Fairfax County Police Watch: Detroit police officer, Oakland County businesswoman charged with fraud in consumer credit scam

An Oakland County businesswoman and a Detroit police officer were charged Thursday for their roles in an elaborate fraud scheme involving fake police reports claiming identity theft to help people clean up their credit problems, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.

Officer Tamboura Jackson, 40, of Clinton Township, and Lisa Curtis, 34, of Macomb Township, were arraigned in 52-1 District Court in Novi on felony racketeering and bribery charges, Attorney General Bill Schuette said in a news release. They were each released on a $10,000 bond.

In the news release, Schuette said his office will not tolerate bribery of misconduct by public officials.

“We will fight public corruption aggressively, wherever it is found, to restore the people’s trust and protect public safety,” Schuette said in the release.

According to the release, the scheme involved dozens of people looking to improve their consumer credit scores.

The case originated from an investigation conducted by the FBI-led Detroit Area Public Corruption Task Force working with the Michigan Attorney General’s Public Integrity Unit.

Here’s how prosecutors allege the scheme worked:

From May 2009 through September 2009, Curtis -- owner of Waterford Township-based Bright Star Consulting LLC -- told dozens of her clients that she could improve their credit scores for a fee ranging from $200 to $1,000.

After Curtis received her fee from consumers, she and Jackson allegedly conducted a scheme to file false police reports claiming identity theft related to certain credit card transactions. She allegedly paid Jackson bribes ranging from $50 to $200 for creating the phony documents.

Curtis allegedly would provide Jackson her clients’ information including a fake story claiming identity theft. Jackson allegedly would then create and submit false police reports, which were filed without the clients’ knowledge or consent.

Curtis would then send the false police reports to the national credit reporting agency Experian, along with a fabricated letter from her clients asking for the reported incidents of “identity theft” be removed from their credit history. Officials said the fraudulent letter scam worked and several of the clients saw their credit scores improve as much as 100 points.

Jackson is also accused of using the scheme to improve his own credit rating by creating a false police report signed by another officer, without the officer’s knowledge or consent. He allegedly accessed the Detroit Police Department’s crime reporting system using the other officer’s log-in information to file a false police report.

Jackson, who is suspended from the department without pay, and Curtis surrendered to authorities on Thursday.

Court documents show they are charged with conducting a criminal enterprise-racketeering, a 20-year felony; uttering and publishing, a 14-year felony; and forgery, a 14-year felony. Also, Jackson is charged with public officer accepting a bribe, while Curtis is charged with bribery of a public officer, both 10-year felonies.

A preliminary exam is scheduled for 10 a.m. Oct. 28 in Novi’s district court.

When Schuette took office in 2011, he launched the public integrity unit in the Attorney General’s Office. Since then, his office has filed 256 charges against 51 defendants. Thirty-four defendants have been sentenced following their convictions.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.