Former Dearborn Building and Safety Employee Pleads Guilty to Bribery Charge
A former Dearborn Building and Safety Department employee has pleaded guilty to a bribery charge – the second former employee to do so this year – and now faces up to 27 months in prison and $50,000 in fines when sentenced Jan. 21.
Wanda Smith, 42, entered her guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Detroit Monday to a bribery charge in connection with charges that she illegally issued work permits in exchange for money. She must also pay restitution in the amount of $29,000 to the City of Dearborn.
According to U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, Smith received more than $15,000 in bribes and discounted repairs to her home and automobiles between 2006 and 2009 in return for issuing more than 1,000 permits. Berg says Smith issued the permits without charging a fee or at a greatly reduced fee.
Berg commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Dearborn Police Department for their investigation and thanked the City of Dearborn for their cooperation and assistance.
“Public servants owe a high duty of honesty and integrity to the citizens that should never allow the acceptance of money or services to avoid carrying out their official duties.” Berg said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to make such cases a priority.”
Smith is the second person from the Dearborn Building and Safety department to enter a guilty plea rather than go to trial.
In July 2009, Leticia Bosemon, 38, of Inkster pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in return for issuing temporary certificates of occupancy for residential property in Dearborn.
Bosemon admitted in court that from the fall of 2006 until June, 2008 she accepted in excess of $63,000 from many individuals in return for preparing fraudulent performance bonds and issuing temporary certificates of occupancy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Under the terms of the agreement, Bosemon faces a maximum penalty of 37 months and a $250,000 fine. Her sentencing date has been set for Dec. 3, 2009.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
Yet the head of the Department, Dave Norwood, gets moved to another Department for his role in the crimes committed under his nose. When will he pay the price for screwing up that department? Not while Big O is in charge.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
The big fella (Jackie O.) protects his boy (Norwood), by finding a cushy position for him, when who is to say he wasn’t involved, along with Andy Pizzino in the same office. The feds should check how he got many of his houses in Dearborn, and continues to keep his position. Answers please big fella, or do you andDave have another cushy position in line for him too. We will stay tuned.
November 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Hassen–they probably plan to have Pizzino manage that convention center if it ever gets built. We can only hope that the feds have more indictments on the way.
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I find it hard to believe that these two could get away with this with thier immediate superiors in such close quarters, have you ever been in that office?
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I’m sure Norwood KNEW but is being protected by Big O just like Guido protected him. He must know where the skeltons are buried.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Its truly sad that bribes were accepted. There needs to be some type of control/monitoring of inspectors, not just here, but statewide. My only anti-Building Department comment is in regard to permit fees. Being a genuinely honest guy, I picked up a permit to put in a hot water tank last week, seeing as its what we are supposed to do. $85 and an incredibly rude building department employee later, I had my permit. It made me wish I would’ve just put the new one in and left the old one for the scrap metal collectors. $85 for a permit to put in a hot water tank? Talk about unreasonable.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Milwood, that’s a good point you raise. I guess we don’t know the details of how the bribes were actually, physically passed, but it does make you wonder. Another perplexing question is how does a superior not notice a $29,000 discrepancy in the amount of permit fees collected compared to the number of permits issued? Another way of comparing it would be to look at the number of inspections performed compared to permit fees collected. I am speculating here, and perhaps someone could help shed some light on this, but one would think that the permit fees go toward paying the inspectors. Shouldn’t someone notice when accounts receivable doesn’t match up with accounts payable?
November 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
It is illegal to pay bribes as well as accept them.
Why has no one been charged with this felony?
November 25th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Karen, you make a great point! There should be hundreds of occasions when the money changed hands, and probably a core of bribers were repeat offenders. They should be charged as well.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Karen,
This speaks to your point:
” Mayor John O’Reilly Jr. acknowledged the oversight problems, saying, “There never should have been one person controlling all that money.” But it’s an issue he believes has been addressed by the department’s reorganization, part of which included instituting more stringent accountability standards.
