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Ira Todd
For more than three decades, Ira Todd, armed with a gun and a badge, has been solving some of Detroit's high-profile crimes.
Todd, a homicide cop, is credited with helping lock up four people linked to the murder of a French street artist Bilal Berreni, 23, near the Brewster-Douglass housing projects in 2013. He got a confession from a hit man in 2008, which recently helped free Devontae Sanford, who was wrongfully imprisoned for eight years for a quadruple murder he didn’t commit. And he got another person to confess to a murder of a woman that had been initially pinned on her boyfriend, David Beeks, in 1993.
Now, Todd, 58, is hoping to trade in his Detroit Police gun and badge for a full-time job as the township supervisor in Augusta Township, outside of Ypsilanti, where he lives. He’s running for election for that job in the primary on Tuesday, hoping to spend more time cleaning up corruption and addressing some nagging problems at the township hall.
“I like the current supervisor, but I just think I could do a little more to take us into the 21st Century,” Todd tells Deadline Detroit.
Todd is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent Township supervisor Pete Hafler. Republican Brian Shelby is running unopposed.
Todd isn’t a stranger to local politics or the limelight for that matter. He’s been a consultant for movies like Beverly Hills Cops and TV shows including ABC’s Detroit 187 and AMC’s Low Winter Sun.
In 2011, he says he ran for a position as township trustee – the equivalent of a city council position – after being urged to do so by citizens concerned about township corruption.
First African American Trustee
He won the election for the part-time, four-year job, becoming the township’s first African American township trustee.
Todd didn’t waste much time after getting in office.
He says he called for an audit of the township finances, which lead to Brendan Humeniak, 22, the Augusta Township deputy treasurer -- his grandmother is the treasurer -- being sentenced to 18 months probation for embezzling taxpayers' money. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $8,900, which Todd insists is only a fraction of what he took. Todd says it was closer to $80,000.
Todd says a fraud task force comprised of FBI agents and Michigan State Police investigators is still looking into the township’s finances. He says there’s actually the possibility that more than $1 million is still unaccounted for. Some involved in the township politics have denied that the problem is nearly as big as Todd claims and say investigators have yet to prove anything more.
“I’m running for this position so I can continue my efforts to make sure anyone who has committed crimes at the township is held accountable," says Todd.
Todd says that the fact a prosecutor and a judge signed off search warrants in the investigation into missing funds indicates "there was enough probable cause" to look into matter.
"Some current board members and former elected officials have been putting out false information to try undermine the investigation into missing funds," Todd says.
Township Supervisor Hafler, who has been in the job for eight years, says he thinks Todd or the Republican opponent, Shelby, would do a good job. But he believes he's the most qualified.
“I think with the road blocks that I’ve had over the past eight years, I’ve been doing very well,” Hafler tells Deadline Detroit. “I think I’ve been doing very well. I think I should be re-elected because I have the most experience over anybody else running.”
He said he and Todd have worked together to expose the corruption in the Township.
“Ira and I both stepped up and took the ball and ran with it,” he says.
Todd says the investigations into township affairs have resulted in him being labeled a "troublemaker" by some in the township. Deciding to play on that accusation, he emailed a campaign message on Friday, which in part said:
Well they are correct. He is a trouble maker.
-Ira Todd took the trouble of looking into why so much money was unaccounted for in the township.
-Ira Todd took the trouble of looking into why the Clerk or her deputy never showed up for work.
-Ira Todd took the trouble of looking into why our township books never balanced.
- Ira Todd took the trouble of looking into the mismanagement and abuse of tax payers dollars.
He ended the message with:
VOTE IRA TODD FOR SUPERVISOR, and let's continue to make trouble for those who turned a blind eye to corruption.
Even if elected to the full time job, Todd says he’ll keep his hand in law enforcement, working part time as a sheriff’s deputy for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office.
As for the township supervisor job, he says:
“I think this is a great retirement job. I will have time to clean up things at the township hall and straighten out the finances.”
