Protests continue over charges from past Shelby protest incident
Detroit Will Breathe representatives hold a press conference Feb. 1 outside the Shelby Township Police Department to call for charges to be dropped against five people who were arrested during a protest in October. Sammie Lewis, a representative for Detroit Will Breathe, was one of the people who spoke during the press conference.
Screenshot from live YouTube event
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SHELBY TOWNSHIP A press conference was held in Shelby Township at 10 a.m. Feb. 1 addressing charges that stemmed from a local protest Oct. 24, in which residents from the metro Detroit area came together to protest against the Shelby Township Police Department.
Michigan Republicans have a long history of being on the wrong side of many of the issues the citizens of Michigan care most about. From education to privatizing essential government services like prisons and schools, they have invariably sided with the corporatists who stand to benefit most from shifting tax dollars to corporate bank accounts. I thought I had seen them at their worst when they passed the what Rachel Maddow called “THE most radical Republican experiment in the 21st Century”, Michigan’s odious Emergency Manager Law and when they formed the school district for wayward Detroit schools the Education Achievement Authority and then put the extraordinary grifter John Covington in charge with the predictably tragic results.
Credit Michigan State Police
Former Macomb County prosecutor Eric Smith pled guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in federal court Wednesday.
His plea hearing was conducted by video conference in front of U.S. District Court Judge Linda V. Parker.
Smith admitted that he tried to get a friend and two of his assistant county proscutors to lie to federal law enforcement officers and to a federal grand jury in an effort to hide his own criminal conduct.
As part of his guilty plea, Smith also admitted that he had stolen almost $75,000 from his own campaign fund through two different fraud schemes.
Former Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith faces 21 months in federal prison
Smith pleads guilty to obstruction of justice charge
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MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – Former
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Federal investigators claim Smith brought employees into a back stairwell inside the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office and worked to steer the investigation away from him.
DETAILS:
Smith was accused of two separate fraud schemes, where Smith convinced a friend and two prosecutors to lie to investigators and a grand jury in an attempt to hide the $74,000 that Smith had used for personal use.
“I attempted to have friends give inaccurate information to the government on actions I shouldn’t have done. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway,” Smith said during Wednesday’s hearing. “I fully accept responsibility. I acted alone, for myself and deeply regret my actions and the shame I brought to my wife, children and the office I worked in for 30 years. I accept my punishment”