Judge Bunko
From James Donahue’s Journal
Jim Ketchum and I gave him the nickname “Bunko.” Everybody believed the Sanilac County Probate Court Judge was a greedy, crooked operator that used his position to acquire property and wealth, but we never could prove it. There were stories told about how he settled estates where there was no will, and somehow ended up owning the property involved. He and his family were so well buried in a complex volume of corporations, corporate conglomerates and Limited Liability Companies that it would have taken a law specialist to wade through the mounds of paperwork to find him. Every search we made came to a dead end with either his wife, one of his children, or some other relative as chairman of a board.
In a county the population size of Sanilac, the probate judge also oversaw the affairs of juvenile court and managed the affairs of the elder and other folks declared, by him, to be mentally incapable of taking care of themselves. He thus drew upon a carefully selected list of people to serve as “guardians” of such people. We found that the same person often was named guardian of a large number of older people, delinquent and mentally retarded children. There was government payment to guardians for each person placed in their trust.
Bunko had quite a racket operating in Sanilac County. It took us a few years to pick up on what he was doing and start researching for a possible story. But the judge was smart and did a very good job of burying his misdeeds. For one thing, by state law, we were prevented from having access to the records of that court or even sit in on court proceedings. Thus everything Judge Benko and his staff did was done behind closed doors.
I first became suspicious of Bunko the year he ran for re-election and had another area lawyer run against him. I interviewed both candidates, took their pictures and posted their stories along with similar stories for all of the other county and local candidates seeking election that year. All of the candidate profiles and pictures appeared in a special edition of The Times Herald a few days before the election.
After the stories appeared, I was stopped by Judge Bunko on the street when he pulled his black limonene up beside the sidewalk, rolled down his tinted power window, and called me to his car. He expressed extreme displeasure that I gave his opponent about an inch more copy in the stories than he received, and accused me of giving the other candidate an advantage. “You are either fore me or against me,” he said. I decided at that moment that if I had to take sides, I would have to be against this man whose ego appeared out of control.
Bunko’s trademark was his limp and his cane. He always dressed in dark, expensive suits, and walked with a severe limp. I never heard what happened to his leg. Strangely I got to personally know and like some of the staff working under him in the Juvenile Court division. One of them, Donald Chamberlain, was a former police chief in Harbor Beach during the years I was going to high school. Don and I got to be good friends and we often had coffee breaks together at the Harvest Haus. He never talked about the judge, and I never asked. I never wanted the judge to know that Ketchum and I were trying to get the goods on what he was up to.
Eventually I think we had enough information to have filed a story, but there were enough holes in our information that my editors decided to wait until we could fill them. We never could. We knew that we had to be ready to defend every word once we declared war on Judge Bunko, and we never felt that we were capable of doing that.
Bunko always was smiling when we met in the courthouse hallways or on the street, but he never failed to greet me with some kind of cynical and subtle insult. He made no bones about his dislike for me.
One day I was parked in the courthouse parking lot, just outside Benko’s office window. As I was preparing to back out of my spot, I had another car hit the rear bumper of my vehicle. Both of our cars were old. I only carried the minimum liability insurance and so did the other driver. There was no damage to my car and there was a small dent in the front fender of the other car. After talking it over, we decided not to contact the police. The mishap occurred on a private parking lot. We calculated damage at under the $100 limit set by state law. And we were both too busy to be bothered dealing with the police for the next hour or two. We exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and went on our way.
Later in the day, the Sandusky City Police showed up at my office to inquire about the accident. It seems that the judge saw what went on and made sure the police were informed that James Donahue left the scene of a property damage accident. When the officer saw the lack of damage to my car, and heard all of the facts, the matter was dropped. I think Benko was hoping something more would come of it. In fact, he made a point of jabbing me about my parking lot accident the next time I saw him.
He was a malicious worm. I knew what he was doing but couldn’t expose him for what he was in all of the years I worked in that county. In the end I think he was well aware of my research and probably worried that I might someday find my way through all of the legal paperwork to prove a case against him. The thing that stopped me was that as reporters on that bureau, both Ketchum and I were too busy on other matters to devote the time it would have taken to get to the bottom of Bunko’s carefully designed concealment.
