An ex-federal prosecutor turned defense attorney is accusing the FBI of improperly taping conversations of a Detroit journalist and fabricating documents by describing him as an “unknown male.”, according to the Detroit News.
The defense attorney Richard Convertino, in a court filing on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claimed the FBI recorded the conversations of Michigan Chronicle senior editor Bankole Thompson and failed to get approval from Washington as required, the News reported.
Bankole was talking to Sam Riddle, the target of a public corruption probe, but nothing beneficial was said in those conversations, claimed Convertino, who also alleged other improprieties involving the wiretaps.
Convertno represents ex-state Rep. Mary Waters, a former companion of Riddle’s. Both Riddle and Waters are charged with bribing a Southfield City Councilman William Lattimore.
“As fruits of the poisonous tree, it is clear that without these illegal wiretaps, the government would not have had any evidence from which to derive …. the purported bribe(s) of Southfield City Councilman William Lattimore,” Convertino wrote in the motion.
Consequently, he asked that the charges be dropped against Waters.
The paper reported that a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined comment.
