Wolchek delivers a paper caper
(WJBK) - Welcome to the Adcorp parking lot.
Adcorp is a business that's supposed to deliver newspaper inserts that advertisers pay big bucks for.
It is supposed to deliver flyers that small businesses pay big bucks for. Adcorp delivers school literature that school districts, funded by our tax dollars, pay big bucks for.
Adcorp is a company that I saw disposing of tons of newspaper inserts, flyers and school ads since last summer and it appears to go back ever further than that.
And the owner of Adcorp is this guy: Christopher Guiffre.
"What do you want me to do sit here and confess every sin that I have to you?" he said.
Last spring, a FOX 2 viewer sent photos of a parking lot behind a business in Warren. The photos showed piles of weathered newspapers, boxes of beat up flyers and trash everywhere.
I sent my cameraman to take a look and he came back with video that supported the photos. The place was a mess.
The business is called Adcorp. I looked them up and found out they deliver your ads. You hire and pay someone to print them, Adcorp will deliver the flyers right to the doorstep.
Adcorp also delivers the Free Press Select to an area of Detroit. That's the free edition of the paper that's supposed to be thrown on every driveway every Saturday.
You may not be a fan of these, but advertisers pay thousands of dollars to the newspaper to get these ads out.
My tipster sent me photos of hundreds of bundles of these inserts dating back to 2016 just rotting in the Adcorp parking lot. And when I went to check for myself, I saw hundreds of dumped bundles with my own eyes. Like on July 31st of last year when I saw all these papers dated July 30 sitting in the rain.
The business is on Hoover Road in Warren but Adcorp only rents a small office upstairs. They have no warehouse, no showroom, that's all taken up by a separate, different business.
The owner of the Adcorp is Christopher Guiffre. We saw him all the time at a pizza parlor he owns and driving his van. But the problem is, I quickly found out Chris wasn't supposed to be driving at all.
Christopher Guiffre has a bunch of DUIs. He's got no license. He's also got a conviction for embezzlement from 2008. He's also pleaded guilty to larceny by conversion. Suspicious guy, suspicious looking piles of papers.
In the fall we saw piles of papers and in November, they brought in an even bigger dumpster. By early December, I once again sent my cameraman out, but we no longer saw Chris at his pizza restaurant. In fact, after days of looking for him I joked to my producer to check the jails and sure enough - there's Chris!
He was in the Oakland County Jail for his latest drunk driving conviction. He spent almost two months behind bars.
A few weeks ago, I visited the Adcorp office. The place looked deserted. The people at a neighboring business said they hadn't seen Christopher Guiffre in four months and the pizza place was closed. I put the story on the backburner. And then I got a call.
The voice message he left said "Hi my name is Christopher Guiffre and I am trying to contact Rob Wolchek. I understand you stopped by my office yesterday."
I called Chris back and he claimed he'd been away on a business trip. He said he could explain those pictures and he came to FOX 2 to speak with me.
First I ask Chris about these boxes of literature from the Redford School District.
"I only got paid as we delivered, but as these got done, they expired," Chris said.
Wolchek: "Why are they stored outside? Why wouldn't you store them inside?"
"Because the warehouse and everything in there has ... I don't have no space in there," Chris said.
Then I ask about this small business. There's boxes of their flyers all over advertising the grand opening of a restaurant.
"These flyers were all to be distributed that week," he said. "When we delivered everything that week and then we had an extra box, okay. It wasn't that we weren't trying to deliver everything. We were out there every single day, just before his grand opening."
I tell him I had photos I got from a concerned tipster. He says it's got to be someone trying to set him up.
"He dumped them and then he took pictures of them and ... when he took pictures of them, so now I know he's the one that took pictures of them," Chris said. "He sent them to try to get me in trouble for me doing something that, I didn't do nothing," Chris said.
Except that excuse doesn't work because then I show him the stuff I saw myself - the thousands of dumped Free Press inserts.
He says the guys at the Free Press gave him way too many papers when he picks them up every week.
"I went to the newspaper and told them 'Hey, listen, you're giving me too much, there's always an extra 30, 40, 50 bundles every week,'" Chris said. "Because every week there's a new house that's abandoned, a new house destroyed, a new house that's this, and I can't deliver."
Chris blames every pile of paper on someone else.
His customers: "He never paid me so these I never delivered for him."
He blames his own guys for a dump of newspapers in November.
"My guys were running my company for me," Chris said. "So if that happened, then that's happened when I wasn't even around."
Wolchek: "But you lied to me yesterday on the phone because you told me you were on a business trip."
"I was on a business trip," Guiffree said.
I've had enough of Chris' B.S. - I tell him I know he wasn't on a trip; he was in jail. I know all about his larceny conviction in the 90s and his 2008 embezzlement conviction.
"This was a thing that was through my work and there was a check that got cashed and it was all taken care of," he said. "This was supposed to be completely taken off because I paid the money back for what that was."
Wolchek: "Here's larceny by conversion. You stole a couple of thousand dollars from someone. I read that case too."
"I never stole," Chris said.
Wolchek: "And you're on probation now for drunk driving."
"Yes," he said.
Wolchek: "What's that all about?"
"I have a drunk driving," Chris said.
Wolchek: "You have three drunk drivings."
"Yeah," Chris said.
Remember, Chris wanted to come talk to me. I had the story on the back burner.
"I called you, but I am trying to do the right thing here," he said.
But I am trying to do the right thing too. Stop wasting all this paper and make sure the advertisers are getting their money's worth.
We contacted the publisher of the Sunday Free Press Select. They said:
"Before we saw the photos we were unaware that Adcorp was not delivering certain copies of our Sunday Select product. We immediately launched an investigation, terminated our contract with Adcorp and took steps which resulted in delivery of all Sunday Select copies this past Sunday."
The Redford School District also released a statement:
"Thank you FOX 2 for me bringing this to the attention of the Cyber Education Center. We have launched an internal investigation. As with any vendor, if money was taken and services not performed, we would be greatly disappointed and would look at all available remedies."
The business which is now closed, never responded. One wonders if might still be open had the advertisements for it been delivered.