Detroit businessman Rayford Jackson accused of fraud

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

A Lathrup Village woman alleges Detroit businessman Rayford W. Jackson and his associates defrauded her of more than $355,000 on a deal to buy and renovate 10 Detroit-area homes.

Tahechia Davis, who identified herself as president of Second Chance American Dream LLC, filed a lawsuit Thursday in Oakland County Circuit Court against Jackson, his accountant Marc Hardy, and eight other defendants, alleging fraud, misrepresentation, breach of contract and unjust enrichment.

Jackson is a central figure in a Detroit City Hall corruption scandal surrounding the City Council's awarding in 2007 of a multimillion-dollar sewage sludge contract. Jackson was the local partner of waste company Synagro Technologies Inc., whose former Michigan vice-president, James R. Rosendall Jr., has admitted paying bribes in connection with the deal.

Jackson is also under scrutiny in a criminal investigation of the Second Chance American Dream real estate deals being conducted by the Wayne County Sheriff Department's deed fraud unit and that in May deputies searched Hardy's Southfield offices and seized records related to Jackson and a Jackson company.

Richard H. Morgan, Jr., Jackson's Pontiac attorney, has denied wrongdoing by Jackson in the deals. Attorney Ben Gonek, who represents Hardy, said Hardy has done nothing wrong and is not a focus of the criminal investigation.

Davis alleges she paid Jackson $200,000 in 2008 to buy 10 homes in Detroit, Dearborn and Harper Woods. She also claims she paid $150,000 paid to fix up the homes and more than $5,000 in closing and other costs.

She alleges she received fake titles to the homes but "subsequently discovered that defendants absconded (with) her funds and failed to deliver title to any of the properties."

Farmington Hills attorney Michael Cutler, who represents Davis, said she has been questioned by sheriff's investigators and is fully cooperating with the criminal probe. "She's the victim here," he said.