- Life Worship and Training Center in Pontiac, MI
Church asks State and Federal AG’s to investigate Bouchard
May 4, 2011
Detroit, Michigan –
A Pontiac church that was once the spiritual home for a few Detroit Pistons basketball players went through foreclosure in 2009. Yet Life Worship and Training Center is turning their hard times into becoming a “private attorney general” that uncovers government corruption.
Wayne County Exec. Robert Ficano and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing consort with Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard (second from right)
New Deliverance Church lawsuit to read original suit, and on Bouchard Lawsuit plaintiff proposed amended complaint for that document. Exhibits re: Rabette are separately listed in paragraphs below.)
The lawsuit alleges that: Bouchard steered the multimillion dollar contract to a three-month old company, American Process Service Inc., that belonged to one of his special deputy sheriffs, Attorney Thomas Rabette. The case then alleges that Rabette concealed his affiliation with the company from the Oakland County Commission so the contract could bypass scrutiny of Rabette’s conflict of interest. (Click on Bouchard Lawsuit American Process Service state fililng Thomas Rabette, resident agent to see document.)
Thomas Rabette
The case alleges that Rabette and the corporation’s other officers then engaged in pay-to-play by donating thousands of dollars to Bouchard’s failed campaign as a Republican “tea party” candidate for Michigan’s governor. (Click on Bouchard Lawsuit Thomas Rabette donations to Mike Bouchard for Governor to see document.)
The case alleges Attorney Thomas Rabette then lied to the federal court in an affidavit, saying he was never contemporaneously employed by both the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and American Process Service Inc., when this affidavit contradicts Rabette’s special deputy appointments signed by Sheriff Mike Bouchard.
Foreclosures in Michigan can be done outside of the courts through sheriff sales. New Jerusalem’s federal case uncovered that, since 2009, foreclosure sheriff deeds in Oakland County that were signed by Special Deputy Sheriff Thomas Rabette may be invalid because it is a crime for anyone, including a sheriff, to violate Michigan’s conflict of interest laws.
U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland
Federal Judge Robert Cleland, a Republican, denied all of New Jerusalem’s repeated motions for discovery of evidence regarding whether fellow Republican, Sheriff Mike Bouchard, awarded the contract between Oakland County and American Process Service on a “no bid” basis. Despite the evidence of government corruption, Judge Cleland closed the case in Bouchard’s favor. New Jerusalem has moved for Judge Cleland to reconsider, and plans to appeal.
New Jerusalem has asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to investigate Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard.
Go to Bouchard Lawsuit Cleland judgment and Bouchard Lawsuit plaintiff motion for reconsideration.
Bouchard’s office had not responded to a request for comment prior to this article going to press.
For more information about New Jerusalem Deliverance Church v. Thomas Rabette et al, Eastern District Court of Michigan case number 10-cv-12566, contact Anita Belle, legal assistant for Attorney Arthur C. Kirkland, Jr., at (313) 736-5505 or ackirkland.law@gmail.com.
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Eviction By Any Means Necessary, Including By Invalid Sheriff Deeds
We tell children all the time that one person can make a difference, both for good and for bad.
A person who could be making the difference for bad is Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. He wanted to be Governor of Michigan. Nothing illegal about that. However, another thing we tell children is that the end doesn’t always justify the means, especially if the means by which you raise campaign finances is through kickbacks from pay-to-play schemes.
Bishop Robert Joyce of New Jerusalem Deliverance Church
The case of New Jerusalem Deliverance Church was published recently.
An example of one woman making a difference for good is Diane Bukowski. The Voice of Detroit is an independent newspaper that is truly “unbossed and unbought”. In this newspaper, Diane Bukowski published the exclusive scoop that gives hope to everyone who has gone through foreclosure in Oakland County since 2009. She told property owners that the sheriff deed in their foreclosure might be invalid, if the auctioneer who conducted the sheriff sale had a conflict of interest. The New Jerusalem case highlights the potential conflict of interest of Attorney Thomas Rabette.
