Charlie LeDuff

The night before elections and Charlie’s got something to say… @Charlieleduff

What Happened to the Weed Money for Mayor Sheffield's Charity? The owner of a Detroit pot shop donated tens of thousands to the mayor's charity, but that money isn't listed on the tax documents By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield is starting to remind me of disgraced former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. When the feds took Kwame to trial, the easiest thing for them to prove was that he used his tax-exempt charity—the Kilpatrick Civic Fund—as a personal piggy bank. It turned out that the Kwamster stole more than a half-million dollars from the charity that was supposed to go toward kids programs. Instead, Kilpatrick treated himself to golf clubs, exotic spa treatments, and a 2000 Cadillac DeVille with leather seats and wood-accented trim. Now comes Sheffield. Her ex-lover, Marvin Walker, claims she did the same thing while acting as city councilwoman. According to Walker, Sheffield would write him a check from her children’s charity—Detroit Donates—and have him cash it at the bank and then kick the money back directly to her. "It ended up in her pocket," Walker said, as he showed me a text message from Sheffield detailing how the scheme should work. There’s more. Sheffield’s charity—which is headquartered at her father’s activity center—was given about $40,000 over the last six years by Stuart Carter, a big marijuana guy in the city who owns a pot shop on the East Side called Utopia Gardens, as well as a grow operation and a processing center. According to his filings with state regulators, Carter claimed to have given the Sheffield charity six separate donations of $5,000 each, and one donation of $7,500. “And upon receiving a recreational adult use license,” Carter wrote to the state,“ (I) will be in a position to increase these donations substantially.” Carter did not respond to requests for comment. Here’s where Mary has serious troubles. According to federal tax law, any donation made to a charity of $5,000 or more must be listed on the charity’s tax forms. In the Utopia Gardens case, it was not. That’s a big problem. That’s how the feds got Capone. Now Marvin says Mary really likes the weed. In fact, Marvin gave me a photograph that he claims is a portrait of the two former lovebirds working in a grow house that Marvin SAYS Mary was a private investor in. That’s what Marvin claims, anyway. Sheffield’s camp had nothing to say to us. That’s okay. She can tell it to the FBI. But she better tell the truth. Lying to the feds can lead to a five-year bid in the federal penitentiary. Just ask Kwame. And people close to Sheffield are already talking to special agents. You don’t have to send Martin to the bank, madam. You can take that directly from me.

This Woman Gave ActBlue $22 the Day We Met Her, But She Had No Internet El-Sayed is raking in campaign donations from the Democrat fundraising platform, which apparently launders contributions through the elderly By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Milan — Elizabeth Waffle, the 88-year-old retiree who found internet fame as an unwitting political super-donor, is still living in a squalid trailer deep in the Michigan countryside. And Waffle still has no electricity, no running water, and no Wi-Fi. But being a true believer in liberal causes, and having no family beyond Georgie the arthritic hound, Waffle continues to donate a small portion of her modest retirement check to ActBlue, the online donation platform for Democratic candidates and causes. But even Waffle herself was surprised to learn last July about the extent of her supposed giving. According to FEC filings, there were more than 13,000 transactions attributed to her, totaling more than $130,000 over the past five years. “I think there’s something in there that’s off,” she said then. “I don’t have that kind of money.” And something continues to be “off.” Since our last visit, another 562 transactions totaling nearly $4,500 have been credited to Waffle in just six weeks. Among those transactions were four totaling $22 on the very day we first visited, despite the fact that Waffle had no access to the internet. Among the recipients of Waffle’s alleged largesse over those 45 days is Abdul El-Sayed, the king of the Michigan micro-donors, who clocked in with a cool $51. So we returned to the tattered trailer last week to show Waffle the printouts. Then something strange happened. When the scope of our findings dawned on the old woman, she was not overcome with outrage, or even curiosity, but with latent hostility. She wondered if we were preparing a hit piece on ActBlue, the conduit to her cherished causes. “I think it’s a bunch of hogwash,” she said of our questions. “If they’re cheating on the other side,” she meant the Republicans. “Fight fire with fire?” I asked. “Yeah,” she said. “Exactly.” Now, I believe in many of the causes that Waffle does. Clean air. Healthy forests. Affordable medicines. A good day’s pay. And I told her as much. But what I do not believe in is the apparent theft of an elderly person’s identity to launder donations from overseas or those that exceed the contribution limits. Fraud does not create a better world, I said. She softened. “I believe in honesty,” she said. “I do care if somebody is fudging and putting stuff in.” “So don’t you want me to continue to look?” I asked. “Yeah, if they are,” she said. “Then you want to know?” “Yes.” “Then I give you my word. I’ll keep going.” As we walked back to the car, I wondered if at that very moment another campaign transaction was being made in Elizabeth Waffle’s name.

