The pay-to-play probe into Wayne County is a year old and still expanding, according to Joel Kurth in the Detroit News.
Since federal agents delivered grand jury subpoenas to Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano's administration 12 months ago this week, the case has become the top priority for the Detroit FBI's public corruption squad, Kurth writes.
Four former aides have been charged with bribery or conspiracy, and more charges are likely, two sources with knowledge of the case said.
Ficano says his only mistake was trusting the wrong people.
"There were some that operated in the shadows and the criminal justice should deal with them," Ficano told Kurth. "It shouldn't affect the rest of this administration."
The case has expanded beyond initial subpoenas that demanded information on employee severances and county deals since 2007. Now, agents are scrutinizing contracts and campaign donations since 2003, the first year of Ficano's administration, two sources with knowledge of the investigation said.
The county spent 11 months responding to 10 subpoenas demanding emails, contracts and other records, turning over its last piece of paper on Sept. 11 to federal agents, said Jeffrey Collins, the county's deputy executive. The FBI continues to scrutinize electronic records.
In all, the grand jury received more than 500,000 pages of documents and more than 125 gigabytes of data. The paper was enough to fill a large room at the Guardian Building with banker boxes; the data is the equivalent of about 10-12 million Microsoft Word pages or emails, said June West, a Ficano spokeswoman.
