Feds: Towing King Gasper Fiore Is Prolific Briber; Kilpatrick's Regime Benefitted

Gasper Fiore is cast as "an enemy of honest government in Detroit."

Gasper Fiore, while a self-made businessman, is also a prolific bribe payer dating back to at least the administration of Kwame Kilpatrick, the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote in a federal court filing.

"Investigations by the FBI over the past two decades revealed that there was virtually no public official whose palms Fiore wouldn’t try to grease if there was something in it for him or his businesses," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Bullota and David A. Gardey wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed Thursday.

Prosecutors are asking U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland to give Fiore, 57, of Grosse Pointe Shores,  21 months in prison when he's sentenced in a couple weeks for paying $7,000 in cash bribes to former Clinton Township Trustee Dean Reynolds to obtain a municipal towing contract with the township. Reynolds has been convicted in the case.

Prosecutors in the court document discuss Fiore's shady past and state: 

• In 2010, a high-level official with the Wayne County Sherriff’s Department reported to the FBI that he learned that Fiore was paying deputies $50 in cash for every towing referral.
• In 2011, an interview of a woman whose husband used to work for Fiore, described how Fiore used her husband to funnel straw campaign donations to Kwame Kilpatrick’s campaign.
• Derrick Miller, the former Chief Administrative Officer under Kilpatrick and a convicted bribe taker, told the FBI that Fiore got preferential treatment in city towing matters because he was a big financial supporter of Kilpatrick.
• Michael Tardif, a political advisor for Kilpatrick, reported to the FBI in 2008 that Fiore had previously directed Tardif to come to his towing company offices to retrieve cash in order to pay Kilpatrick’s election workers. Tardif went to Fiore’s office and retrieved an envelope full of $100 bills. Fiore even provided a car to then City Councilwoman Monica Conyers.
• Despite seeing the former Mayor and his associates receive lengthy prison sentences for bribery, Fiore continued on, undeterred. In 2016, a wiretap of Fiore’s telephone revealed that he was bribing Detroit Deputy Police Chief Celia Washington in exchange for her assistance with new towing rotations.

"For over a decade, Gasper Fiore has been an enemy of honest government in Detroit," prosecutors write.