From James Donahue’s Journal
Jim Ketchum and I gave him the nickname “Bunko.” Everybody believed the Sanilac County Probate Court Judge was a greedy, crooked operator that used his position to acquire property and wealth, but we never could prove it. There were stories told about how he settled estates where there was no will, and somehow ended up owning the property involved. He and his family were so well buried in a complex volume of corporations, corporate conglomerates and Limited Liability Companies that it would have taken a law specialist to wade through the mounds of paperwork to find him. Every search we made came to a dead end with either his wife, one of his children, or some other relative as chairman of a board.
In a county the population size of Sanilac, the probate judge also oversaw the affairs of juvenile court and managed the affairs of the elder and other folks declared, by him, to be mentally incapable of taking care of themselves. He thus drew upon a carefully selected list of people to serve as “guardians” of such people. We found that the same person often was named guardian of a large number of older people, delinquent and mentally retarded children. There was government payment to guardians for each person placed in their trust.
Bunko had quite a racket operating in Sanilac County. It took us a few years to pick up on what he was doing and start researching for a possible story. But the judge was smart and did a very good job of burying his misdeeds. For one thing, by state law, we were prevented from having access to the records of that court or even sit in on court proceedings. Thus everything Judge Benko and his staff did was done behind closed doors.
I first became suspicious of Bunko the year he ran for re-election and had another area lawyer run against him. I interviewed both candidates, took their pictures and posted their stories along with similar stories for all of the other county and local candidates seeking election that year. All of the candidate profiles and pictures appeared in a special edition of The Times Herald a few days before the election.
After the stories appeared, I was stopped by Judge Bunko on the street when he pulled his black limonene up beside the sidewalk, rolled down his tinted power window, and called me to his car. He expressed extreme displeasure that I gave his opponent about an inch more copy in the stories than he received, and accused me of giving the other candidate an advantage. “You are either fore me or against me,” he said. I decided at that moment that if I had to take sides, I would have to be against this man whose ego appeared out of control.
Bunko’s trademark was his limp and his cane. He always dressed in dark, expensive suits, and walked with a severe limp. I never heard what happened to his leg. Strangely I got to personally know and like some of the staff working under him in the Juvenile Court division. One of them, Donald Chamberlain, was a former police chief in Harbor Beach during the years I was going to high school. Don and I got to be good friends and we often had coffee breaks together at the Harvest Haus. He never talked about the judge, and I never asked. I never wanted the judge to know that Ketchum and I were trying to get the goods on what he was up to.
Eventually I think we had enough information to have filed a story, but there were enough holes in our information that my editors decided to wait until we could fill them. We never could. We knew that we had to be ready to defend every word once we declared war on Judge Bunko, and we never felt that we were capable of doing that.
Bunko always was smiling when we met in the courthouse hallways or on the street, but he never failed to greet me with some kind of cynical and subtle insult. He made no bones about his dislike for me.
One day I was parked in the courthouse parking lot, just outside Benko’s office window. As I was preparing to back out of my spot, I had another car hit the rear bumper of my vehicle. Both of our cars were old. I only carried the minimum liability insurance and so did the other driver. There was no damage to my car and there was a small dent in the front fender of the other car. After talking it over, we decided not to contact the police. The mishap occurred on a private parking lot. We calculated damage at under the $100 limit set by state law. And we were both too busy to be bothered dealing with the police for the next hour or two. We exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and went on our way.
Later in the day, the Sandusky City Police showed up at my office to inquire about the accident. It seems that the judge saw what went on and made sure the police were informed that James Donahue left the scene of a property damage accident. When the officer saw the lack of damage to my car, and heard all of the facts, the matter was dropped. I think Benko was hoping something more would come of it. In fact, he made a point of jabbing me about my parking lot accident the next time I saw him.
He was a malicious worm. I knew what he was doing but couldn’t expose him for what he was in all of the years I worked in that county. In the end I think he was well aware of my research and probably worried that I might someday find my way through all of the legal paperwork to prove a case against him. The thing that stopped me was that as reporters on that bureau, both Ketchum and I were too busy on other matters to devote the time it would have taken to get to the bottom of Bunko’s carefully designed concealment.