Southfield Still Has a Mountain of Poison Dirt Next to a Preschool A 2021 report showed the site was full of arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, selenium, and PCBs, and five years later it's still blowing in the wind By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Ken Siver, the mayor of Southfield, likes to take Monday mornings off. He told me he works on Sundays and needs to rest up before beginning his busy work week running the town into the ground. Now, I’m starting to think Siver doesn’t work much at all since the poison dirt scandal at the old Northland Mall site started unraveling. He never seems to be in his office when I call or drop in at city hall. The last—and only—time I spoke with Siver, he called me a sensationalist, a liar, and a cheat. ”I wouldn’t know about that dirt. I was told it was clean,” Siver squealed. “Where’s your proof?” We made an appointment last March so I could show him the proof I had. Then Siver ghosted me. I was left to interview a plant. An actual plant. Similar IQs. Siver's flunkies claim the city has no records concerning the dirt analytics before it sold the 114-acre site. That turns out to be a lie. Michigan Enjoyer has come into possession of one of an unknown number of reports that city and state officials have tried to keep from the public. The brownfield work plan from June 2021 chronicles sickening levels of arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, selenium, and PCBs, to name but a few of the chemical killers buried within. The study says that a mountain of contaminated soil—23,000 tons—exceeded health levels and needed to be excavated and taken to a specialized landfill. Photographs, load tickets, and receipts were supposed to be filed with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). EGLE claims it possesses no such materials. Siver and his Southfield flunkies say the same thing. Meanwhile, a former employee at the site last weekend pointed out to me that the mountain of contaminated dirt on the site’s northwest corner—located across from a preschool—is still there. There used to be tons more toxic soil at the Northland site. And Siver is the man responsible. The city of Southfield purchased the old mall in 2015 thinking they could redevelop it. To fill the miles of tunnels beneath the mall, Siver ordered leftover construction dirt from road and sewer jobs to be hauled into the site. The city said the dirt was “clean” because it didn’t smell or look bad. Selenium doesn’t have a smell, but it can cause heart failure. When Siver realized he was too dumb to handle the redevelopment, the city went into partnership with a developer who has a string of lawsuits following him from across the country. According to the brownfield report, the developer was supposed to take the mountain to a landfill. But some of that dirt made its way into Detroit’s neighborhoods when Mayor Mary Sheffield’s former lover used it to fill demolition holes and charged the city of Detroit millions for the favor. That’s what the Office of the Inspector General says anyway. That case was kicked up to the FBI. Federal indictments are expected as early as next year. The people of Southfield, meanwhile, quite likely continue to breathe toxic particles, and nobody does or says a thing about it. One cannot help but suspect a massive conspiracy. A potential mass public poisoning of southeastern Michigan funded with millions of public dollars. EGLE plays dumb. The EPA plays deaf. And Siver’s Southfield gang? They’re just plain dumb. These were Democrats who did this, remember. The ones who shout pithy little platitudes like “environmental racism” while committing it at the very same time. Can somebody find Mayor Siver please? I’m not the only one who wants to talk with him. I hear Frank, Bill, and Ike want to speak with him too.

