Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page A3

TUESDAY, NOV.15,2011 WWW.FREEP.COM 3A METRO SWEET ENDING: A cool grand and then some found at a Livingston County Dairy Queen is going to charities afterbeing unclaimed for months. Attorney Jules Fiani found the $1,160 in MayinHartland Township.Fiani says now that the funds are no longer, well, frozen, he plans to give the money to charity. Recipients will include the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Gleaners Community Food Bank. Press lawyer who resigned from Wayne top legal job under pressure from Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano earlier this month returned Monday in a lesser position for less pay in the same office, a county official said. Marianne Talon, who quit as corporation counsel after being suspended for her role in a controversial $200,000 severance payment to ousted Metro Airport CEO Turkia Awada Mullin, started a new job as an assistant corporation counsel, said county spokesman Dennis Niemiec.

The position is civil service and unionized, Niemiec said. Talon will be paid $112,713 a year in the new job. She had a listed salary of $137,714, when she resigned Nov. 3. When Ficano announced her resignation, he said that she would be offered a civil service position with the county.

In October, Ficano suspended Talon and then-deputy county executive Azzam Elderfor their roles in an undated, two- paragraph letter that the county manufactured to justify the severance to Mullin. The letter, which was drafted on old stationery from before county offices were moved to the Guardian Building, said Mullin was entitled to employment terms of her predecessor, Mulu Birru, except that she would only receive 12 severance. Birru, it said, was given 18 Critics pointed out that Birru was forced out while Mullin left voluntarily to take a higher paying position at the airport. She was named to the airport job by aseven-member board on which Ficano appoints four members. An internal probe found that lawyers in office drafted the letter and Elder approved final edits.

she had anything at all to do with that letter, she be in that said Thomas Richards, president of AFSCME Local 101, which represents county workers whose pay was unilaterally cut by Ficano. Talon is married to Wayne County Circuit Judge Lawrence Talon. Mullin to testify Meanwhile, a judge ordered Mullin to testify in a lawsuit that accuses Wayne County of operating in secret when it hired her. Wayne Circuit Judge Robert Colombo signed a subpoena ordering Mullin to appear Wednesday for the deposition. Robert Davis, the plaintiff, said Mullin was served with the subpoena at her Birmingham home Monday afternoon.

Davis, a Highland Park school board member and a frequent litigant over open-meetings issues, sued the Wayne County Airport Authority on Thursday, claiming it violated the state Open Meetings Act several times during the hiring of Mullin. He said the authority illegally formed a search committee, which operated behind closed doors and posted no minutes. Mullin was fired Oct. 31amid ascandal prompted by the revelation that she received a $200,000 severance payment when she voluntarily left her county job for the airport. That and other business dealings in Wayne County prompted a pending FBI investigation.

Airport spokesman Mike Conway has said he comment on pending litigation. Wayne Co. lawyer who quit is back Former top counsel takes lesser union job By Jim Schaefer and John Wisely Free Press Staff Writers The law of gravity has overruled a Wayne County judge, sending a cascade of bricks crashing from the Wurlitzer Building just nine days after its owners got extra time to shore up the deteriorating downtown Detroit landmark. inevitable has Chris Jaszczak, owner of the neighboring 1515 Broadway and theater, said Monday. exterior wall is coming down, and a pile of bricks in the Jaszczak said.

started falling early Sunday morning, and continued through (Monday). If you look up, you can see the bricks are literally peeling away from the On Nov. 4, Detroit city lawyers were once again before Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr. complaining that Paul Curtis, principal of the partnership that owns the Wurlitzer Building, living up to July order to secure the vacant 14-story building on Broadway and John R. The alley has been closed off with a cyclone fence.

City attorney Michael Muller argued that Curtis, who bought the building in 1995 with his wife, Wayne County Circuit Judge Daphne Mean Curtis, had been given more than enough opportunities to take safety measures. Though Paul Curtis had a perilously dangling steel fire escape and a rusting canopy marquee removed and got a professional structural study of the walls, Muller said the building still poses a danger because the brick facade is buckling and bulging away from the walls. At the hearing, Colombo allowed Curtis more time to repair the roof and install scaffolding around the top floors, but he told the lawyers to contact him if there were any developments or changes in circumstances. know the bricks were falling the judge said Monday afternoon when contacted by the Free Press. told the lawyers this is my most important case.

