and elevating a voice; especially if they had suffered from injustice or been discarded by society. As a result, this activity has continued unchecked for at least three decades, with probate court audits covered up by Nessel and her predecessors, the Michigan Supreme Court and the State Court Administrator's Office. The 2020 election isn't a story about corruption. She previously covered the Tri-Valley cities of Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore and Danville. Oh them! Teter replied, growing visibly impatient. Please take a moment to explore these programs below. Two years later, ADDMS was also found to be up to its ears in all kinds of alleged malfeasance (of course, no one was ever prosecuted) and it was also a company to which George handed over rewards in the form of docket-fulls of wards. Four years ago, Trump won among the 1,182 votes there53%-40%, with 6% split between Johnson and Stein. I felt more disappointment than surprise when one of the principle topics of Nessel's presser was guardianship in Michigan's probate courts; the focal point of my investigation. Chapter 3: Law and Order - LBP. Data were assembled from public records filed with the financial and police departments in each city or county and excluded payments less than $1,000. Since Ayers, Benson and their chief of staffs have not been charged with any crimes they were not included in the total number of regional corruption cases since 2016. High-Ranking Ventura County Gang Member Linked to Mexican Mafia Sentenced to . Enthusiasm was clearly up, too. Edward Ortiz, Officer Paul Harper, Sgt. No other county in the region or the state has had as many corruption cases the as Wayne and Macomb counties. Moreover, she had pledged to support the the downtrodden and, her meeting request looked like a desire to keep that campaign promise. After we hung up, I immediately sent an email to Rossman-McKinney with no response. Nov. 2, 2000. In Oakland County, for instance, where Trump got 42.3% of the vote, or just over 328,000 votes, James, did better, with 43.8% of the vote, or 334,469votes. In 2008, Oakland paid $2 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by 16 womenall of whom were Asian Americanwho said they were victims of Valerga. Posted in: Uncategorized Juvenile (delinquency/abuse neglect) - 248-766-7533. There were moments when, for example, I tried to raise the subject of Moody and Teter immediately shut me down. Only the Detroit News was at all interested. Corruption cases have long riddled the Metro-Detroit region and in an upcoming post we will detail the ones that have been brought to the public eye since 2016. Many of the cases are related the Rizzo Environmental Services federal case that entangled elected officials, public employees and business figures who owned the business and worked with it. Besides, when you are investigating alleged public corruption, you lose your belief in the coincidental. According to news reports from the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, at least three members of the Detroit Police Department are suspected of accepting bribes from towing industry figures; no charges have been filed so these unnamed individuals were also not included in the regional public figure count. Introduction. Macks defense of Michigan probate judges and the guardianship system itself has been so unyielding that in more direct attorney circles, he has since become knownas Mack the Shield.. Fired Oakland police chief sues city for, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Chart: Bay Area rainfall totals for this week, Fired Oakland police chief sues city for alleged retaliation for exposing corruption, abuse of power. There are also cases tied to contractors and overall public corruption cases in Macomb County, that were not included in these counts. The power of the Purple Gang, the. But, I keptthe name of the Free Press out of requests for interviews. From one standpoint, Biden didn't overachieve: Where Trump in 2016 flipped a dozen counties from blue to red, Biden flipped only three. Subscribe to our newsletters for regular updates, analysis and context straight to your email. Would dismantling Interstate 980 repair damage to Black neighborhoods? Originally, the oversight was to last five years, but the police department has been slow to achieve reforms. And legal experts say that destroying records of police misconduct, even if authorized by state statute, may conflict with the constitutional rights of defendants. As part of his plea deal, Perez turned states evidence and accused dozens of other LAPD officers of misconduct. At the time, the chief told the lead investigator she was concerned about retaliation, according to the document. Rather than sticking to the letter of Michigan statute or Michigan Court Rules, the Oakland County Judges make up their own rules as they go along. Many of the judges are in cahoots with the Friend of the Court workers. In 2000, rookie officer Keith Batt and his training officer Clarence Mabanag rampaged through West Oaklands Black neighborhoods. I patiently reiterated