News Index,Forensic Intelligence Hub-Page; Jhéön & Associates, Stephen P. Dresch, Chairman

AUGUST 8, 1995

County Commissioner and Trash Consultant
Files Defamation Suit Against Jhéön Associates
Kneff, Dresch and Callewaert

On 8 August 1995 affiliates David Kneff, Stephen Dresch and Joseph Callewaert were named as defendants in a libel suit filed by Robert McLachlan, member and former chairman of the Crawford County, Michigan, Board of Commissioners. McLachlan has been the focus of an investigation by the three defendants as a result of his role in the sale of the County's public-authority landfill to City Management Corporation of Detroit in late 1991, when he simultaneously sold his private garbage-hauling firm to City Management and entered into a long-term consulting contract with the company.

Kneff was cited for his reference, as quoted in the Bay City Times, to the "undue influence" exercised by McLachlan over the Board of Commissioners in the landfill sale. The complaint against Dresch focuses on his alerting of the Traverse City Record Eagle to a reported allegation by the Crawford County equalization director that McLachlan had offered him a salary increase or bonus in exchange for a reduction in the tax assessment of the landfill. The Callewaert complaint cited a letter which he wrote to the FBI urging investigation of the circumstances of the landfill sale; a copy of the letter had been submitted to the Circuit Court as supporting material for a petition for a grand jury made by Citizens for Environmental Awareness and Accountability in Government and became available as part of the court file when the Court rejected the grand jury petition.

The defendants are represented by American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan cooperating attorney Neal Bush of Detroit, with the assistance of Elliot J. Blumberg of Gaylord.

News Index,Forensic Intelligence Hub-Page; Jhéön & Associates, Stephen P. Dresch, Chairman