Ex-Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith pleads guilty in embezzlement case

More than four years after state police investigators seized records from the office of ex-Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith, the former longtime elected official has admitted guilt and is going to be sentenced in the embezzlement probe.

But Smith isn't expected to serve any more time behind bars after the nearly seven months he served in federal prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge in an unrelated case in which he stole money from his campaign.

"Per the plea agreement we expect Smith to be sentenced to 12 months incarceration at the county jail. We expect this will be sentenced concurrent with his Federal Bureau of Prisons sentence and therefore he will not be jailed beyond time already served between incarceration and house arrest," Danny Wimmer, press secretary for the Michigan Attorney General's Office, wrote in an email to the Free Press. "Additional sanctions, such as fines, will be set by the court."

Smith is expected to pay $25,000 in restitution, and it is expected that the state court will order forfeiture of a significant portion of his pension, according to the Attorney General's Office. Last year, the state court froze Smith's pension of nearly $6,900 a month at the request of prosecutors.

In early 2020, Smith was charged with 10 offenses by state prosecutors in the probe accusing him of embezzling money from his former office's forfeiture funds. On Tuesday, after years in the court system, he pleaded guilty to three charges, with the other seven expected to be dismissed at sentencing in person Sept. 6 in Macomb County.

Wrapping up a long Macomb corruption probe

"This is a long investigation and a long prosecution. The three felonies under state law currently are not expungable ... That's going to be a significant bar for him to be able to run for any office," Assistant Attorney General Michael Frezza told the court during a hearing Tuesday.

"The people of Macomb County, and for that matter, the state of Michigan, are protected by the fact that this defendant resigned within days after charges. So that he's no longer in a position to harm the people in the way that he did under this plea and under the amended information. He has lost his law license, I understand from the state bar, and the people are further protected through that. It was the judgment of the Michigan Department of Attorney General that this is a fair and just result."

Smith’s sentence will, at some point, allow for sentencing for three other people caught up in the probe — two of them former assistant prosecuting attorneys.

And it will close that dark chapter in the prosecutor’s office as well as a swath of unrelated corruption in the county that brought down other elected officials in recent years.

More: Macomb County's culture of corruption: 'It's how it's always been'

How Smith spent his ill-gotten money

Smith, 56, was accused of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the drug and forfeiture funds in his former office for personal and unauthorized business expenses over many years.

The expenses included purchases for a security system at his Macomb Township home, which police searched; church donations; mini iPads for a school one of his children attended; holiday parties for staff; and items for employees who retired or who lost a relative, such as flowers, a bench, a plaque, gift cards and more, authorities said.

Smith accepted a written plea agreement by a July 26 deadline, per Macomb County Circuit court records, a document signed by him, his attorney and Frezza.

The plea agreement is between the state Attorney General's Office and Smith.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Nanci Grant accepted Smith's guilty pleas during a Zoom hearing that lasted less than 20 minutes Tuesday. Grant was assigned the case after all the Macomb County Circuit judges recused themselves.

Judge addresses public dissatisfaction with plea deal

Grant said her office has received many calls and emails about the proposed plea agreement, which was read into the record during a hearing in June and of which a written, signed copy was filed with the Macomb County Circuit Court last month.

"And folks need to understand that the plea bargain was made between the Attorney General's Office and the defendant, and (it) is not the job of the court to reject the plea based on comments or opinion of the public. It is the ... state's attorney general who brings the charges, who looks at the strength of their case and determines the most just and fair outcome for the people of the state of Michigan.

"So various members of the public who have any issues or are disturbed by the plea that's been offered by the Attorney General's Office, and I understand this will be accepted by the defendant, then those comments are best directed to the Attorney General's Office. But courts really, typically, don't get involved in whether a plea will be accepted by the court as long as there's been a rationale for the plea, which I believe is going to be stated again on this record."

Per the plea agreement, Smith pleaded guilty to one count of official misconduct in office, a five-year felony; tampering with evidence, a four-year felony, and conspiracy to commit forgery of a false receipt, a 14-year felony.

He acknowledged "that he acted with corrupt intent ... in the exercise of his office while the elected Macomb County prosecutor, including by misusing public funds, that his acts were wrongful and malfeasance," per the agreement.

The date of the first act that resulted in the charge is March 24, 2014, six years prior to the filing of the complaint, per the agreement, and states that Smith "so acted on other dates thereafter."