that the wards had been placed in these homes by public administrators and was about to say the name Moody again when Teter lost his temper and told me I was twisting his words. The journalists in attendance were, justifiably, appalled and, in the end, Burgio ended up getting far more ink than Nessel. In May, 2019, she paid a visit to an elderly couple, Bob and Barb. ", ames Ryan Jr.'s company Public Affairs Associates (PAA) has longstanding ties to Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer and was among the, Gretchen Rachel Hammond is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist based out of Chicago. In order to make her point, only one member of the public was invited to attend. His case file remains in the archives of Los Angeless court system. We have it and it is clear and incontrovertible.". In suburban Oakland County, meanwhile, Biden's support grew by 91,000 votes though the president isn't making claims about trucks pulling up in the dead of the night there. When my stories resulted in positive changes, to even a single life, then my salary and the resulting can of Spaghettios was earned. Since 2016 there have been 10 public officials from Macomb County, either the County organization itself or a municipality within its boundaries, who have been charged with alleged public corruption crimes. Corruption in the Oakland County Child Killer case Guarded By Jackals. In Wayne County (excluding Detroit), since 2016, there have been four public corruption charges. A 21-year-old man was arrested and charged with murder in connection with a Jan. 23 shooting in Oakland that killed one and injured six. It is one of the 80 key precincts identified by Tim Kiska, an associate professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who does election analysisfor the Free Press, as representative of the direction the state may take in a given election. The fact that many of those areas are Republican-leaning or backed the president, as much as anything, give the lie to Trump's wild and seemingly desperateclaims that it was corruption in Detroit that cost him the election, when there is no evidence to support it. The Oakland Public Ethics Commission has broadened the scope of its investigations into allegations of corruption by building code enforcement officers. Mack was a Wayne County Probate Court Chief Judge when, again, two attorneys operating out of his court, John Chase, Jr. and Melvin Jefferson Jr, allegedly worked with Wayne County Judge Freddie Burton, Jr. to pilfer the estate of no less than Rosa Parks. Pay-to-play was all too common in state politics, then-Free Press associate editor Ron Dzwonkowski wrote in 2010. It is now . Accepting what "is" here is NOT acceptable. Dear Abby: Why do they imply my husband is a freak? Recent headlines have been focused on several public officials, including four from the Detroit City Council, three from the Detroit Police Department and three from Macomb County. It included Nessels press conference announcement which noted that only credentialed members of the press who had RSVPd to a Nessel communications team member would be allowed to attend. The decision to purge the files was legal, according to Tom Kinzinger, an attorney with Bryan Cave law firm who reviewed the Alameda County Superior Courts destruction of records for The Appeal. Chapter 5: The Runaway. For instance, it dropped by 8 percentage points in Emmet County, 9 in Ottawa in west Michigan, nearly 10 in Grand Traverse. Theiralleged victims number in the high thousands of Michigan's most vulnerable senior and developmentally disabled citizens, each declared legally incapacitated wards and placed under a court-appointed guardianship and conservatorship. In 2015, the Superior Court in Alameda County, California, quietly destroyed the criminal case files for three former Oakland police officers, known as the Riders, who stood trial for beating, falsely arresting, and framing dozens of African American men in the late 1990s and early 2000s, The Appeal has learned. For months, the president had been saying you can't trust absentee, mail-in ballots so his base was not using it. While he pled guilting to this federal corruption charge in January of 2021, he has yet to be sentenced, in part because of his ongoing public corruption case with the State Attorney Generals Office. As for the morning being a "high level review of elder care issues," either Rossman-McKinney lied to my editor or he lied to me. On Nov. 16, 2000, Officer Harper was acquitted of all charges after a month-long trial. "It's back to more typical levels this year.". Four years ago, he rode a level of support in rural and older industrial areas, especially those with large swaths of white voters, unlike that seen since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, decrying trade deals and blustering that he'd force Mexico to pay for a wall along the southern border. Yet she, somehow, forgot to mention to them the evidence my team and I brought to her staff and years of complaints to her office, and that of her predecessor, by wards and their families.