Darwin Jiles, who has two criminal convictions on his record related to shootings, has been elected as the vice chair for the ethnic/minority bloc of the Michigan Republican Party.
The GOP convention delegates chose Jiles over the incumbent, Linda Lee Tarver.
You can read more about Jiles in the post below.

Friday, February 20, 2015

The Grand Old (Prison) Party: GOP vice chairman candidate was convicted of violent gun crime as a teen

Darwin Jiles, Jr., has emerged as a controversial character within the Michigan Republican Party since he declared his candidacy for one of the vice chairman positions up for grabs at this weekend’s state convention.
The internal debate was sparked by revelations that Jiles, 29, is on probation after pleading guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge for shooting an acquaintance in his Auburn Hills trailer park. But that black mark on his record is nearly trivial compared to the violent gun crime he committed when he was a 15-year-old living in Flint, according to court records.

Genesee County Circuit Court records show that in 2001 Jiles was charged with two counts of assault with intent to murder, one charge of illegally carrying a concealed weapon, and one charge of using a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Facing that barrage of felonies, the records indicate that Jiles arranged a plea bargain and pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, plus the felony firearms charge.

Fourteen years later, he is hoping to win election at the Republican’s Lansing convention to the vice chair position representing the ethnic/minority block of the state GOP.

As he looks forward to a career in politics, Jiles went on a charm offensive after he was charged in the 2014 Auburn Hills shooting, insisting that the incident was an accident, not a crime. But apparently everyone wooed by his PR campaign forgot to ask Jiles if he had ever been convicted previously of criminal activity.
Details of the first crime are not readily available but, according to the court, Jiles was sentenced in November 2001 as a juvenile, not an adult, and was ordered to serve time in the medium-security section of the Maxey Training School – a juvenile detention center for boys in Whitmore Lake.

The documentation shows that he was initially placed under the supervision of the state social services agency, then known as the Family Independence Agency (FIA), and he was required to undergo treatment at the Shawono Center in Grayling.

The court summary does not specify what type of treatment he received, though he was still at Shawono in May 2002 when the sentencing judge ordered him to complete the program.
Shawono is a state-run, 40-bed treatment facility for male juveniles between the ages of 12 and 21 years who have committed felonies. The center offers four specialized treatment programs: for sex offenders, addictions/substance abuse, general criminals, and delinquents.

From there, Jiles was sent to Maxey until he was released to the care of his grandfather in September 2003. Jiles’ father, also Darwin Jiles, had served 2½ years in Jackson State Prison beginning in 1990 after being charged with a similar felony crime – assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. The elder Jiles was killed in 2008.

Known in Flint as a community activist, Jiles has said that he moved to Auburn Hills to get away from the crime-plagued streets of his hometown.

 

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