By Violet Ikonomova
Michigan State Police, at the request of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, has opened an investigation into allegations that a collision shop owner made "threats" against the mayor.
Duggan announced at a city hall press conference Monday morning that he had requested the investigation into Robert Carmarck, who has been entangled in legal disputes with the city over properties.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan responds to "threats" by Robert Carmarck, a collision shop owner.
Michigan State Police confirmed the investigation to Deadline Detroit following the press conference.
Carmack — who had a private investigator tail Duggan and broadcast the surveillance video outside City Hall — had plans to dish more dirt on the mayor in his own news conference this Wednesday. The video showed the mayor’s comings and goings from a condo in Oakland County, where Carmack claims Duggan was visiting his purported mistress. Last week Carmack filed a lawsuit alleging Duggan doesn’t live in Detroit.
“In the last week, the threats against me and my family to release even more embarrassing information has intensified,” Duggan said as he read from prepared remarks. “We have received multiple warnings from people telling us that Carmack is threatening to release further surveillance information that he specifically promised would cause my wife Lori great pain.”
Pressure tactics
Duggan said he was compelled to contact law enforcement because he says Carmack is leveraging the information to reach a favorable settlement with the city or get a sit-down with officials.
Carmack’s battle with the city stems from a failed bid to buy a Detroit riverfront parcel he wanted to turn into a marina and condo complex during the Kwame Kilpatrick era. After sinking $250,000 into the property, Carmack says the city sent him a deed to another parcel of the same value, which he recently sold for $1 million. The city this year filed suit over the sale, claiming it was fraudulent because Carmack never legitimately came to own the land.
Separately, Carmack claims the city is vengefully trying to evict him from his collision shop on Michigan Avenue and he’s filed suit alleging it illegally demolished a property he owned across the street. The city claims that it was in fact the rightful owner of that property and that the rare emergency commercial demolition was needed because the building was structurally unsound.
The Duggan administration distributed documentation it says supports its side of the story to reporters Monday.
Duggan also used the newser to again deny Carmack’s personal allegations against him.
'The one thing you still have'
He got quiet when asked about the claim he’s having an affair, saying “I’m not gonna talk to you about that. When you're the mayor there's not a whole lot left that's private . . . though the one thing that you still have is your marriage.”
He said he sold his house in his former home of Livonia five years ago and welcomed a reporter to “come over” and visit him at the Manoogian Mansion, where he says he now lives.
(The city Law Department has failed to produce video proving this, telling Carmack it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request for a month’s worth of footage from the mansion's 13 surveillance cameras.)
Carmack’s attacks on Duggan represent more than a gripe — his ultimate goal, he says, is to get the Mayor to sit down for a deposition in one of his lawsuits against the city. For that, he says a judge told him he needs “to show evidence of why he should give each person a deposition.”
It’s not yet clear whether Carmack still plans to hold his Wednesday news conference.
Carmack is also at the center of a bribery case against Detroit City Councilmember Gabe Leland.
Mayor Duggan's statement:
'We have received multiple warnings'
10 days ago, my wife Lori and I had to deal with a painful issue in our personal life. Since then, everyone we have met across this city has treated us with nothing but kindness and support. For that we’re deeply appreciative.
I wouldn’t be discussing the subject any further, except that the events of the last week are making it appear that Bob Carmack is now threatening further embarrassment in my personal life in order to force me to take actions that are harmful to the citizens of the City of Detroit. I will never allow anyone to force me to act against your interests, no matter what the threat. Instead, I have today asked the State Police to open an independent investigation into the threats made.
Let me take you through the details of how this started and what’s happened in the last week that led to this decision. In 2007, Bob Carmack, through a company he owned, proposed buying a 10 acre parcel of land on Melville from the City of Detroit for $250,000. On June 20, 2007, Detroit City Council approved the sale – that record is in your packet. The Law Department sent Carmack notification that the sale was approved and sent him the documents to complete the sale – all he had to do was pay the $250,000 and sign the documents.
Except he walked away from the deal. He never paid the $250,000. The purchase never happened and the city never sold him the land. But a lawsuit filed by the city alleges that, in 2016, he took the old draft documents from back in 2007 and used them to fraudulently misrepresent that he owned the property. And then he sold the city property to an out-of-state investor and pocketed $1 million.
The City of Detroit’s law department just recently became aware of the apparently fraudulent sale. So the law department filed its lawsuit against Mr. Carmack on June 1, 2018. And just days later, Carmack’s private investigators began following my every move, looking for information to embarrass me. When the Law Department filed the lawsuit in June, I wasn’t even aware of the case and had no idea the litigant was having me followed. Five months later, in early November, an acquaintance of Carmack’s advised a member of my management team that Carmack was angry about the city’s litigation and blamed me for it. That acquaintance said that Carmack had hired investigators to follow me after work over a period of months and had video showing me visiting a condo in Oakland County and warned that Carmack intended to use it to embarrass me.
On November 7th, Carmack himself called City Corporation Counsel Lawrence Garcia directly. In that conversation, according to Garcia, he demanded the city settle the outstanding $1 million litigation. Carmack also demanded we settle a second lawsuit, relating to 8107 Michigan Avenue, even though the judge in that case had already ruled for the city.
Carmack demanded that the City agree to settle both suits in Carmack’s favor and not require Carmack to pay a single dollar in settlement. Corporation Counsel Garcia told him that would never happen – he needed to repay the funds. Carmack then threatened Garcia, giving him a last chance, saying: “Well you better do something. I’m going to make some noise. I’m going to drop a bomb.”
Just days later, Carmack released an edited video showing my car going into the condo and gave media interviews where he admitted that he was intentionally embarrassing me for the purpose of forcing me to take action he wanted on pending litigation. The message was clear – we didn’t drop the city’s cases and Carmack dropped his bomb.
In the last week, the threats against me and my family to release even more embarrassing information has intensified. We have received multiple warnings from people telling us that Carmack is threatening to release further surveillance information that he specifically promised would cause my wife Lori great pain.
At the same time, we received multiple messages from Carmack associates saying that this could all be avoided by meeting with Carmack – he wanted to sit down directly with the Mayor or senior city staff to address his issues. One day last week, a Carmack associate actually called a city official, saying he had Carmack on
the other line and wanted to talk to that official immediately. We declined all these efforts at direct contacts, taking the position that any conversations had to be done properly with attorneys on both sides present.
After those requests for direct meetings were declined, on Tuesday, a Carmack associate passed on a specific threat that information extremely embarrassing to me would be released by Carmack this coming Wednesday.
With the implication of that threat, we immediately reached out to law enforcement to advise them of what was occurring and ask for guidance. This case would typically be in the jurisdiction of the Detroit Police, but in order to avoid any conflicts of interest, this morning I referred this matter to the Michigan State Police.
This is a terrible situation -- I have to choose between protecting the interests of the City or protecting my family. And that's an awful position to be in. So over Thanksgiving weekend, I had some long conversations with my family and they're fully supporting me in this decision – the Mayor has to protect the interests of the citizens of Detroit first. So no matter how painful the consequences may be, we are not giving into the threats.