Abdul El-Sayed Needed Babysitters When He Was Health Director Because he isn't a real doctor, Detroit and Wayne County both had to hire actual doctors to make health decisions By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is not a doctor. That’s not me saying that, it’s the State of Michigan. Even so, El-Sayed got paid like a doctor, pretended to be a doctor, and broke state law doing so. As executive director of the Detroit Health Department and then of the Wayne County Health Department, El-Sayed was prohibited from making medical decisions because he was not and is not a licensed to practice medicine in Michigan (or anywhere else for that matter.) The state allows non-doctors like El-Sayed to be the chief bureaucrat of a local health department, but only if there is a chief medical officer to make actual health decisions. And so, El-Sayed in his short tenures in both Detroit and Wayne County was babysat by two qualified female physicians, and at least one was paid much less than El-Sayed. (Normally the actual doctor earns approximately 30% more than the bureaucrat.) So while El-Sayed plays physician in campaign commercials, the women were doing the actual work. As it happens, El-Sayed was not even qualified to be chief bureaucrat. Again, according to state law, the director of a health department must have an advanced degree in medicine or public health AND at least three years experience in health administration. El-Sayed did not have the required admin experience, but this is Wayne County, where the law is optional for machine hacks like “Dr.” Phoney El-Baloney. Under El-Sayed, the chief medical officer for Detroit in 2016 was Dr. Joneigh Khaldun. El-Sayed went on to run for governor and lost. He then became a TV doctor for CNN as a Covid expert and got almost everything wrong. Dr. Khaldun went on to become the chief medical executive for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—and, like El-Sayed, she got almost everything wrong about Covid, including school closings and commingling infected people in the state’s nursing homes. El-Sayed resurfaced in 2023 in Wayne County. Still, he had no certification. No residency. No patients. Insufficient medical experience to satisfy state law. Minor details in the Wayne County Machine. El-Sayed got the job, but still couldn’t make medical decisions or supply health care for 150 children locked in the juvenile jail. Still, he was paid an eye-popping $279,000 a year by the time he left to run for Senate last year. (A few days following his announcement, the county machine granted him a $72,000 “consulting contract.”) As El-Sayed played doctor, the actual chief medical officer, Dr. Avani Sheth, was paid $235,000, or nearly 20% less than El-Sayed. Interestingly, El-Sayed’s successor as executive director of the county health department is paid $180,000—a $99,000 pay cut for the position. El-Sayed claims on his social media posts to despise financial misogyny. But El-Sayed doesn’t seem to mind it when it’s posted to his bank ledger. What to call him? Fake doctor? Paper doctor? Unlicensed physician? Call El-Sayed whatever you want, just know he can’t make house calls.

How Duggan's Former Mistress Created Abdul El-Sayed Sonia Hassan helped bring him into Detroit government, and an anti-Israel publisher helped him get a job in Wayne County By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff The Democrat Big Three—Jocelyn Benson, Abdul El-Sayed, and Eli Savit—present themselves as something new in the world of Michigan politics. What they really are is the newest generation of the old, corrupt Wayne County Machine. A ship skippered by Mike Duggan, the former mayor of Detroit who had a grand jury follow him wherever he went. It was Duggan, in fact, who set the three Democratic nominees’ political careers in motion. It began in 2015 when Duggan and his then mistress, Dr. Sonia Hassan, had a lunch interview with the little-known El-Sayed, according to a former El-Sayed aide. The mistress was impressed with the young man. He talked smoothly, had an Ivy League education, and they were both of Egyptian heritage. With no real-world experience and no medical license, El-Sayed, then only 30, was made Detroit’s health director. To return the favor, El-Sayed’s department funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of the bankrupt city’s money into Hassan’s nonprofit. After just 16 months, El-Sayed resigned. Soon after, the mistress scandal exploded. That’s when Duggan’s chief development officer, Ryan Friedrichs, ordered City Hall staff to destroy evidence. Friedrichs came to Duggan by way of billionaire developer Stephen Ross, as the two negotiated a massive real-estate deal in the city. Ross was the power behind little-known Jocelyn Benson, who was made dean of the Wayne State Law School. In return, Duggan hired Benson’s husband—Ryan Friedrichs—to negotiate with Ross. Friedrichs went on to work for Ross as a lobbyist for the monster AI data center in Saline Township that nobody there seems to want. Benson went on to become secretary of state, and now candidate for governor. Benson claims she will not make a dime on the data-center debacle—an untruth. Duggan’s senior legal counsel at the time of the mistress scandal was Eli Savit, who tried to get the Detroit Inspector