Duggan and the Tow-Truck Mafia
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| The Detroit News |
There are two big towing company mob bosses in Detroit: Gaspar Fiore, and Anthony Soave. Fiore got busted for public corruption in Macomb County, as well as bribing Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Soave admitted in court that he too bribed Kwame with $400,000 worth of private flights, $10,000 worth of Pistons tickets, an $800 pair of shoes, a $6,000 Cartier watch (and more) in exchange for lucrative towing contracts. Under Mayor Duggan in 2018, Detroit barred towing companies connected to Fiore from doing business with the city (even though Fiore had been removed from the business, and was in prison), while allowing Soave to continue towing and impound contracting with the city, benefitting from the increased business due to the blacklisting of the Fiore companies:
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/11/29/duggan-created-costly-towing-scandal-helps-kwame-crony/
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| Motor City Muckraker, 2018 |
Why the apparent favoritism? Because Soave and his business partners have donated tens of thousands to Duggan’s campaign fund, and played a major role in Duggan’s highly questionable 2013 write-in campaign. Furthermore, Soave and Duggan go way back. In the 1990s when Duggan was Deputy Wayne County Executive under the McNamara machine Soave had towing contracts with the county, and it was known that he gave Ed McNamara a Florida beach condo for free.
It is unclear whether Duggan was ever receiving "gifts" from Soave, and judging by the ill-fitting appearance of the JC Penny suits that he always wears, it is clear that Duggan could use some of the fashion help that Soave and Fiore provided to Kwame. But I'm guessing that's part of his cover, so as to intentionally contrast himself from Kwame's blingy image.
Court testimony indicates that Mike Duggan personally instructed Deputy Corporation Counsel Charles Raimi to go after Fiore's towing companies to prevent them from getting contracts, because the city should quote, "not do business with those sorts of companies." Meanwhile Soave has never spent a day in jail for his in-court admissions of bribery (which have been publicized in the media, and were used to convict Kwame), and he continues to do brisk business with the city under the Duggan administration. The mayor's trusty spokesman John Roach claimed not to know of Soave's past bribery, and he reasoned that it happened "a long time ago." It is apparent that Soave has the errr, uhhh, legal protection of Mike Duggan.
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Worse yet, Duggan's move to bar Fiore's companies from towing with the city came after the Detroit Police Dept. "misled elected officials and the public, violated city ordinances and placed taxpayers at risk when it hastily entered the towing business" in September of 2018. The DPD under Chief James Craig purchased half a million dollars of new tow trucks without the knowledge of City Council, and began operations without being in full compliance of DOT laws. The change was done so hastily that it "violated city ordinances, botched towing jobs, and failed to safeguard the city’s four makeshift impound lots." Private towing companies began to sue the city, and policemen were being taken off the streets to handle towing-related staffing. Motor City Muckraker goes into more detail:
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/10/17/detroits-sneaky-plot-take-towing-puts-taxpayers-risk/
Police Commissioner Willie Burton and Councilwoman Mary Sheffield "accused police officials and Mayor Duggan’s administration of secretly plotting to take over towing operations for reasons that remain unclear." The decisions were made behind closed doors. Chief Craig told the press that the move was urgent because of a new state law coming into effect in October that would prevent cities from forming towing companies of their own.
Interestingly enough, that new law introduced by State Rep. Peter Lucido (who represents Macomb County, where Fiore was busted for bribery) was being championed by the city of Detroit's own lobbyist, GCSI. I think you can see what's going on here. By the way, most cities outsource towing services to the private sector because they’re costly and involve financial risk. With all of the times that Duggan uses the excuse "we can't afford" this or that, it seems suspicious that he would suddenly make unusual accommodations for something like this. Especially when you consider that Duggan has made it his hallmark since taking office to sell off and privatize every other city service that he possibly can, based on the excuse of saving money and "avoiding bankruptcy." The only city services that we have left that are not in some level of privatization are the DPD, DFD, and DDOT...but we are now supposed to believe that the city needs to take over towing and impound operations in-house, at enormous cost, liability, and risk?
By the way, Lucido is awful grimy himself...he has faced discipline for multiple sexual abuse allegations against him, and most interesting of all, two of the guests at his recent 61st birthday bash included Chief Craig, and notorious 'White Boy' Rick Wershe. As if that weren't enough of a giveaway, according to several of his Facebook posts that I found, Lucido also seems to be linked in some way with the Soave family:
Gee, what a coincidence...he's buddies with Duggan's towing cronies and Chief Craig? And he introduced a law that seemed designed to create a situation favorable to Duggan's apparent moves to lock competition out of the Detroit towing business?! Come on now.
