Two years ago, former county prosecutor Eric Smith was labeled a rising star in the Michigan Democratic Party and was considered for Gov. Whitmer’s 2018 nominee for attorney general.
Last year, he was under criminal investigation by the AG who won that 2018 election, Democrat Dana Nessel, plus the FBI and state police.
Today, he is heading to the penitentiary for up to 21 months on corruption charges.
But the story of “Mr. Smith Goes to Prison” is far from over.
Smith still faces a slew of state charges in 41B District Court in Clinton Township for corruption and misuse of $600,000 in “off the books” accounts at the prosecutor’s office intended for law enforcement purposes.
The plea bargain announced in federal court on Wednesday let Smith plead guilty to two counts of obstructing justice after he covered up his theft of $75,000 from his election campaign account. He will be sentenced to between 15 and 21 months on April 27 and he has agreed to pay nearly $70,000 in fines.
A court date is set for March 26 for Smith and two others hit with the list of charges issued by the state. Two assistant prosecutors who worked with Smith, including former Democratic county treasurer Derek Miller, are among four people charged in that case.
That’s when the public will begin to hear details about the mounds of evidence that Smith, who served as prosecutor for nearly 16 years before resigning last March, engaged in Mafia-style misdeeds such as conducting a criminal enterprise, along with five counts of embezzlement and one count of tampering with evidence. He faces up to 20 years of additional prison time.
From 2012-19, many thousands of county dollars were spent from secretive accounts on unspecified credit card purchases, cell phone bills, satellite TV service, furniture and refrigerators for the prosecutor’s staff — and lavish office parties.
The money became Smith’s personal slush fund, according to documents seized by investigators.
Let’s remember that he allegedly spent $160,000 on a security system for his elaborate Macomb Township home. He paid for gatherings of his friends and supporters, such as the $775 he dished out at a coffee house known as Cappuccino Man.
Hundreds of dollars from the funds paid for flowers at a funeral. About $200 monthly was expended on “purified” bottled water for the prosecutor’s office. Smith somehow spent $780 at a cheesecake shop.
The funds he tapped derive from financial penalties imposed on drug dealers and drunken drivers. But it seems that Smith’s elaborate spending scheme, much like the way he pilfered his campaign account, established no boundaries.
As a federal prosecutor said on Wednesday, the campaign money was spent based on Smith’s “own personal whims.”
Meanwhile, the four years of criminal investigations of Macomb County politicians and their lackeys is winding down. Smith stands as the 23rd nabbed in the flurry of arrests and convictions that started in 2016-17.
Federal authorities say the widespread corruption was due to a “generational, systemic part of the culture” in Macomb.
Still awaiting trial after numerous delays are two big fish – former county public works commissioner Tony Marrocco and his right-hand man, Dino Bucci, who was a deputy commissioner and a Macomb Township board member. Both face charges of bribery and other forms of corruption.
“Some may view Smith’s conviction as a reason to lack confidence in our elected officials or our prosecutors. But the opposite is true,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said after Wednesday’s hearing. “This case shows that our system works. When there is a rare case where a law enforcement officer commits crimes, he or she will be held accountable. Smith’s case is that kind of case. No one is above the law in Michigan, and that includes those who enforce the law.”
That may sound soothing to the feds, but until Smith faces the consequences for all of his thievery, and Marrocco and Bucci are behind bars, Macomb residents, understandably, will lack confidence in the system.
Photo: WXYZ screenshot
