Fallen Macomb prosecutor Eric Smith gets 21-month federal sentence – Macomb Daily
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Macomb County’s former prime regulation enforcement official who helped ship hundreds of individuals to jail time can be going to jail himself.
Eric Smith, 55, of Macomb Township, was sentenced Wednesday to the highest of the sentencing guideline vary, 21 months, by U.S. District Decide Linda Parker for obstruction of justice for attempting to get three folks to lie for him to cowl up stealing $75,000 from his marketing campaign fund. He additionally was ordered to pay $20,000 instantly and can serve 18 months probation upon launch.
Smith should report for jail in no later than 90 days, Parker stated.
Parker stated “regardless of” Smith reaching “many, many good issues” throughout his profession as prosecutor, he did “incalculable hurt to the justice system” and “his deeds, on this case, are egregious.” His actions broken “the notion” of the workplace by the general public, she stated.
She agreed with U.S. Lawyer’s request for the highest of the 15-21 month guideline vary and denied protection legal professional John Dakmak’s request for probation and/or house confinement. Dakmak revealed well being issues plaguing his shopper and identified Smith’s actions by no means interfered with legal prosecutions.
“This isn’t about justice on the market,” Dakmak stated throughout the practically 90-minute listening to.
However Parker rejected that argument: “Nobody is above the regulation. Whereas this has not been a violent crime, it is a crime that has harm the general public’s belief.”
Smith was charged by the feds in September 2020, six months after he was charged by state Lawyer Common Dana Nessel on unrelated costs for alleged illicit spending of as much as $600,000 in public {dollars}.
He resigned from workplace inside days of being charged by the state in March 2020 after over 15 years in workplace.
Smith, seated in courtroom at a desk together with his two attorneys, supplied an apology to many individuals and bought emotional when he talked concerning the impression of the case on his three kids. He apologized to the 2 assistant prosecutors he requested to lie for him “for dragging your good identify within the mud,” after an assistant U.S. legal professional famous he ruined the authorized profession of one in every of them.
“I made very poor selections and poor choices,” Smith stated. “I did the worst factor I may do and canopy it up.”
Smith had 16 letters of help issued on his behalf, together with one from the Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham who wrote he ought to get credit score for cooperating with the investigation. Assistant U.S. Lawyer Robert Moran rejected that, however did credit score Smith with resigning earlier than the election-filing deadline since he was up for re-election in 2020.
Letters talked positively of Smith’s attributes, and “not less than 4 letters speaking about vacationing in his cabin,” Moran informed the decide. “They didn’t know he dragged three assistant prosecutors in his internet of lies. He used the load of the workplace to get workers to cowl up his crimes.
“I’m wondering how effectively they knew concerning the particular person they had been writing about.”
Moran stated Smith harmed his marketing campaign donors who anticipated him to spend the cash on his re-election efforts.
Dakmak’s argued for home arrest and maybe time in a midway home partially attributable to Smith’s well being. Smith has been a Sort I diabetic with an insulin pump for 25 years, has alterative colitis and contracted COVID-19 twice, one in every of his bouts requiring hospitalization.
“The prisons have amenities to deal with the medical providers he wants,” Parker stated.
Throughout Parker’s ruling, the mask-wearing Smith saved his head bowed down.
Instantly after studying his destiny, Smith walked slowly to the entrance row of the courtroom gallery and greeted a number of relations who attended the listening to. He hugged his spouse and one other lady. His brother-in-law, Joe Duncan, an investigator within the Prosecutor’s Workplace, embraced him. Smith then embraced his mom, Stella, and one other lady and a younger feminine who seemed to be one in every of his daughters.
Smith’s household exited the courtroom in tears, holding each other expressing sympathy for him as they left.
Exterior the courthouse, Smith’s second legal professional, Martin Crandall, declined additional remark, saying, “We’re not going to argue with the decide out right here.”
Smith exited the courthouse about an hour later, instantly bought right into a truck and left with out addressing questions from reporters.
Smith, whose regulation license can be revoked, indicated he has began a brand new profession however didn’t elaborate.
U.S. Lawyer Daybreak Ison stated afteward in an interview outdoors the courthouse Smith’s habits was “too egregious to disregard” and the top-of-the-guidelines jail sentence was applicable.
“It’s precisely what we needed and it ought to ship a transparent message that nobody, not even an individual elected on the highest degree of presidency entrusted with imposing the regulation and defending the group from the very crimes he dedicated, is above the regulation,” Ison stated. “He was held accountable and everybody that acts like him can be held accountable.”
Smith stole $75,000 from his marketing campaign fund, $55,000 of it by means of an almost seven-year scheme by which he paid long-time pal Paul Esposito lease cash for a Shelby Township workplace that was kicked again to him. Esposito was not charged.
Smith informed the decide he initially believed it will be a mortgage however ultimately realized he would by no means repay the cash.
He pilfered one other $20,000 when he had one in every of his workers, former assistant prosecutor Paul Bukowski, money a $20,000 verify from the marketing campaign account and allowed Bukowski to maintain $5,000. He had Bukowski create a pretend political consulting firm in a failed try to assert the cash was paid to the corporate.
Bukowski was suspended with pay by the county in September 2020, when the allegations towards Smith first arose, and resigned one yr later.
Bukowski has not been criminally charged.
Previous to Bukowski cashing the verify, Moran stated one other prime assistant prosecutor was requested to take action. That assistant prosecutor took the verify however later returned it to Smith because of the probably legal nature of the act, he stated.
Smith additionally requested Assistant Prosecutor Joshua Van Laan to lie and say he used the workplace for marketing campaign analysis for Smith. Van Laan reported the request to authorities and was not charged.
Smith’s federal case is separate from a state legal case by which he’s accused of illicitly spending as much as $600,000 in public {dollars} from two forfeiture accounts and two different accounts saved off the county books on varied improper expenditures, together with presents for workers, vacation events, donations to church buildings and charitable organizations, iPads for his kids’s college and safety system for him house, amongst different issues.
He’s charged with racketeering, punishable by as much as 20 years in jail; 5 counts of embezzlement by a public official, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail; conspiracy to commit forgery, punishable by as much as 14 years; and three different low-level felonies.
He and co-defendant Derek Miller, a former assistant prosecutor, on Feb. 4 had been sure over to Macomb County Circuit Courtroom on the entire costs towards them by Visiting Decide Cynthia Arvant following a preliminary examination in 41B District Courtroom in Clinton Township. Miller, 38, of Warren, is charged with misconduct by a public official and conspiracy to commit an unlawful act in an unlawful method, each five-year felonies. He’s accused of adjusting identification numbers on two financial institution accounts that held the funds allegedly misspent by Smith.
It was confirmed Monday that Miller lately resigned the put up within the prosecutor’s workplace from which he has been on paid go away.
Miller and Smith are scheduled for a Feb. 28 pretrial in entrance of visiting Decide Nanci Grant in Macomb County Circuit Courtroom.
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