Republican vice chair shoots himself in foot — claims details on his sordid past are all lies

This post was initially completed on Monday, Feb. 23.

Darwin Jiles, the twice-convicted gun criminal and now a state GOP vice chairman, took to Facebook today to claim that everything that was written about his past on this blog and subsequently picked up by other online publications was all a smear campaign — in essence, a bunch of lies.
The so-called ethnic vice chair party has gone on the offensive, even if that means being offensive. Today he was engaged in, as one Republican activist put it, a case of Jiles Denials.

In a long thread on the Facebook page of the Tea Party Patriots-Michigan, Jiles insisted the information about his felonious background was not true. Of course, as the reader shall see, the information is confirmed by official court records.
These attempts at deflection began before Jiles was elected at the GOP state convention on Saturday when Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema, known for his bigoted online postings, endorsed Jiles and said claims that the 29-year-old vice chair candidate had a shaky past were based on “half-truths.”

Darwin Jiles, left, and David Wells on stage at a tea party event earlier this year.

Since the convention, David Wells, another Agema disciple, has come forward with information that may soil the reputations of every member of the convention’s Credentials Committee. Wells, who served as chairman of that committee, said the panel heard the full background story from Jiles and concluded on Friday that the candidate was the victim of rumors and “yellow journalism.”
Jiles was cleared for participation in the convention, including his bid for one of the party’s top offices. Wells offered this version of events on Facebook today: 

If the Credentials Committee heard the full story, here is what they would have heard:

* Jiles was charged in Flint in 2001 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.

* Jiles, 15 at the time, was charged as an adult and pled no-contest to a lesser charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, plus the felony firearms charge. The criminal convictions were never expunged from his record. He served time in a state-run treatment center (Shawano) and at the Maxey Training School, a juvenile detention center.

* On February 17, 2014, Jiles was charged in Oakland County with assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder for an incident in his Auburn Hills trailer park. Assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder carries a maximum possible penalty of 10 years and/or $5,000 fine.

* The charge was a result of Jiles shooting a man in the aftermath of the second of two “heated argument(s)” on Sunday, February 16, 2014, at 2:40 a.m. The victim suffered serious, but not life-threatening, injuries.

* It’s still unclear, given his past convictions, how Jiles managed to purchase the firearm used in the crime, despite the federal background check system, and how he secured a permit to carry it.  Michigan law prohibits the granting of a permit to carry a concealed weapon, a CCW, to a felon unless a provision is granted, after five years clear of the correctional system, by a local gun board.

It appears that some readers failed to navigate the links in previous posts on this subject. So, here are Jiles’ Genesee County Circuit Court records for his first arrest on four felony charges, including two counts of assault with intent to commit murder, following a shooting incident in 2001:

Here are the Oakland County Circuit Court records from last year when Jiles was initially charged with a felony, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. A plea bargain dropped his offense down to a misdemeanor charge — discharge of a firearm without malicious intent, but with injury (DISCHG FA INT WO/MAL BUT W/INJ)Numerous stipulations were placed on his 1-year probation, including a prohibition from possessing a firearm: