FBI finds $980K in cash, weapons at properties linked Bobby Ferguson
Robert Snell / The Detroit News
Detroit --The FBI seized more than $980,000 in cash and cashier's checks, a shotgun, brass knuckles and suspected drugs during raids on property tied to city contractor Bobby Ferguson on Wednesday, the day he was indicted on eight federal charges.

Agents were also searching for records of "gifts, fund transfers, loans or other payments to public officials or their immediate relatives" since Jan. 1, 2002, according to search warrants. That's the day Ferguson's close friend, Kwame Kilpatrick, took office as Detroit's mayor.
The disclosures emerged from records filed Friday in U.S. District Court that show a growing trail of money that may link Ferguson with millions of dollars he allegedly took illegally as part of a corrupted contract.

The FBI carried out morning raids at a Detroit condominium and Southfield townhouse hours before U.S. attorneys announced the indictment Wednesday on charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud and money laundering.

The Detroit condo is titled in the name of Tyrone McMillian, but the investigation claims Ferguson is the real owner, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The townhouse is owned by a Ferguson employee, Shakib Deria, who also was indicted Wednesday, but an affidavit says Ferguson uses it as one of his homes.

Inside the Detroit condominium, the FBI seized $208,000 in cashier's checks, travel documents tied to Dubai, where Ferguson is pursuing business opportunities, a shotgun, shells, bank records and Ferguson's passport, according to a search warrant return.

At the Southfield townhouse, the FBI seized $500,820 in cashiers checks and $275,000 cash, Delta Airlines tickets issued to Ferguson, keys to a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Detroit tax records, a safe key, registration papers to a 1970 Oldsmobile, a 2005 Ford pickup truck and bank records, according to a warrant return.

They also seized a brown "joint cigarette" and baggie with a green leafy substance.

The Southfield items were seized from McMillian.

Ferguson's lawyer could not be reached for comment.

The raids came 20 months after the FBI raided the offices of Ferguson's company Xcel Construction Services in Detroit. In that January 2009 raid, agents found $261,000 in cash.

"It would seem if you've been burned once in a federal search warrant, and knowing there is going to be an indictment coming down with your name on it, that someone would learn from that experience," said David Griem, a Detroit criminal attorney and former federal prosecutor.

"Putting it in glass jars and burying it in the back yard would be better than storing that kind of money in a home in which you were living."



From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100911 ... z0zHauGY7q

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100911 ... 1408/local