Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Embattled Detroit clerk hires own counsel

Currie's new legal team, hired at taxpayer expense, raises specter of racial politics to fight vote fraud charges.

By David Josar / The Detroit News

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Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie has fired her city Law Department lawyers and opted, at taxpayer expense, to hire a new legal team to defend her and the city Department of Elections of allegations of voter fraud.

Currie made the move right before she mailed out 130,000 absentee ballot applications in defiance of a court order. She was later found guilty of criminal contempt.

The new legal team, headed by Steve Reifman and Allen Glass, took a starkly different tack than city attorneys, and quickly raised the specter that the challenges to Currie were spurred by racial politics and that elections in Detroit receive different scrutiny than those in white communities.

Repeated calls to Currie and her attorneys were not returned on Tuesday.

Under the City Charter, Currie can independently opt to hire outside counsel to defend her and the Department of Elections, but once the bill surpasses $25,000, she needs City Council approval.

City lawyers who had represented Currie said there had been no falling out.

"We have quite a capable team of lawyers, but if she chooses to go another way, I can see her doing that when she is named personally," said Brenda Braceful, Detroit's deputy corporation counsel.

Braceful said she does not know how much Reifman and the other lawyers will be paid. "That wasn't raised," she said.

But Currie's extra legal bills are quickly piling up.

Two attorneys for Maureen Taylor, the City Council candidate who alleges she failed to win a place on the general election ballot because of voter fraud, have asked a federal judge to make the city pay them nearly $34,000 for the work they did when Reifman filed a simple motion in federal court.

The judge rebuffed Reifman's request to move the case to federal court. No decision has been made on whether the attorney fees will have to be paid.

City Council is regularly asked to OK contracts of outside legal counsel, usually in areas that require special expertise, such as in a police misconduct case or in several lawsuits that have alleged improper conduct by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

So far no contract for Currie's legal team has been brought before council.

Stephen Wasinger, one of Taylor's attorneys, said the clerk's decision to spend taxpayer dollars during a fiscal crisis to hire different lawyers is another example of where he feels she isn't accountable to anyone.

"She just thinks about herself," Wasinger said.

No trial date has been set.

You can reach David Josar at (313) 222-2073 or djosar@detnews.com.