If the RICO allegations in New Jerusalem’s proposed amended complaint are true, then two people can make a difference, those two people being Thomas Rabette and Sheriff Mike Bouchard. If Rabette was employed with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office when Sheriff Bouchard steered a no-bid contract to a company that Rabette represented as an attorney, and Rabette worked for that company while he was still working for the Sheriff’s Office, then Rabette had a conflict of interest. Michigan law makes it a crime for anyone, including sheriff’s, to have a conflict of interest, so if it was unlawful for Bouchard to authorize Rabette to sign sheriff deeds, then the sheriff deeds Rabette signed are invalid. But the plot thickens: What if Rabette, the company’s other officers, and their wives then all made the statutory maximum political campaign contributions to Bouchard’s bid to become Michigan’s Governor in 2010? Was the contract steering a pay-to-play scheme?
According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Annual Report for 2010, (see link: http://www.oakgov.com/sheriff/assets/docs/OCSO_annualreport2010.pdf there were 8818 foreclosures in 2009 and 9727 in 2010. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that, of the more than 18,000 foreclosures in Oakland County in 2009-2010, Thomas Rabette was the auctioneer for only 10%, or 1800 sheriff sales. According to City-Data, the median value of homes and condos in Oakland County was $186,800. (See link: http://www.city-data.com/county/Oakland_County-MI.html) If Thomas Rabette unlawfully signed the sheriff deeds for 1800 Oakland County properties valued at an average of $186,800 each, then he alone has caused more than $336 million in sheriff deeds to have clouded title.Because federal RICO laws permit civil litigants to sue for triple damages, then the economic impact of Bouchard and Rabette’s alleged pay-to-play scheme potentially exposes Oakland County to more than a billion dollars in liability! If Rabette signed more than 10% of the Oakland County sheriff deeds executed since 2009, then the economic impact of his alleged corruption increases exponentially.
Given Michigan’s fragile economy, the media outlets who are bossed and bought would not want to publicize that millions, if not billions, of dollars in Oakland County titles to banks are clouded due to Bouchard’s corruption. Only Voice of Detroit wants to tell property owners that their rights are being violated!
This is the problem. A big problem! What is the solution? It’s easy to do as federal Judge Robert Cleland seems to have done, to simply turn a blind eye to Sheriff Bouchard’s corruption, and allow people who can’t afford their mortgage to be evicted by any means necessary, including by means of invalid sheriff deeds. The end doesn’t justify the means, particularly if the means require us to compromise our standards of government integrity. You’d think the banks, just as much, (if not more than foreclosed homeowners), would want to put a stop to Bouchard if he is guilty of what New Jerusalem accuses him of. Then, the banks’ sheriff deeds wouldn’t have clouded title. Honest government isn’t a privilege. It’s everyone’s right!
Ultimately, turning a blind eye to corruption costs everyone so much more than $336 million. Even people who don’t live in Oakland County suffer if that county is bankrupted and blighted by unpunished, corrupt politicians. We all pay the price of evil triumphing because good people do nothing. It would wise of Oakland County to investigate Bouchard and Rabette.
Ed. note: Thanks to the folks at Preventing Foreclosures Blog for this highly informative story which responded to VOD’s original story above. Click on the link below to access their website:
People need to realize that POLITICS and CAPITALISM DO NOT MAKE FOR A CLEAN GAME ! WAKE UP ! START OCCUPYING YOUR MIND ! AND THINK ! USE COMMON SENSE
In a time when we should be able to trust our political leaders we find ourselves desperate to find a means in which we may battle against a system which has yet again failed us..I am outraged to think that it has been my loss and the loss of my friends and family members to fatten the pockets of crooked, local sector government…To this I can only say one thing…God sent Martin Luther King at a time when reformation was our only hope to be able to step forward into any kind of future of equality and now we are privileged to have Bishop Robert Joyce fighting for those of whom have been extracted from a system of equality and considered inferior…Bishop Joyce, please keep marching…As for me and my house …we will follow and support you….God bless and protect you and your every effort as you take on the giant of injustice….DGP
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