General to bury her conclusions in the investigation, writing: “The draft findings threaten to impose severe, unwarranted damage to the reputation of several public servants—and further threaten to stymie effective governance in the City of Detroit.” The inspector general refused to alter her findings. Not to worry, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel—another Duggan sycophant from their days in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office—made the scandal disappear. Savit now hopes to replace her as attorney general. El-Sayed also disappeared for a few years and resurfaced in 2023 as the new director of the Wayne County Health Department—again with no medical license and little real-world experience. He was appointed by County CEO Warren Evans, another longtime Duggan protege. El-Sayed was introduced by his patron Osama Siblani, a Dearborn-based political rainmaker who raises obscene amounts of money for Evans. For his part, the Lebanese-born Siblani considers Hezbollah and Hamas, known terror groups, to be freedom fighters. Despite withering criticism this election season, Siblani stands by his words. “I mean what I say,” Siblani told me by telephone. “And I won’t back away from that.” That’s more than you can say about El-Sayed. He deleted years of crazy social media posts in the run-up to his campaign announcement. For instance, El-Sayed used to advocate for defunding the police. Now he says the opposite. Are we getting something new with this new generation of Michigan Democrats? Hardly. What we’re getting is something old, something borrowed, something tired, but nothing new.

Abdul El-Sayed's House of Horrors After he "fixed" a juvie jail, kids suffered rape, beatings, and were given expired meds By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Abdul El-Sayed, the unlicensed doctor, says he’s got the chops and experience to govern from D.C. But does he? On the campaign trail, on television, and online, he talks about his tenure as the Wayne County Health Director and his miraculous turn around of the fetid and violent juvenile detention facility. “We had to rebuild it from the ground up,” he told a crowd of black pastors. “We rebuilt it from the studs up,” he told a group of black Democrats. “When the juvenile detention facility was in shambles, I declared a public health state of emergency to rebuild it,” he told CBS. But those claims don’t hold up when you examine the officials records, court filings, or talk to people who actually worked at the juvenile jail. Those employees paint a picture of horror, abuse, and incompetence. “Nothing was fixed,” said Jalal Malik-Ikram, a retired Detroit cop and former security officer at the juvenile jailhouse. “It was like prison. The kids called the shots, and their care and safety were beyond terrible.” Malik-Ikram was fired for taking secret photographs to document the abuse. El-Sayed may have built the studs, but he forgot to lay a foundation. “They were giving the kids expired medications,” Malik-Ikram said. “Or we couldn’t give the meds at all because it wasn’t safe. School? Education? There wasn’t none to speak of.” El-Sayed came to work for Wayne County in 2023. His resume listed few professional jobs beyond his 16 months as the Detroit Health Director. He quit that job in 2017, ran for governor, and lost. From there he became a paid talking head for CNN during the Covid pandemic. Citing standard talking points, El-Sayed got most things wrong, including the benefits of school lockouts, masking outdoors, and the efficacy of the vaccine. But El-Sayed was a “get” for the scandal-plagued county, whose Covid nursing home response was under intense scrutiny as was the plummeting life expectancy of Detroiters. In El-Sayed, they had themselves a real life TV doctor. Wayne County paid him big—about $280,000 a year. That was $100,000 more than his predecessor, a black female, and $100,000 more than his successor, also a black female. This disparity came despite El-Sayed’s social justice position decrying the pay gap between white men and black women. The month El-Sayed came aboard full-time with the county—March 2023—a 12-year-old boy was gang raped in the juvenile jail. Squalid and overcrowded, the deteriorating facility with overflowing sewage was a dumping ground not just for Detroit and Wayne County delinquents, but also for juveniles from across the state. It was the embarrassed County Executive Warren Evans—not El-Sayed—who declared a three-month state of emergency. It was Evans who appointed El-Sayed his juvenile jail czar and handed him $10 million. El-Sayed spent the money. The kids got fresh underpants, the guards got a pay raise, but little else changed. “[We] reorganized healthcare at the facility, raised salaries and wages by 35% to retain staff, and provided daily access to to hygiene products and clean underwear,” he told the Detroit News. And it was Evans, the county executive, who lifted the emergency declaration in June 2023, calling El-Sayed’s 10-week tenure a great success. But it wasn’t a great success. A week later, another kid was raped. Another week, and another beating. A few months later, the facility’s license was downgraded to a “provisional” status—requiring state supervision. The findings by a state investigator were