.......story courtesy of DETNEWS.COM
Improper nightclub eviction ruled
Owners of Rhino have alleged they were shaken down for campaign contributions to Kilpatrick.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- The Detroit Downtown Development Authority improperly evicted a Harmonie Park nightclub whose owners have alleged they were shaken down for campaign contributions to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a judge has ruled.
Wayne Circuit Judge Isidore B. Torres, in an opinion received Friday by a lawyer for the Rhino nightclub's owners, ruled the agency did not give the owners proper notice before a district judge issued an eviction order June 2.
David Steingold, the Detroit lawyer representing the club owners, said he now plans to sue the agency and other city officials, alleging wrongful eviction.
"We believe, very clearly, that our clients were on a list of people the city didn't want to have to deal with unless they had to," Steingold said Friday.
Bob Rossbach, a spokesman for the agency, said Steingold's allegations are false. The Downtown Development Authority, an arm of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., which owns the building, has denied wrongdoing and denied the eviction had any connection to alleged requests for campaign contributions from a city building official.
"The DEGC was a landlord that had to evict a consistently delinquent tenant, and nothing more," corporation President and CEO George W. Jackson said in a letter to The Detroit News in November.
The Rhino's owners, who say they withheld rent over disputes about needed repairs, said they never received notice of the eviction and did not learn of the proceedings until June 11, nine days after a default judgment was entered against them.
Torres ruled 36th District Judge Lydia Nance Adams abused her discretion when she failed to set aside the eviction following an emergency appeal.
"The trial court concluded that Rhino had notice of the action, because it learned of the June 2, 2008, judgment on June 11," Torres wrote in a nine-page opinion. "The ... court's finding was clearly erroneous."
The court heard evidence that notice of the eviction proceedings was mailed and delivered to the nightclub, but not that the notice was personally served on an agent of the club, as required by law.
Two Rhino owners testified in November before a federal grand jury investigating alleged City Hall corruption.
Steingold alleged Amru Meah, head of the city of Detroit's building department, requested thousands of dollars of Kilpatrick campaign contributions in 2007 as a way of resolving licensing problems with the city. Richard L. Steinberg, Meah's former attorney, denied wrongdoing by Meah. The eviction occurred months after the club's owners paid more than $6,000 in donations to the Kilpatrick campaign.
Meah does not work for the DECG, a nonprofit corporation that operates in partnership with City Hall.
"The DEGC manages city-owned property, but issues no permits or licenses and writes no tickets," Jackson said in his letter to The News.
"The owners of the Rhino were dead wrong if they thought they could make a campaign contribution to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to help their dispute with us," Jackson said. "The only payment that would have mattered would have been a check ... to pay the rent."
Steingold said the former nightclub premises on Randolph remain vacant, but he believes the Downtown Development Authority has a new tenant lined up to move in. He's concerned "the Downtown Development Authority conspired to illegally cancel the lease, having secretly entered into lease arrangements with other people," he said.
Rossbach said there is no new lease for the space, and no tenant was lined up at the time the Rhino was evicted.
The Rhino does not want to reclaim its property, because it has lost too much good will and too many customers, he said. But the owners do want to collect damages, he said.
DAMN KWAME...........WHY?!?!?!
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