Detroit crooked politicians

At a timewhen his city needed help the most, Nagin used the disaster as a revenuesource. He installed an associate as the city's "chief technology officer,"gaining control over millions of dollars in no-bid city contracts for thingslike computer systems and crime cameras.

And Nagin used his position as mayorto steer redevelopment business to a granite company he owned with his sons. Perhaps worst of all, he let his city down during its darkest hour. A disaster can be a prime breeding ground for corruptpoliticians. Some disasters, like hurricanes, are natural.

Takingadvantage of that disaster were five politicians, but they're almostuniversally referred to as one, and that's next on our list. Far from the warm and friendly institutions depicted in It'sa Wonderful Life, savingsand loans by the s had become cesspools of risky investments andcorruption.

None was worse than Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan inCalifornia, which collapsed in leaving thousands of investors penniless. How did Keating get away with it for so long? Five U. Democrat John Glenn of Ohio andRepublican John McCain of Arizona were cleared of wrongdoing but the committeeformally criticized them for poor judgment. McCain, the only member of theKeating Five still in office, has said the affair taught him a painful lessonabout conflicts of interest.

The Keating Five were all Senators. But the other side of thecapitol—the House of Representatives—is hardly free of crooks. A decorated Navy flying ace with dashing good looks and thenickname "Duke," it seemed like Randall Cunningham of California had it all whenhe came to Congress in But like so many crooked politicians, it wasn'tenough.

As a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, theRepublican congressman had a line on some of the most lucrative governmentcontracts, and he used that to his advantage—big time. There was the defensecontractor who purchased Cunningham's San Diego home for nearly twice itsmarket value, then allowed him to live rent-free on a yacht.

There were otherfavors, cash payments, a Rolls Royce, and more. He served an eight-year prison sentence andtoday reportedly lives in Arkansas. While Washington may be teeming with crooks, some of the wildestscams occur in state capitals. Our next two crooked politicians hail fromstates that have raised graft to practically an art form. The four-time governor of Louisiana once famously boasted thatthe only way he could lose an upcoming election was "if I'm caught in bed witheither a dead girl or a live boy.

But on the 25 th case, his luck ran out. In , afederal grand jury indicted him for a scheme to extort millions of dollars inpayments for casino licenses in the state. Edwards was convicted on 17 countsand spent more than 8 years in prison.

But he wasn't done with public life justyet. That couple had nine children. The truth came out in , when a disgruntled divorcee whose case had been heard by Beer, then retired but still serving as a visiting judge, outed him as a bigamist. Another blunder by Beer: Allowing a convicted rapist, eligible for 15 years in jail, to stay free. What happened? In part, the state House Fiscal Agency scandal of Exposed by the Detroit News in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, the House Fiscal Agency Scandal ended careers, sent one man to jail and possibly claimed a life.

Health problems plagued him his last year. He won re-election by a landslide in November , but was dead of a heart attack little more than two weeks later. Everett was no wallflower. In , Everett was indicted for taking bribes. Seventeen pounds of sausage. Everett was never tried on those charges. She died a month later of complications from kidney disease. Driven from office in May of that year, Jaye ran again in the fall. He lost. In , Michigan was racked with corruption. Pay-to-play was all too common in state politics, then-Free Press associate editor Ron Dzwonkowski wrote in On July 22, , Detroit voters gave him the boot.

It was the biggest turnout for a special election in the city's history, with an estimated , people electing to can him. Some 90, were opposed. The day before the recall vote, the Free Press ran a front-page editorial urging readers to give Bowles the ol' heave-ho.

The paper called the recall "the most remarkable political happening in the history of the city, possibly the most remarkable one in the history of any great American municipality. Today, the event commands attention from the entire nation. The newspaper has no feelings of exultation. Not helping Bowles' reputation was the brazen murder of popular radio host and Bowles critic Jerry Buckley, who was gunned down by unknown assailants in the Hotel La Salle the day after the recall vote.

Buckley was an enormously popular Detroit radio show host considered to be a champion of the common man, and he often crusaded on air against organized crime. Buckley was no fan of Bowles and had spoken out at length against the mayor and accused him of doing nothing to fight the mobsters or make the city safer. The bullets flew shortly after Buckley had finished a broadcast from the hotel. He was reading a newspaper in a lobby chair when three men entered the hotel.

