A Detroit Police Department commander has been demoted as the department investigates whether he helped get a subordinate's ex-wife arrested outside the city for a crime she did not commit.
The Detroit News broke the story Thursday, citing a department insider. The daily's paywalled article doesn't name the police official under investigation, but sources tell Deadline Detroit it's former 7th Precinct Commander Nick Giaquinto. He's been unappointed and transferred to a different precinct.
According to The News' source, the officer became enraged when his ex-wife withdrew money from their joint account at a Lincoln Park bank in November 2019, three months after court records show their divorce was finalized.
The officer reported the bank withdrawal as a crime to police in Westland, where he lived. Westland police declined to take the case, the source said, so the officer went to his commander, a longtime friend, and asked for help getting his ex-wife charged with a crime.
Even though the bank withdrawal was in Lincoln Park, out of Detroit police's jurisdiction, and was legal because it involved a joint account not covered as part of the couple's August 2019 divorce settlement, the DPD commander is accused of writing an investigator's report anyway, the source said.
The report concluded with a warrant request seeking larceny and receiving and concealing stolen property charges against the woman, according to the source.
The commander allegedly passed on the report to a Wayne County Sheriff’s Office deputy who was part of a joint task force with jurisdiction over Lincoln Park, according to the source. The deputy forwarded the warrant request to an assistant Wayne County prosecutor who authorized the charges.
The case was ultimately dropped by the prosecutor's office after the woman was arrested in January.
