Will Wayne County Prosecutor run for County Executive?
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is taking a hard charge against Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano in a budget battle that she says is preventing 1300 warrants in her office from been reviewed. Those warrants are ticking time bombs. For instance, over 200 warrants on suspected child abusers are already backlogged. In this interview with Michigan Chronicle editor Bankole Thompson, Worthy, who said she has already lost 75 attorneys and 13 support staff, debunked claims by Ficano that the number of cases in her office has decreased. The actions of the County Executive, according to Worthy, the no nonsense prosecutor, has led to the budget crisis Wayne County is facing. Worthy wouldn’t say if she plans to run for county executive now, which is already becoming a crowded race.
Excerpts:
MICHIGAN CHRONICLE: What is the state of the prosecutor’s office right now?
KYM WORTHY: We have lost 75 attorneys and 13 support staff. It means that on any given day we don’t have courtrooms covered. We have 1300 warrants that have not been reviewed.
Unreviewed warrants are ticking time bombs. For example, over 200 warrants on suspected child abusers are backlogged, hundreds of them that could prey on more children while we struggle to keep up. Every day we are in crisis mode.
How are you supposed to dispense justice properly, swiftly and professionally under conditions like this?
MC: Do you feel your office is being deliberately neglected by Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano?
KW: What other explanation could there possibly be? Mr. Ficano tries to blame his budget deficit on me and others. My administration has always been fiscally responsible. We have had a balanced budget for nine years.
In 2012 he underfunded our office by 28 percent. He refused to honor a contract that was in place that guaranteed our budget through 2012. His actions violating our contract directly caused my office’s deficit.
Also you should know that he claimed the number of cases that we are handling has gone down by using the numbers from the State Court Administrator’s Office statistics.
Those are inaccurate and only reflect the number of cases the court handles. It is a misrepresentation and does not reflect the amount of cases we handle each year.
His failure to honor the contract we agreed upon caused my office’s deficit in 2012 — the very first time we posted a deficit like this and, again, directly attributable to him. The SCAO number grossly underrepresented the amount of work we do.
He also has a fundamental disregard for what we do and how it must be done. Just last week he stated that the WCPO should not be prosecuting sexual assaults because they were low priority crimes.
This means that these crimes of violence against women and children are not important. Who says that?
MC: Is this budget debacle just a matter of numbers or you think Ficano just doesn’t care about the functioning of the prosecutor’s office?
KW: Wayne County is in a budget crisis as a direct result of his actions. The purchase, restoration and furnishing of the Guardian Building, the Pennacle racetrack debacle, the pension fund scandal, and the now abandoned Wayne County Jail construction project represent hundreds of millions of dollars.
Without those huge debacles Wayne County has no deficit.
He wants to blame the Wayne County budget crisis on everyone else and takes absolutely no responsibility for his own incompetence in running the county actions.The county has approximately ten million dollars of unexpected revenue sharing coming from the state. Let’s see how serious he is about public safety by watching closely what he does with this.
MC: Ficano claimed that in this new budget cycle he gave your office more money. Is that true?
KW: No, it is a half truth. Mr. Ficano gave the our office more money. The problem is the money was eaten up by the county’s fringes and benefits which are now up to 90 percent.
In other words, he raised our expenses and that ate up the entirety of that money. He wants to be able to say that but he really gives it with one hand and then takes it right back by raising expenses. It’s absurd for him to claim that was additional revenue for us.
MC: How many cases are being left unsolved as a result of the budget cuts?
KW: We have the warrant requests cases that must be signed and reviewed. Because of a lack of staff we are behind in reviewing 1300 warrants. Most of these warrants are serious felonies.
MC: What is the state of the lawsuit against the county executive?
KW: It is in motion and discovery practice. We have a court date on Feb. 26, 2014.
MC: Some have suggested that the budget conflict between you and Ficano is more about personal disagreements and dislike. Is that true?
KW: I have never dealt with Mr. Ficano on a personal basis. I think it may be personal on his part. I have told him that we have over 200 child abuse warrants outstanding. and he ignores this. His deficit reduction plan calls for not prosecuting sexual assaults unless there is a grant funding it.
It is outrageous for a former sheriff and a lawyer to suggest that we not prosecute cases of violence against women. It is unconscionable that he is not concerned about violence against our children.
He has touted that I am an excellent fiscal manager for years. He has stolen our cost-saving ideas and makes them his own. Frankly, his MO is to try to blame others when his own County records defy his position. He is the one who caused the County’s massive deficit.
MC: If your office doesn’t get what you believe is needed to function, what is the worst case scenario?
KW: I can’t imagine it getting much worse than not having the staff to prosecute dangerous criminals. Dangerous criminals are walking the streets. These are people who should be in jail. These people are going to commit other crimes while warrants are backlogged.
MC: On the Jayru Campbell case, some have said the charges are too excessive. What do you say?
KW: No one would make that claim if he weren’t a four star football recruit. A prosecutor must never pick and chose who to apply the law to. The law applies to everyone. No one would make that claim if it were their child that was body slammed onto his head, causing injury requiring medical treatment.