One stood by the door; the other two walked over to Buckley. Witnesses at the time said Buckley seemed to rise in recognition when the two men fired 12 shots. Only one bullet missed. Many thought the killing was the work of a gang upset by his radio attacks calling for a crackdown on mobsters. Others said the killing was revenge for helping to get Bowles recalled. About , people attended his funeral.

The murder was never solved, and Bowles was never implicated in the killing. But that didn't matter to many Detroiters, who associated the crooked Bowles with the death of the beloved radio personality anyway. Undeterred, Bowles ran in the ensuing special election to fill his seat but lost to Frank Murphy, who went on to become one of the greatest mayors in U. The vanquished mayor later launched unsuccessful bids for the Legislature and for Congress. Bowles died July 30, While you won't find anyone calling Cobo corrupt, his policies helped to set the stage for Detroit's decline and the racial strife that plague the city to this day.

He did a bang-up job, and in July , he became the city's treasurer. He helped keep tax-delinquent Detroiters in their homes through a seven-year tax payment plan. We're still at the good part here, just wait. The move helped endear him to voters, and, after seven terms as treasurer, he was elected mayor in Cobo ran Detroit at the city's peak population: more than 1.

It would be all downhill for the Motor City from here. While the writing was on the wall, Cobo was unable to do anything to stop it — in fact, he would wind up encouraging it. In Cobo's defense, he was trying to reinvent an aging city. This was a Motor City deemed antiquated and with turn-of-the-century architectural relics in a period of Mid-Century Modern structures and newfangled inventions — such as fluorescent lighting and fancy-pants drop ceilings — luring folks to suburbia.

So the mostly good stuff first: Cobo was the driving force behind the development of the city's Civic Center. The move wasn't without its critics, of course. Still, it was the first time Detroit had really taken advantage of its riverfront and would, decades later, pave the way for the RiverWalk and other beautification projects.

In the end, the Civic Center project was a win for Detroit. But Cobo often stoked racial tensions. Keep in mind that the city had not fully healed from the race riot of , and tempers had anything but cooled by the time he took office. Cobo used this sentiment to his advantage and often played the race card.

He stoked white people's fears of the increasingly restive black Detroiters, hinting that he was the only thing "keeping them at bay. Housing discrimination was rampant in Detroit. And many of Cobo's policies had a negative effect on housing opportunities for African Americans.

He vigorously opposed black public housing because he opposed subsidies for poor people in favor of more private ownership of property. Many accused him, however, of trying to "protect housing values" in white neighborhoods.

The Michigan Chronicle characterized the election of Cobo as "one of the most vicious campaigns of race-baiting and playing upon the prejudices of all segments of the Detroit population.

Scott Martelle, in his book "Detroit: A Biography," says that Cobo planned to demolish the slums, home to mostly immigrants and black people, and pay for it by selling the land to developers. Martelle wrote: "The key phrase was 'people who pay taxes. Cobo's word choice was a subtle reinforcement of racial codes. Cobo was the candidate of the wealthy, and of the white. Cobo also heavily pushed for the expansion of the expressway system; many of his backers were wealthy white suburbanites, who wanted a faster, easier commute into the city.

Cobo's quest for more and more freeways directly fueled the city's decline. Instead of making the city more accessible and bringing folks in, it caused the city to bleed out, both population and businesses. The freeways simply made it easier for folks to live elsewhere — where yards were bigger, homes were newer and property was cheaper — yet still work downtown.

Many of those freeways that he lobbied for went, unsurprisingly, through predominately black neighborhoods. He also was part of the big push that demolished the center of black life in Detroit, Paradise Valley and the Black Bottom. After erasing these neighborhoods from existence starting in , the land would sit unused and overgrown for some five years.

Black Detroiters watched their community flattened for an overgrown wasteland of nothingness. Cobo also neglected civil-rights initiatives that would have integrated the city's black population. Regular police crackdowns targeted black communities, yet he did nothing to stop them.

It was not a peaceful time in the city. And it would only get worse. The policies of Cobo and his successor, No. In short, Cobo helped lay the groundwork for the racial strife that has ripped apart our region for half a century.

While you cannot solely blame him for the city's plight — just like you can't blame Coleman Young alone — he set the stage for decades of problems that would plague the city and lead to the racial upheaval of the s.

Cobo did not seek re-election, opting instead to run for governor in He was trounced by Democrat G. Mennen Soapy Williams. When he died in the mayor's office of a heart attack at age 63 on Sept. The slippery slope of decline was well under way.