appalling—violence, irregular meals, 22-hour lockdowns. In December 2023, two nurses filed a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging that they were fired after complaining to superiors that the children were being given expired medications. In February 2024, the juvenile jail was given a second “provisional” license after a boy was savaged by other inmates. Weeks later, a detention worker was charged and later convicted of the sexual assault of two boys. She is currently serving a 6-to-15-year prison sentence. One of the victims is now suing the county in federal court. That’s when Malik-Ikram began snapping his photographs. He tells the story of a gay teenager so distraught about being left in the general population that he pulled the florescent light bulbs out of the ceiling to harm himself. “The kid ate the glass so they’d take him to the hospital,” Malik-Ikram recalled. “That way, he figured, when he come back to lock-up, he’d get placed on the safe floor. But they wouldn’t put him on the safe floor, so the kid would eat glass again. When that didn’t work, he got violent, and that’s when security officers slammed the kid’s head into the wall. I saw that, and I took pictures.” Malik-Ikram was fired. He, too, has an active whistleblower lawsuit. Last year, the children were moved into the new Wayne County Criminal Justice Complex, a project engulfed in corruption and cost-overruns. Violence and staffing levels remain serious issues there. El-Sayed is now asking voters to consider his record at the juvenile jail as he pushes for Medicare for All when the truth is that he couldn’t manage medical care in a juvenile jailhouse. But on the upside, he got kids toothbrushes and underpants.

Mary Sheffield's Ex-Lover Alleges Sex Tapes and Drug Work In a new lawsuit, Marvin Walker claims he gave Detroit's new mayor a job in a marijuana grow house while she served on City Council By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Detroit City Hall is on fire. It is no longer a question of if—but when and how—Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and Police Chief Todd Bettison will be removed from office. The latest: a titillating lawsuit from Sheffield’s former lover and partner in municipal crime, Marvin Walker. In his 47-page complaint, expected to be filed next week in Circuit Court, Walker contends Sheffield was involved in sex tapes, a drug house, and illicit payments. According to the lawsuit, which seeks damages of $50 million, the romantic relationship between Sheffield and Walker began in December 2020 when they “created private recordings depicting consensual intimate moments” and “also exchanged private text messages and other communications concerning personal matters, financial matters, business dealings, and other matters not intended for public dissemination.” Michigan Enjoyer can confirm the existence of these materials. Walker claims that after he and Sheffield had a falling out, Sheffield sent a goon squad to harass Walker into deleting the evidence. That goon squad included Chief Bettison, Deputy Mayor Brian White, and top aide Ray Simpson. After Enjoyer published photographs of Walker delivering obscene bundles of money to Sheffield’s mailbox, Sheffield told the public that Walker was simply repaying her “tens of thousands of dollars” she had loaned him over the course of their relationship. In his lawsuit, Walker claims he never loaned Sheffield any money. In fact, Walker said he got Sheffield a job in a drug house so she could make some cash on the side. An early draft of the complaint promises “videos depicting DEFENDANT SHEFFIELD working inside a marijuana grow facility while she served on the Detroit City Council.” Further, Sheffield allowed Walker to use her city-issued automobile so that he could travel around the Midwest to conduct “business.” Walker also alleges that Bettison, White, and Simpson conspired to strong-arm him into deleting a text message that detailed how Sheffield would write checks from her political charity to Walker’s company for work he never provided. Walker would then cash the checks and give the money to Sheffield. Enjoyer published that story earlier this month. When Walker refused to delete the material, Bettison allegedly told him “that he had friends at the FBI,” according to the lawsuit. Walker understood that to be a threat. Walker refused to delete the damning material. That’s when Sheffield and Bettison launched a war of harassment and subterfuge against Walker—according to the lawsuit—going so far as to padlock his rental property and shop bogus rape cases to the county prosecutor and state police. Neither agency would grant an arrest warrant against Walker. Enjoyer has also learned that the FBI and the Detroit Office of the Inspector General have opened public corruption and abuse of office cases on both Mayor Sheffield and Chief Bettison. Then there is this: Chief Bettison has ordered an internal affairs investigation into the source of the leak of the timeline of the entire Walker affair that was given to Enjoyer. Police investigators have confiscated cell phones and computers from every police employee who had access to the timeline document, including senior command staff. Suffice it to say, Chief Bettison has lost the respect of the department.

