Tag: Investigating... HIMSELF

A board member of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport authority who voted to appoint Turkia Mullin as its CEO made $420,000 just weeks earlier from a land sale she helped engineer, records obtained by The Detroit News show.

Charlie J. Williams, a former Wayne County deputy executive, worked as facilitator and mediator in a $14 million sale of a parking lot for a new county jail downtown. The deal -- which Mullin signed off on as the county's chief development officer -- paid him a 3 percent commission.

Two weeks after the sale was completed on July 14, Williams voted to hire Mullin for the airport job that pays $250,000 a year. He also was one of three members of a search committee that recommended her for the job above four finalists with airport management experience.

"If you were in on the interview process, you would've hired her too if you saw how dynamic she was," said Williams, a former appointee of county Executive Robert Ficano, who named him to the airport board in 2006.

A top assistant to Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano told county commissioners Tuesday that an investigation into a controversial $200,000 severance has "made substantial progress," but said he can't say much else about the issue.

Assistant County Executive Alan Helmkamp acknowledged that Turkia Mullin also received payment for 75 percent of the worth of 20 unused sick days and an unspecified number of vacation days per a letter dated Sept. 3 when she left to become CEO of Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

He didn't know the monetary amount of that payout. If it was based on her $200,000 salary, the sick days alone would be worth about $12,500.

The document also outlines plans for her severance. It is signed by Mullin and Tim Taylor, a former top executive in human resources now working part time on an hourly basis with no benefits.

The new CEO of Detroit Metropolitan Airport, under fire for accepting a $200,000 severance, was sued three times over allegations of professional misconduct when she worked as a private attorney.

The civil suits claim Turkia Mullin breached ethics when she represented both buyers and sellers in the sale of gas stations that were backed by federal funds. Some of the principals in the deals later were indicted or convicted for fraud after taxpayers lost $26 million on failed Small Business Administration loans.

Mullin wasn't charged and didn't face professional sanctions.

But some involved in the deals accused her of wrongdoing in civil court, and one questions why airport officials named her in August to the post that pays $250,000 per year.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano says he's done answering questions about Turkia Mullin or her $200,000 severance.

One day after promising an internal review of the payment his office authorized, Ficano staffers on Thursday said "it would be a disservice to the process to piecemeal out answers" until the probe is complete.

"Ficano has admitted that mistakes in policy and procedure had taken place," spokeswoman Brooke Blackwell said in a statement. "Measures (are) being put into place to ensure that this situation doesn't happen again."