O’Reilly also reiterated that the department overall is full of hardworking, honest employees, something he has said since the outset of the investigation.
“We have no reason to believe there is anyone else involved with this. We told (investigators) to look into everyone and we’re satisfied they’re doing that,” O’Reilly said.
But as the investigation wears on, one thing the mayor said he hoped for – charges against those who bribed Smith and Bosemon – could fall by the wayside. A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman on Wednesday said it’s “not likely” prosecutors will seek charges against the other parties.”
November 25th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Now we have the opposite problem. Houses are given certificate of occupancy without really being inspected. If the tub doesn’t drain or the garbage disposal doesn’t work, even if the power outlets aren’t grounded, they are handing out the C of O. This is going to create a bigger problem down the road especially since the number of rental houses is on a big increase. Can’t we find a place in the middle where residents aren’t being harrassed but our housing stock is still up to par?
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
As a former realtor, I was appalled at what the city let pass when my son bought his house. It’s as if no one ever inspected the house. Unbelievable. One more thing to add to the mix. Makes you wonder if realtors are in on this too.
December 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I don’t understand why they can’t find a happy medium between making someone do tens of thousands of dollars of work to sell a house & just looking the other way like some are saying they now do. Certainly, the city is still in the buisness of harassing property owners. As always, it depends on who does the inspection & whether or not they have an agenda with the property (ie: a “preferred builder” wants a lot to build a bigfoot on or the house is in a spot where it could be rezoned & used as parking, etc.). Certain inspectors are just, by nature, Nazis & while their actions might play into the hands of the crooked elements, they are just “doing their jobs” as they see it.
Believe you me, I have been suffering at the hands of B&S & it’s not over yet. A few years ago I bought a foreclosure when they were few & far between. It needed a very minimal amount of work to get a C of O–B&S said I could just get homeowners’ permits & get it done. Then next time I talked to them, the rules had apparently changed & I needed one contractor, not just anyone w/a license & bonding, but someone approved by Dbn. B&S. Then they had to reinspect, they sent their finest SS wannabe & the amount of work had grown by several pages.
Most every contractor that saw the report said I must have “really pissed off somebody in city hall”. (not the case–I am a nobody & this is the only property I’ve ever owned in Dbn.) Some even suggested that I just walk away from it, as clearly somebody with some influence really wanted this house gone & I was not supposed to buy it. A few contractors that would even consider the job gave up after meeting with the plans approval guy, who sounded like a real piece of work. I think he’s since left. I had meetings with an Ivy League educated lawyer who specializes in wrongful condemnation cases & he said there was little I could do. See, after a certain amount of time of vacancy (I forgot the #), the cities own rules, whatever they choose them to be, superceed the states’ bldg. codes. They can pretty much make up whatever nonsense they want & you have to comply. The city becomes the “expert”, so if some inspector says your house is “structurally unsound” his is the “expert” opinion & the testimony of actual architects, engineers, etc. is basically worthless. I finally did find a contractor & spent over 80k to meet B&S demands, but for a couple of YEARS, my file keeps getting passed around the dept. like a joint at a Dead concert & no one will pull the damn trigger, finalize the thing & give me my CofO.
Did you know that the residential permit desk in Detroit’s B&S has bulletproof glass around it? They don’t even handle cash at that desk…go figure…
December 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
By the way, how VERY disappointing that the FBI is all done w/the invesigation. Someone who knows where some bodies are buried (so to speak), really needs to speak up. All I can say, is these guys are pretty clever as to cover their tracks so well. I would do it myself if I had any concrete (no pun intended) evidence of the stuff we all know is going on. Pizzino is arrogant & foolish enough that he bragged to one of his tenants that he got all kinds of work done for free on his houses because contractors ‘owed’ him for the ‘privledge’ of being allowed to work in Dbn. Such a disgrace that our tax dollars & permit fees, etc. are being used against us.