Disgruntled business owner sues Mayor Mike Duggan, Detroit
DETROIT (WJBK) - A Detroit business owner is suing the city and Mayor Mike Duggan, claiming a cover-up.
Auto shop owner Bob Carmack has leveled many allegations but not without much proof. If Carmack's name sounds familiar, it may be because he wore a wire for the FBI in an operation that resulted in city councilman Gabe Leland being indicted on bribery charges.
Now Carmack, on his own, is going after Mayor Mike Duggan. Bob Carmack and the city of Detroit have been fighting in just about every court in town over just about every issue you can imagine.
Carmack claims the city and Mayor Duggan, specifically are out to get him. He says they tore down one of his buildings and are trying to evict him from another to punish him for being outspoken about public corruption.
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The city says, and judges have agreed, that Carmack is wrong. Now Carmack has filed a lawsuit seeking access to security camera recordings from the Manoogian mansion and records relating to the mayor's police security team.
He has asked for a lot of information, and the city is asking him for a lot of money to review that material before releasing it.
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Carmack's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit claims that the real reason for the hefty legal bill is because the city wants to cover up that the mayor and his family do not live in the Manoogian mansion.
Carmack also says the city is trying to hide records that would prove his allegation that the mayor is having an affair and that the mayor's son throws parties at the mansion, which is the city's official mayoral residence.
Duggan's Chief of Staff Alexis Wiley says Carmack's allegations are, essentially, a bunch of baloney. She said in a statement:
"This conversation is silly. The mayor lives at the Manoogian and has since he took office ... Mr. Carmack requested video for 30 days from 13 cameras. He was offered - and still has - the opportunity - to limit his FOIA request to one camera at the entrance and his bill would be one-thirteenth of what it would be for 13 cameras. If he was truly interested in the truth, he would have asked for the one relevant camera angle, which would clearly show the mayor living at the Manoogian mansion."
Last week the Duggans fired back at Carmack after he first alleged that Duggan was cheating on his wife. In a statement the city released he said:
"A litigant, angry to be losing a case to the Detroit Law Department, apparently decided to retaliate by hiring private investigators to follow the Mayor without his knowledge for several months. And in the end, their surveillance failed to uncover a single misdeed in the management of the city.
"If that terrible invasion of privacy weren't enough, it got worse. The same angry litigant then took individual videos of cars driving, spliced them together, and added assumptions and insinuations, all so he could create a negative judgment on the state of our marriage.
"We decided to write this statement together because we are proud of the marriage we've built over 32 years, proud that our bond today remains strong, and proud of our goal to spend the rest of our lives together.
"When you elect a public official you have every right to pass judgment on their performance in office. But you don't get the right to pry into their personal lives, or demand information on their marriage. At least that's how we feel and why we don’t answer questions about ours."
----Mike Duggan & Lori Maher