Under the Public Employee Retirement Benefits Forfeiture Act, Smith is subject to forfeiture of the portion of his pension from the first date of the official misconduct in office charge, March 24, 2014, running until his resignation in March 2020. An order will be presented for entry by the court at sentencing, and the pension plan receives the order and calculates the amount of the forfeiture, Wimmer wrote in a separate email to the Free Press.

'Against the statute'

Smith answered questions from Grant and Frezza, mostly answering yes or no type questions. Asked whether he misused public money under his control, Smith said "yes." The four accounts were a drug forfeiture account, an OWI forfeiture account, a bad check restitution account and the Warren drug court account.

"And you did that on multiple occasions during that period of time?" Frezza asked.

"Yes," Smith said.

"And those public funds amounted to at least $25,000, including from the drug forfeiture account and the OWI account," Frezza said.

"Yes, $25,000," Smith said.

Frezza asked Smith whether he agreed that in doing this, he acted "with corrupt intent in the exercise of the office of Macomb County elected prosecutor?"

Smith smiled and paused for many seconds before answering "yes."

"And that was wrongful and malfeasance," Frezza said.

"It was, uh, against the statute," Smith replied.

Frezza asked again, "it was corrupt and wrongful. You agree?"

"We stipulate to the legal basis. He's making a factual basis, but we agree that we're meeting the factual elements here," Smith's attorney, John Dakmak, chimed in.

Smith spent more than 15 years as prosecutor, being first elected in 2004, and more years as an assistant prosecutor when he began working for the office in 1993. He resigned in 2020. For years, he touted himself as "one tough prosecutor" and addressed the media during high-profile cases.

Per the agreement, the parties agree that Smith "will be sentenced to incarceration in county jail for 12 months. This term of incarceration will be served concurrently with the term Defendant Smith was and is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons" imposed in his federal case.

Smith was released from federal prison Jan. 31. He pleaded guilty in federal court in January 2021 after being accused of stealing just under $75,000 from his campaign fund from 2012 to 2019. He was sentenced Feb. 16, 2022, to 21 months in federal prison. He reported to federal prison in June of last year and was released early after serving nearly seven months.

In February, Smith's projected release date from the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons was Christmas Day of this year. However, the bureau said Tuesday that Smith was released from its custody July 28 via First Step Act release.

"While we don't discuss a specific inmate's release method, we can share that an inmate may earn good conduct time. Prior to the FSA, qualifying inmates earned up to 54 days of good conduct time for each year served and ... the BOP pro-rated the amount of good conduct time earned for the final year of service of sentence. Under the amendments made by the FSA, qualifying inmates will be eligible to earn up to 54 days of good conduct time for each year of the sentence imposed by the court," spokesperson Scott Taylor wrote in an email to the Free Press.

Taylor added that "inmates may release up to 12 months early if they complete the BOP's Residential Drug Abuse Program, and inmates may release early via court order such as a compassionate release (due to old age and medical conditions) or clemency."

Per the plea agreement in the embezzlement case, the state court will set any and all other terms of Smith's sentence, and the parties agreed if the plea was accepted by the court and after sentencing, state prosecutors would dismiss seven other charges against Smith.

Smith, a Democrat, resigned from his position as the longtime prosecutor on March 30, 2020, less than a week after he was charged in the state probe.

In early 2019, Macomb County commissioners approved a forensic audit to find out whether expenditures from four forfeiture funds in the prosecutor's office were legitimate. The money, under state law, is to be used for law enforcement purposes.

The investigation was prompted by a complaint by Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, a Democrat, who called for an investigation into inappropriate use of the accounts.

"No one is above the law, regardless of what office they serve. The former prosecutor severely abused his position of power and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the people of Macomb County. Those charged with upholding the law should be held to the highest ethical standards," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a release Tuesday.

"Eric Smith violated the public trust and tainted the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office," Nessel, a Democrat, said, calling Smith's crimes "egregious."

Three others charged in the state investigation, including former assistant prosecutors Benjamin Liston and Derek Miller, and businessman William Weber, who operated a security company, are awaiting sentencing for their roles in the probe. They are expected to be sentenced sometime after Smith.

Smith admitted Tuesday that Weber was to create a false invoice from his security business stating that equipment installed at Smith's home had been installed at the prosecutor's office in Mount Clemens. The false invoice was to be produced in response to a Macomb County Circuit Court subpoena issued to the security group to cover up where the equipment actually was installed, per Tuesday's hearing.

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ex-Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith pleads guilty