He is lucky that the victim did not die. It is always interesting that people speak with authority on the facts of a case when they are not even vaguely familiar with all of the facts.
MC: Would you run for the office of Wayne County Executive?
KW: It had never been my intention to do so in the past.
Excerpts:
MICHIGAN CHRONICLE: What is the state of the prosecutor’s office right now?
KYM WORTHY: We have lost 75 attorneys and 13 support staff. It means that on any given day we don’t have courtrooms covered. We have 1300 warrants that have not been reviewed.
Unreviewed warrants are ticking time bombs. For example, over 200 warrants on suspected child abusers are backlogged, hundreds of them that could prey on more children while we struggle to keep up. Every day we are in crisis mode.
How are you supposed to dispense justice properly, swiftly and professionally under conditions like this?
MC: Do you feel your office is being deliberately neglected by Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano?
KW: What other explanation could there possibly be? Mr. Ficano tries to blame his budget deficit on me and others. My administration has always been fiscally responsible. We have had a balanced budget for nine years.
In 2012 he underfunded our office by 28 percent. He refused to honor a contract that was in place that guaranteed our budget through 2012. His actions violating our contract directly caused my office’s deficit.
Also you should know that he claimed the number of cases that we are handling has gone down by using the numbers from the State Court Administrator’s Office statistics.
Those are inaccurate and only reflect the number of cases the court handles. It is a misrepresentation and does not reflect the amount of cases we handle each year.
His failure to honor the contract we agreed upon caused my office’s deficit in 2012 — the very first time we posted a deficit like this and, again, directly attributable to him. The SCAO number grossly underrepresented the amount of work we do.
He also has a fundamental disregard for what we do and how it must be done. Just last week he stated that the WCPO should not be prosecuting sexual assaults because they were low priority crimes.
This means that these crimes of violence against women and children are not important. Who says that?
MC: Is this budget debacle just a matter of numbers or you think Ficano just doesn’t care about the functioning of the prosecutor’s office?
KW: Wayne County is in a budget crisis as a direct result of his actions. The purchase, restoration and furnishing of the Guardian Building, the Pennacle racetrack debacle, the pension fund scandal, and the now abandoned Wayne County Jail construction project represent hundreds of millions of dollars.
Without those huge debacles Wayne County has no deficit.
He wants to blame the Wayne County budget crisis on everyone else and takes absolutely no responsibility for his own incompetence in running the county actions.The county has approximately ten million dollars of unexpected revenue sharing coming from the state. Let’s see how serious he is about public safety by watching closely what he does with this.
MC: Ficano claimed that in this new budget cycle he gave your office more money. Is that true?
KW: No, it is a half truth. Mr. Ficano gave the our office more money. The problem is the money was eaten up by the county’s fringes and benefits which are now up to 90 percent.
In other words, he raised our expenses and that ate up the entirety of that money. He wants to be able to say that but he really gives it with one hand and then takes it right back by raising expenses. It’s absurd for him to claim that was additional revenue for us.
MC: How many cases are being left unsolved as a result of the budget cuts?
KW: We have the warrant requests cases that must be signed and reviewed. Because of a lack of staff we are behind in reviewing 1300 warrants. Most of these warrants are serious felonies.
MC: What is the state of the lawsuit against the county executive?
KW: It is in motion and discovery practice. We have a court date on Feb. 26, 2014.
MC: Some have suggested that the budget conflict between you and Ficano is more about personal disagreements and dislike. Is that true?
KW: I have never dealt with Mr. Ficano on a personal basis. I think it may be personal on his part. I have told him that we have over 200 child abuse warrants outstanding. and he ignores this. His deficit reduction plan calls for not prosecuting sexual assaults unless there is a grant funding it.
It is outrageous for a former sheriff and a lawyer to suggest that we not prosecute cases of violence against women. It is unconscionable that he is not concerned about violence against our children.
He has touted that I am an excellent fiscal manager for years. He has stolen our cost-saving ideas and makes them his own. Frankly, his MO is to try to blame others when his own County records defy his position. He is the one who caused the County’s massive deficit.
MC: If your office doesn’t get what you believe is needed to function, what is the worst case scenario?
KW: I can’t imagine it getting much worse than not having the staff to prosecute dangerous criminals. Dangerous criminals are walking the streets. These are people who should be in jail. These people are going to commit other crimes while warrants are backlogged.
MC: On the Jayru Campbell case, some have said the charges are too excessive. What do you say?
KW: No one would make that claim if he weren’t a four star football recruit. A prosecutor must never pick and chose who to apply the law to. The law applies to everyone. No one would make that claim if it were their child that was body slammed onto his head, causing injury requiring medical treatment.
He is lucky that the victim did not die. It is always interesting that people speak with authority on the facts of a case when they are not even vaguely familiar with all of the facts.
MC: Would you run for the office of Wayne County Executive?
KW: It had never been my intention to do so in the past.
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