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Feds: Lock up Gasper Fiore — He bribed many, including Kilpatrick aides
It doesn't matter how generous Gasper Fiore is, how hard he worked to become a millionaire tower or how much he loves his family — he greased one too many palms along the way and deserves prison for it, prosecutors argue.
And among those he bribed, they say, were members of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's administration.
"Gasper Fiore, while a self-made businessman, is also a prolific bribe payer dating back to at least the administration of Kwame Kilpatrick," prosecutors wrote in a scathing memo Thursday. "Investigations by the FBI over the past two decades revealed that there was virtually no public official whose palms Fiore wouldn't try to grease if there was something in it for him or his business."
According to prosecutors, Fiore "got preferential treatment in city towing matters because he was a big financial supporter of Kilpatrick."
The government disclosed this information as Fiore is scheduled to be sentenced in two weeks for bribing a Macomb County official. He faces up to two years in prison. This week, the judge received 80 letters of support from Fiore's friends and relatives, many of whom pleaded with the judge to show Fiore mercy.
In their letters, friends have suggested that Fiore – a high school dropout who ran an ice cream truck and pumped gas before building a towing empire that dominated southeastern Michigan for decades – get community service instead. They described him as a humble and generous working man who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty and puts others before himself.
Prosecutors tell a different story.
"For over a decade, Gasper Fiore has been an enemy of honest government in Detroit. His offense here is yet another example of his trading cash for contracts and corrupting an otherwise fair process," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Bullotta and David Gardey wrote in the memo. "His conduct is very serious, and he deserves a punishment that addresses his embrace and continuation of pay-to-play politics."
Fiore is facing prison for bribing only one official – a crime he admitted.
Prosecutors argue he was "happy" to do it.
"With not the slightest bit of convincing or cajoling needed, Fiore happily agreed to dole out stacks of $100 bills to bribe then Clinton Township trustee Dean Reynolds, whom Fiore didn't even know," the government's memo states. "Fiore was well aware that what he was doing was illegal."
Fiore, 57, of Grosse Pointe Shores, pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to paying $7,000 in cash bribes to Reynolds in order to obtain a municipal towing contract with the township. Reynolds also was charged and was convicted of multiple crimes by a jury last month.
Fiore paid the bribes to Reynolds through trash executive Chuck Rizzo, who was cooperating with federal law enforcement at the time of the bribe payments.
Rizzo, the former CEO of Rizzo Environmental Services, pleaded guilty to bribery and embezzlement last year and is serving 5½ years in prison for bribery and fraud.
Fiore and Rizzo were targets in a public corruption investigation that focused on pay-to-play schemes in Macomb County. The probe has so far ensnared 18 defendants and led to the demise of the Rizzo garbage empire.
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