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/10/17/detroits-sneaky-plot-take-towing-puts-taxpayers-risk/
Police Commissioner Willie Burton and Councilwoman Mary Sheffield "accused police officials and Mayor Duggan’s administration of secretly plotting to take over towing operations for reasons that remain unclear." The decisions were made behind closed doors. Chief Craig told the press that the move was urgent because of a new state law coming into effect in October that would prevent cities from forming towing companies of their own.
Interestingly enough, that new law introduced by State Rep. Peter Lucido (who represents Macomb County, where Fiore was busted for bribery) was being championed by the city of Detroit's own lobbyist, GCSI. I think you can see what's going on here. By the way, most cities outsource towing services to the private sector because they’re costly and involve financial risk. With all of the times that Duggan uses the excuse "we can't afford" this or that, it seems suspicious that he would suddenly make unusual accommodations for something like this. Especially when you consider that Duggan has made it his hallmark since taking office to sell off and privatize every other city service that he possibly can, based on the excuse of saving money and "avoiding bankruptcy." The only city services that we have left that are not in some level of privatization are the DPD, DFD, and DDOT...but we are now supposed to believe that the city needs to take over towing and impound operations in-house, at enormous cost, liability, and risk?
By the way, Lucido is awful grimy himself...he has faced discipline for multiple sexual abuse allegations against him, and most interesting of all, two of the guests at his recent 61st birthday bash included Chief Craig, and notorious 'White Boy' Rick Wershe. As if that weren't enough of a giveaway, according to several of his Facebook posts that I found, Lucido also seems to be linked in some way with the Soave family:
Gee, what a coincidence...he's buddies with Duggan's towing cronies and Chief Craig? And he introduced a law that seemed designed to create a situation favorable to Duggan's apparent moves to lock competition out of the Detroit towing business?! Come on now.
Then, after the news broke of this new scheme to get the city to take over the local towing business and the forced vote on it that was pushed through the Board of Police Commissioners, Conrad Mallett Jr. resigned his post as police commissioner:
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/10/22/police-commissioner-conrad-mallett-resigns-amid-brewing-towing-scandal/
Mallett, Duggan’s former campaign chairman, was "among the most outspoken supporters of taking over towing operations from the private sector." Yet less than a year prior, Mallett had argued that the police department shouldn't have anything to do with towing, "and even advocated for stripping the commission’s oversight of towing, which would give Duggan’s administration more control without public hearings." I wonder what changed his mind, LOL!
http://motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/10/22/police-commissioner-conrad-mallett-resigns-amid-brewing-towing-scandal/
Mallett, Duggan’s former campaign chairman, was "among the most outspoken supporters of taking over towing operations from the private sector." Yet less than a year prior, Mallett had argued that the police department shouldn't have anything to do with towing, "and even advocated for stripping the commission’s oversight of towing, which would give Duggan’s administration more control without public hearings." I wonder what changed his mind, LOL!
And then there was Deputy Police Chief Celia Washington, who went to prison for conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with towing contracts in 2018, meaning it also happened under Mike Duggan and Chief Craig:
In 2019, Soave was given insider access (thanks to his connection to Duggan) to a deal that allowed him to cash in on a city land "swap" with Fiat-Chrysler:
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| metrotimes.com |
The cars were later towed by city-contracted towing companies (without knowledge of the owners), who charged up to $700 per car, plus $30/day of impound. You may also recall that the exact same thing happened in the 2014 flood as well, with people being charged up to $900 per tow:
Duggan did nothing either time to address this egregious price-gouging being done under the auspices of the city he is in charge of. Why would he punish his campaign donors?
The August 2021 FBI raids and indictments of City Council members are related to the fact that Council has been working for months on proposed rules to regulate the city’s towing industry. What a coincidence! Naturally, enthusiastic businessmen such as Soave and Fiore must've been very interested in the outcomes of such regulation. So interested in fact, that they might've even wanted to (gasp!) *influence* certain council members' votes on the issue. Now how would they go about doing that, do you suppose?
The Detroit News reported that Councilwoman Ayers was involved with Anthony Fiore for years, and allegedly received secret money and special deals for billboards and campaign ads. Councilman Andre Spivey was recently indicted on similar charges, and Councilman Gabe Leland has already been convicted. Council members Scott Benson, Raquel Castañeda-López, and Brenda Jones look very likely to be involved as well, and I will not be surprised if James Tate and Roy McCalister go down too. Out of the whole nine members, all but Raquel Castañeda-López and Mary Sheffield are staunch Dugganites, so it is very biased indeed that the local media is not asking tougher questions of Mike Duggan; not to mention the fact that there appears to have been a lot more influence over the towing business by Duggan than by his minions.
Instead our local news outlets provide him a platform to distance himself from the dirt, throw hapless Janee Ayers to the wolves, and allow him to propose solutions to a problem that he created, thus making him look like the lone hero among a den of crooks—in an election year:
Duggan is the "invisible" 800lb gorilla in the room that the local media have thrown a sheet over.
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