[nfbmi-talk] when they hide things

[joe harcz Comcast]

This goes to the stalling and hiding of correspondences within and related to MCB activities. I'm sure there are numerous coverups. Think about the communications between Cannon and some staff related to the hits on Chris and Dave for example...Or what are they trying to cover up with not releasing information clearly related to required State Plans, financials, and monitoring?

No when corrupt government officials from Nixon to Kilpatrick try to hide something they always have something bigger to hide. That is why sunshine laws were created from the Open Meetings Act to the Freedom of Information Act.

Joe
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100623/METRO/6230435/1361/Lawyer-Stefani-reprimanded-in-text-message-scandal

Lawyer Stefani reprimanded in text message scandal

 

Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

 

Detroit -- The state Attorney Discipline Board today declined to suspend the attorney who unearthed Kwame Kilpatrick's infamous

text messages.

 

Michael Stefani, found guilty of professional misconduct for failing to notify Kilpatrick's lawyers and the court back in 2007 when he subpoenaed the city's

message service provider for the texts that toppled the former mayor's administration, was given a formal reprimand.

 

Stefani also was ordered today to pay $5,115.84 to cover the cost of his prosecution by the Attorney Grievance

Commission.

 

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He is the second lawyer to be disciplined for involvement with the text message scandal. Former Detroit Corporation Counsel John E. Johnson was ordered

on June 16 to cover the $7,623.40 cost of his misconduct prosecution.

 

Johnson had been found guilty in April of negligence in supervision of others in the city's Law Department handling Kilpatrick's salacious text messages.

Negotiations led to a deal to keep them secret, and the city's Law Department was later found to have violated the state's

Freedom of Information Act

by hiding documents about the deal.

 

Kilpatrick's city-hired lawyer, Samuel McCargo, also has been found guilty of misconduct, but his discipline hearing panel has yet to issue punishment.

Another city contracted

attorney,

Wilson Copeland, was cleared of charges brought against him. A discipline hearing for Valerie Colbert-Osamuede, who still serves as the city's head of labor

law, continues next month.

 

A suspension of Stefani's law license had been recommended under attorney discipline guidelines, but the panel of three volunteer lawyers sitting as judges

in the matter wrote: "We are confident that this very public discipline serves the basic goal of the disciplinary system announced by the Michigan Supreme

Court: to protect "the public, the courts and the legal profession because it openly and permanently memorializes Mr. Stefani's wrongdoing.

 

"In light of the nature of his misconduct, we conclude that a reprimand sufficiently addresses the issues raised by that misconduct and we do not think

that suspending Mr. Stefani's right to practice law on this record would advance the basic goal of the disciplinary system in Michigan."

 

Attorneys James Baiers, and Barry Goldman served on the panel chaired by Anne Widlak.

 

Stefani had represented two whistleblower Detroit Police officers who won a lawsuit verdict of $6.5 million against the city in 2007, claiming they had

been punished or fired by the Kilpatrick administration for their investigation and testimony about irregularities involving the mayor's police bodyguard

unit.

 

Kilpatrick had publicly vowed to appeal the verdict, but quickly settled for $8.4 million after being told Stefani had obtained the messages that showed

Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty maneuvered behind the scenes to punish the officers. The messages also showed the couple lied

under oath to hide their extramarital affair.

 

Testimony before the discipline board showed the hasty negotiations also settled a similar complaint from yet another officer and the total was a bargain

when considering interest-owed on the original amount if the case had been appealed.

 

"There are people who are very strong supporters of the former mayor who still say what I did was extort money from the city," Stefani said today. "They

have said the $8.4 million was not a legitimate amount owed us, that it was hush money for not making these text messages public. That's simply not true

because it actually was a couple of million less than we would have received if it had gone to appeal.

 

"We used the text messages in a way to trick the mayor into settling, but not tricking anyone onto giving us an amount that was any more than was appropriate,"

Stefani said. "Anyone who looks at what happened over Kilpatrick's restitution hearings recently recognizes that the former mayor is very tenacious, doesn't

look at reality, and doesn't listen to his lawyers. So yes, it was a trick we used to get him to settle, but it certainly wasn't to get anything we weren't

entitled to."

 

dguthrie at detnews.com

(313) 222-2548