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Sleazy stunts and hardball nastiness in political campaigns are hardly a shock, though suburban school board races typically don't provoke criminal tactics.
But in Bloomfield Hills, one elected official is accused of crossing the line from mischief to misdemeanor by stealing at least four yard signs.
Stuart Sherr, an ex-mayor now sitting on the city commission, was in court last week on a larceny charge punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a maximum $500 fine, Bill Laitner chronicles in the Detroit Free Press.
Stuart Sherr: "This really isn't a news story."
(Photo: Facebook)
The case is pure Bloomfield Hills, with these plot points:
- A black Jaguar SUV
- Home security camera footage
- A defendant who's a real estate developer
- A victim who's an attorney and was an assistant federal prosecutor
Here's what went down on the mean streets of Pine Ridge Drive, as Laitner recounts:
[Anjali] Prasad, a single mother whose parents were born in India, said it was hard enough telling her sons that someone was repeatedly stealing her yard signs when she ran for the Bloomfield Hills school board last fall – but even harder when she told them who had been caught red-handed. . . .
The man who took two of her signs in plain view of a police stakeout and then, on being questioned, opened the trunk of his Jaguar to reveal that he’d taken two more of Prasad's signs, was none other than Stuart Sherr, a wealthy businessmen, Bloomfield Hills city commissioner and one-time mayor. . . .
Sherr is vice president of Sherr Development, a family business that owns and manages apartment buildings in five states. . . . "This really isn’t a news story," he told the Free Press last week when asked for comment.
Heads-up if you're ever in trouble: Telling a reporter there's nothing to see here is a bad idea that never works.
It didn't dissuade the Detroit journalist from writing more than 1,600 words about the case of the swiped signs, while acknowledging that "technically, it is a trivial offense." But at a time when political dirty tricks and election tampering are in the national consciousness, the alleged Pine Ridge pilfering really is worth a news story.
