A jury has found a former Clinton Township trustee guilty on fourteen bribery charges in a “pay-to-play” public corruption case.
Dean Reynolds was the first person indicted in what quickly became a slew of cases resulting from an FBI public corruption investigation in Macomb County and throughout Metro Detroit.
The government accused Reynolds of taking more than $150,000 worth of bribes from garbage-hauling company Rizzo Environmental Services CEO Chuck Rizzo, Giffels Webster Engineering partner Paulin Modi, and towing contractor Gasper Fiore in exchange for favorable votes on township garbage, engineering, and towing contracts.
All three men have since pleaded guilty to being part of bribery conspiracies themselves. More than a dozen people altogether have entered guilty pleas in cases stemming from the wider federal corruption investigation.
Reynolds rejected a guilty plea, arguing the money and other gifts he received amounted to personal loans from friends. But it took jurors only about an hour to convict him.
He now faces the possibility of more than 20 years in prison.