I need to get more Colombo said he plans to meet with the lawyers this morning. Curtis and his attorney James McGinnis did not respond to calls Monday seeking comment. Jaszczak, who lives above his business, said his frustration keeps mounting as the Wurlitzer Building keeps crumbling: you have to do is see the pile of bricks in the alley and then look straight up. The bricks are coming off the Stonework from the Wurlitzer crashed through his apartment ceiling this spring, splintering a roof beam. And later in the wore a hardhat as protection from falling debris when taking out the trash.

In April, city inspectors said the ornate terra cotta 1920s skyscraper presented immediate danger of serious injury or to pedestrians, motorists and People Mover patrons. The rebounding neighborhood is home to the Boll Family YMCA, the Detroit Opera House and numerous restaurants and clubs. CONTACT JOE SWICKARD: 313-222-8769 OR Wurlitzer Building sheds its facade Falling bricks from the 1920s Wurlitzer Building pose immediate danger of serious injury or to pedestrians, motorists and People Mover riders, city inspectors found. One of its neighbors had taken to wearing a hardhat as protection while taking out trash. PHOTOS BY MANDI FREE PRESS Falling bricks crush chances for landmark Judge, lawyers to meet on next step Stonework from the Wurlitzer crashed through the ceiling of a neighboring apartment in the spring, splintering a roof beam.

By Joe Swickard Free Press Staff Writer Grand Grand Circus Circus Park Park BRIAN E. FREE PRESS he downtown Detroit high-rise is shedding bricks and chunks of terra cotta that have been tumbling onto streets, sidewalks, an alley and the roof of a loft for about a decade, according to a city lawsuit filed in April against the owner. WURLITZER BUILDING 4 4 400 feet DETAIL Grand Circus Park Wurlitzer Building The Arab-American leader arrested last week at his Dearborn home and later released is not the target of any investigation, Dearborn police and the FBI said Monday. But there remain unanswered questions about how Ali Hammoud president of the Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn ended up on an arrest warrant in a criminal database. Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad said the Detroit FBI had entered the information about Hammoud into the LEIN (Law Enforcement Information Network) database.

While investigating another case, police came across name in the database, Haddad said. Officers then went to look for him since his name was on a warrant for cigarette smuggling and financing Hizballah, his attorney Majed Moughni said. Hammoud was arrested Fri- day, questioned by the FBI and released Saturday. is no question that the person we locked up is the person named in that LEIN message on a federal Haddad said. not saying it should have been him, but the person named in that LEIN was Hammoud many specific description of the man described in the database, Haddad said.

arrest prompted concern among Arab-American leaders who contacted the police and FBI early Saturday. The Detroit FBI said in a statement Monday that was not the individual sought by the federal warrant, he has not been tied to any terrorist organization and he is recognized as a respected community No details about why his name ended up in the LEIN database were released. The FBI said in a statement Saturday that Hammoud stopped by Dearborn on a traffic But Haddad said Monday his officers went to home to arrest him because of the warrant in the LEIN. Arab-American leader blameless, FBI says Dearborn police: Name was on a warrant By Niraj Warikoo Free Press Staff Writer Kwame Kilpatrick can only spare $150 a month for restitution, but that stop him from moving into a home that is bigger than the Manoogian Mansion. Kilpatrick, his wife and three sons moved Aug.

22 from a square-foot home valued at $235,000 to a home valued at $338,400. Both homes are in Grand Prairie, a city of 175,000 near Dallas. Citing an e-mail from Kilpatrick, the Detroit News quoted the former mayor as saying the move a necessity for my He called it but did not elaborate beyond saying it was not much more expensive than his previous home. Kilpatrick called a Free Press reporter and said he would have no comment for the newspaper, which broke the 2008 text message scandal that forced him out of office and ultimately sent him to jail. Texas parole officials said they approved move to the new home, which is 1,012 square feet larger than the city- owned Manoogian Mansion he once occupied for free.

Kilpatrick attorney Daniel Hajji said: what if bigger? he gets an offer to live in the Taj Mahal for the same amount of rent, he would be foolish not to take Hajji said. is afamily of five. Where do you expect him to Nevertheless, a spokeswoman for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said she would make inquiries because Kilpatrick still owes Detroit $860,000 in restitution as part of the plea deal he reached to end the criminal case stemming from the text message scandal. new home raises questions about whether taxpayers should continue paying for the lawyers defending him against corruption charges. James Thomas, one of the court-appointed lawyers defending him in the federal case, said financial circumstances have changed: Kilpatrick is no longer imprisoned and is making some money on the lecture circuit, though Thomas said, is by no means think that the court can and should look at his Thomas said.

my understanding that the parole authorities are on a monthly By M. L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer Free Press Staff Writers Kwame Kilpatrick new home bigger than Manoogian.