Please, no more pleas for corruption kingpins

Plea deals have always seemed to me like obituaries: No one wants to be in one, and even the bad end up looking better than they were.

Such is the case with the deal between Macomb County kingpin Anthony Marrocco and federal prosecutors. They have officially agreed that, despite a considerable body of evidence, Marrocco did not spend 20 years shaking down contractors and developers. Instead, they officially agree he is essentially a ham-handed political hack who, in 2016, failed to convince a developer that failing to buy tickets to a fundraiser could jeopardize their project.

The key term here is "officially agree."

The feds don't really believe Marrocco is the Mr. Magoo of Macomb County, who bopped his prominent proboscis while stumbling over his trusty mutt McBarker.

They have mounds of evidence and argued before a grand jury that Marrocco and his henchman Dino Bucci used Marrocco's position as public works commissioner to extort contractors and developers for hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. The feds say one business parlayed $40,000 in contributions into $6.4 million worth of taxpayer-funded contracts.

Marrocco's influence has been the stuff of legend since the Free Press assigned me to our Mount Clemens office back in 2000. The whispers were pretty loud back then, but the feds didn't begin digging into Macomb County corruption until about a decade ago. Their epic investigation yielded dozens of convictions, holding accountable both those who demanded bribes and those willing to pay to play. Marrocco was always the top prize in this contest to clean up the county and instill confidence in residents, taxpayers and businesses that they could trust public officials.

In 2020, a grand jury indicted Marrocco on two counts of extortion and one count each of conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The feds had their top public corruption agent and prosecutors on the case. Bucci spilled his guts to get a break in his own criminal case. And there seem to be plenty of victims to put on the witness stand.

Instead, Marrocco is facing up to 16 months in prison as part of a plea deal in which he will only plead guilty to being lousy at using his position to intimidate a businessman. And instead of ending their epic effort to clean up Macomb County with fireworks, the feds get a fizzle.

The king deposed

Uncle Sam may have really gotten his man back in 2016, when concerns about corruption in the public works commissioner's office and a formidable opponent, combined to knock Marrocco out of the office he had held since 1993.

Former Congresswoman Candice Miller, a Republican, defeated Democrat Marrocco on Nov. 8, 2016, winning with 55% to 45% of the vote.

The first thing Miller did after replacing Marrocco was to clean house.

Literally.

Her spokesman told me that between 8 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. on her first day in office, she fired bagman Bucci.

Then Miller ordered two employees to remove the long table where she had heard Marrocco across from contractors and developers, armed with permits he expected them to essentially buy by purchasing tickets to his political fundraisers.

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Miller's spokesman said when her employees asked where to put the table, she replied: "I don’t care. Burn it, sell it on e-Bay, just get rid of it."

Next, she ordered the office's carpet removed because it was green — the color of money.

Defense attorney Steve Fishman doesn't see a difference between Miller and Marrocco … or pretty much anyone who runs for public office. After brokering the plea deal for Marrocco that calls for his client to serve between 10 and 16 months in prison, Fishman argued that Marrocco shouldn't serve any time. He says Marrocco, who is 74, is too sick. Besides, Fishman wrote in his sentencing memorandum, Marrocco was really only guilty of practicing the dirty game of politics.

"What Mr. Marrocco did in this case, in terms of pressuring someone to purchase fundraising tickets, has been going on since time immemorial and is still going on today," Fishman wrote, before exhibiting the kind of candor I have not seen anyone else have the chutzpah to put in a public record.

"Lawyers buy tickets to judge's fundraisers. Why? Because they hope to receive court assignments or have an edge when they appear before those judges. Corporations and individuals buy tickets to politicans' fundraisers. Why? Because they hope to receive some benefit from being viewed favorably by those politicians.

"And," Fishman concluded, "the beat goes on."

To drive his point home, he attached a fundraising letter Miller sent out on Jan. 9 inviting supporters to shell out $2,000 per table to attend her Spring Gala.

The normally loquacious Miller, who had plenty to say about Marrocco in 2016, told me through her spokesman: "I have no comment on anything Anthony Marrocco says or does."

Fishman also declined to discuss the matter with me. But he wrote in his sentencing memorandum that Marrocco "never personally received a dime in his own pocket from any of his fundraising efforts." He said Marrocco grew up in a "typical Italian family" with parents who were tough, but faithful. He characterized Marrocco as a good family man and caretaker for his longtime, live-in girlfriend. Basically, a swell guy who ran Macomb County for more than 20 years … until an unfortunate and uncharacteristic lapse of judgment ruined an otherwise spotless record of selfless public service.

Playing pretend

Just about the only thing Fishman and the feds agree on is that Marrocco didn't do it for the dough. He was wealthy before he was elected public works commissioner, so you could say he was born on third base and stole home.

"For Anthony Marrocco, it wasn't about the money," the feds wrote in their rebuttal to Fishman's memorandum. "It was about power and respect."

"You either kissed the ring or your business came to a halt."

By agreeing to let Marrocco plead guilty to the attempted extortion charge, the feds limited the amount of prison time Marrocco could get and effectively allow this king-turned-knave to claim that he made a single error in judgment when he asked a developer to make a donation in 2016. But the feds really believe Marrocco habitually abused his position overseeing drains to squeeze contractors and developers for campaign contributions for more than 20 years by placing a stranglehold on permits for water, sewer, soil erosion and subdivision plans. And while the plea deal says Marrocco didn't stand to gain more than $6,500, the feds really believe he misused coerced campaign contributions to pay for flights, rental cars, dining in swanky Palm Beach, spa visits, gifts and yacht club expenses.

So how, you may ask, did they end up cutting a deal in which they said he got no dough and should do no more than 16 months in prison?

Bucci's death was a major reason. In their response to Fishman's plea for leniency, prosecutors wrote that the bagman's demise "prevented the government from presenting a complete and fulsome view of the manner in which the public works department was operated over Marrocco's tenure. In other cases, the government has similarly been forced to lessen applicable punishment in the face of lost witnesses or evidence."

Victims, in this case the businesspeople who were shaken down, can also be reluctant to testify candidly. They fear being tainted by their participation in a corruption scheme, even if they were unwilling participants. And I imagine they may even fear that other as-yet undiscovered crooks in positions of public trust will deny them government work.

I suspect the feds also feel that robbing Marrocco of his prestige — forever branding him a felon — is more than enough to offset passing up the chance to obtain a conviction and a stiff sentence that could turn out to be a death sentence for the septuagenarian defendant.

So, rather than risk letting Marrocco off the hook by losing at trial against a savvy and well-financed foe like Fishman, the feds opted to take the conviction, make Marrocco the cherry on top of a successful crusade against public corruption in the suburbs, and shift their limited time and resources to other suspected evildoers.

As I've written in this space before, I prefer trials. They can be long. They can be messy. But they yield far more information and insight into how things really work than a plea deal that leaves the impression a crook isn't as crooked as the evidence indicates. Fishman has a point in his response to the government's response to his sentencing memorandum when he complains that the feds are trying to persuade the judge that Marrocco is a serial extortionist when, because of the plea agreement, the judge "has not heard a whit of testimony from any witness concerning the above allegations."

My bet is that U.S. District Court Judge Robert Cleland, a former prosecutor, will see through the smoke on Thursday when Marrocco is scheduled to appear before him for sentencing. But if feds are right about the extent of Marrocco's corruption, even if Cleland gives him the maximum 16 month sentence called for in the plea deal, the punishment still won't fit the crime.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick. Support investigative reporting and use this link to invite a friend to become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Macomb County kingpin Anthony Marrocco gets a sweet plea deal