Councilman Gabe Leland.
Question marks continue to plague Detroit City Councilman Gabe Leland.
The latest: Text messages about parties and campaign donations have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating whether Leland extorted people for cash, The Detroit News reports, citing the attorney who turned them over.
Attorney Andrew Paterson, who represents owners of a former Detroit bar in a civil lawsuit, says his clients submitted nearly 100 pages of documents to the grand jury, including copies of text messages between Leland and Chris Williams, a co-operator of the shuttered Centre Park Bar, reports Christine Ferretti:
Details of the grand jury were first revealed through the civil litigation that targets Dennis Archer Jr., a prominent businessman and son of Detroit's former Mayor Dennis Archer.
An Aug. 8 subpoena reviewed by The Detroit News indicated that federal authorities were seeking documents involving Leland, the bar and whether the councilman had extorted cash, booze and food.
"Despite Councilman Leland's public denials, the text messages and other documents my clients provided to the federal grand jury clearly show that Councilman Leland requested and demanded free food from and free entry into Centre Park Bar," Paterson wrote in an emailed statement. "In fact, the text messages provided to the federal grand jury clearly show that Councilman Leland not only requested free entry into an event held at Centre Park Bar for himself and a few others, but Councilman Leland also demanded and subsequently held a campaign event with free food at Centre Park Bar free of charge."
Leland's attorney, Steve FIshman, tells the paper the claims are baseless. "Once again, Mr. Paterson's allegations are too ridiculous to deserve a response," Fishman says. "As the Four Tops once said, 'It's the Same Old Song.'"