John James Commits to Help Fix Detroit's Poisoned Holes I asked all the leading candidates to come visit Detroit's most toxic demo hole, and only he and Jay DeBoyer showed up By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Detroit — It’s the second-most famous hole in the city, and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield can’t get it filled. The hole is on 25th Street on the city’s west side, where a house once stood. The house had a piano. And on that piano, in that house, Little Stevie Wonder learned to play music. There should be a historical plaque there. Instead, there is a massive open pit of super-contaminated dirt that’s been pooling with rainwater for nearly two months. The house was demolished a few years ago, and the contractor filled it with dirt poisoned with lead at levels so high it puts Flint’s water to shame. Another contractor won a bid of nearly $93,000 to dig up the dirt, dump it at a landfill, and then re-fill the hole with clean dirt. The hole is so contaminated that the contractor wrapped the neighboring home entirely in plastic sheeting. The contractor dug a little bit out, saw a swamp of subterranean water running from some unknown origin, and promptly abandoned the project, leaving his excavator parked on the sidewalk. That’s illegal. The swamp water poured into the cellar of the neighboring home owned by Izellia Smith. Now, Smith’s house is contaminated with lead and the city is going to have to pay her. Smith’s councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero decided to continue with her summer vacation rather than help her beleaguered constituent. Mayor Sheffield has not returned Smith’s phone calls, either. Her Honor continues to hide, caught up in a swirling scandal of graft and sex. A seedy scandal entirely of her own making. One of Sheffield’s former lovers faces federal indictment for poisoning hundreds—if not thousands—of other demolition holes. Sheffield, as a member of city council, voted to award millions in contracts to her lover, Brian McKinney, “while they were getting to know each other”—as her handlers put it. When the relationship was exposed by The Enjoyer, Sheffield’s first instinct was to claim she never voted on her loverboy’s contract. That was a lie. Nothing spells municipal C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N like a dirt hole that can’t be filled by a mayor who can’t be found. So I called Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate. He used to work at the Detroit Health Department. He claims to be an “expert.” I called three times. Crickets. Too busy with Meet the Press to come out and meet the people of Detroit. I called his Republican opponent Mike Rogers. His people said he’s more than willing to come check out 25th Street. I called Jocelyn Benson, the Democrat candidate for governor, who alleges that she lives in Detroit. Nada. Nothing. No dice. No dirt. Nice handbags. I was going to call her Republican opponent, John James, but he called me first. He’d seen our stories about the Stevie Wonder hole and he wanted to know more. I told him I’d be happy to show his staff around, just as I would with Sheffield’s or El-Sayed’s or Benson’s. Or Rogers’. But his campaign is being run from Washington. It ain’t politics to me. It’s people. To my surprise, James himself showed up on 25th Street last week—without security. I introduced him to Izellia Smith. She talked and he listened. Then he did a TikTok video, naturally. The congressman promised in the short term he’d do what he could to get her situation straightened away. Then James promised that if elected governor, he’d find the money to clean up the entire city, where undoubtedly thousands of holes have been filled with toxic soil under the leadership of Mike Duggan and Mary Sheffield. James called the fiasco another Flint. He’s right. I’m not endorsing anybody. But Detroit will need $200 million—minimum—to clean up this crime scene. Only the federal government has that kind of money. It’d be good to have a governor in Lansing who has decent relationships in Washington. And it’d be good to have a governor who isn’t afraid of Detroit.