By Robert Snell
The Detroit News
Former Taylor Mayor Rick Sollars wants to serve a federal sentence for corruption in his $369,000 home where a crooked city contractor installed new hardwood floors, a garage door, stainless steel kitchen appliances, a washer and dryer, a new front door and more.
The request comes as Sollars tries to avoid being sent to prison next month for orchestrating one of the largest public corruption scandals in the last decade in Metro Detroit. Sollars and three other people — including his top aide, former Taylor Community Development Manager Jeffrey Baum — have been convicted of crimes and face a possible prison sentence.
Sollars, 50, is scheduled to be sentenced 14 months after pleading guilty to stealing from his reelection campaign and receiving cash, home improvements and other bribes from contractor Shady Awad. In all, the court concluded Sollars stole more than $70,000 from the campaign and received $84,538 in bribes in exchange for helping Awad obtain city-owned foreclosed homes.
Sollars should be spared prison and serve any sentence at his 2,470-square-foot home because of the positive impact he had on the Downriver community during a long career as a city councilman and mayor, his lawyers argued. Also, his children need the disgraced politician as they navigate adolescence and adulthood, they added.
“He would ask this court to consider the sick, elderly, and downtrodden members of the city who see Mr. Sollars as a beacon of hope, kindness, and positivity,” defense lawyer Vincent Haisha wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Sollars was supposed to be sentenced Wednesday. But late Tuesday, the sentencing was inexplicably rescheduled to Oct. 22.
If prison is necessary, Haisha said a two-year sentence is ample punishment because Sollars has suffered “immensely.” Sollars lost his political career, has not worked a meaningful job in recent years and the criminal case hurt him financially, the lawyer wrote.
“How much punishment must one individual suffer to repay his debt to society?” Haisha wrote.
The median sentence for bribery/corruption convictions from 2015-23 in the Eastern District of Michigan, which includes Detroit, is 12 months, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith to send the corrupt politician to prison for almost six years. Sollars, who was mayor of the downriver community from 2013-21, deserves a 71-month sentence for shredding the public’s faith in democracy, according to the government.
“The citizens who elected Sollars wanted a mayor who would work to make their lives better,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Frances Carlson and Robert Moran wrote. “Instead, Sollars chose to make his own life better by corruptly using his power as a government official to enhance his own lifestyle.”
Sollars’ political fortunes faded amid the scandal. He had to mount an unsuccessful write-in campaign for reelection in 2021 because he failed to file campaign finance statements or pay fines.
The sentencing is the latest development in a years-long federal crackdown on public corruption in Metro Detroit. The prosecution has led to charges against more than 130 politicians, labor leaders, bureaucrats, police officers and school officials in recent years.
Awad is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21. Prosecutors want him to spend up to 19 months in federal prison, though his lawyers are pushing for probation.
Awad, 44, pleaded guilty in 2021, admitting he bribed Sollars with more than $53,000 in cash, appliances, home renovations and gambling money during a Las Vegas trip. Two others have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing: Baum and Hadir Altoon, a party store owner and developer accused of letting Sollars cash campaign checks at his store in exchange for money and scratch-off lottery tickets.
The criminal cases were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a fight over the amount of illegal benefits the Downriver politician received.
That legal fight appears to have backfired. The judge held a series of hearings this spring that had the potential of reducing Sollars’s exposure to federal prison. Instead, testimony portrayed Sollars as a demanding bully with a creeping sense of entitlement as illegal benefits increased in frequency and value.
The judge later determined Sollars received $84,538 in cash and freebies and stole more than $70,000 from the campaign.
Sollars pleaded guilty and avoided a rare public corruption trial in federal court after being charged in a 33-count indictment. The plea covers wrongdoing involving the sale of city-owned foreclosures and a scheme to defraud donors to a campaign committee for Sollars. Sollars admitted receiving things of value from Awad between July 2016 and February 2019, including home improvements, renovations for his home, office and cottage.
The former mayor also admitted engaging in a scheme in 2018 to defraud donors to his political campaign. He admitted cashing $5,600 worth of campaign checks at Dominick’s Market and keeping some of the money while claiming the funds went toward campaign expenses.
The full breadth of bribery emerged in March during a four-day evidentiary hearing. The hearing featured testimony from Awad and the corrupt mayor’s wife, Alicia Sollars, and revealed a list of bribes that included:
• Hardwood floors in the basement: $8,166
• Fresh paint: $7,226
• A new front door: $6,000
• A new refrigerator, oven, microwave and dishwasher: $5,300
“And you didn’t pay for those appliances?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Frances Carlson asked Sollars’ wife.
“No,” she testified.
• A custom garage locker system: $4,550
• A new camera: $4,044
“And can you tell us how that came about?” the prosecutor asked Awad.
“(Sollars) was with his son … and they pulled up to my office and he said his credit card only goes up to $2,500 and if I could pay for the camera,” Awad testified.
“Did he tell you what the camera was for?” the prosecutor asked.
“It was for Alicia, his wife,” Awad testified.
• Garage door: $3,845
• Washer and dryer: $3,679
• Hardwood floors upstairs: $2,750
• Hardwood floors, main floor: $2,500
• A sliding door with an extra screen: $1,898
• A humidor: $1,804
At one point, Sollars asked whether the humidor would be stocked with Cuban cigars, according to the criminal case.
“Once I break even,” Awad wrote in a text message, “we’ll go to Cuba.”
• Metal tool cabinets: $1,243
• Vacuum cleaner: $635
More bribes were paid for improvements at the mayor’s cottage in Cement City.
• Hardwood floors: $8,800
• Deck refinishing: $2,900
During the conspiracy, Awad tried to hide the bribes by claiming the appliances, floors and other freebies were installed in homes he was renovating as part of the city’s housing program.
Awad said he tried to conceal the wood floors for Sollars by claiming they were installed in the basement of another property.
“Does it have a basement?” the prosecutor asked Awad.
“No,” Awad said.
At one point, Awad’s branded company vehicles had been parked outside the mayor’s home so often delivering bribes and overseeing free home improvement projects that Sollars asked the contractor to remove the company’s logo from trucks and employee uniforms, Awad testified.
“He just said it would look bad if somebody from the city would see us providing services … and if we could just remove our signs and their shirts,” Awad testified.
“You just can’t get Rick upset or there’s consequences…,” Awad said.
On Friday, Sollars’s legal team said the home improvements, cash and other perks were gifts, not bribes.
“Mr. Awad had already been awarded the 95 properties in question before he ever provided anything of value to Mr. Sollars,” the defense lawyer wrote.
Prosecutors, however, said Sollars was trying to “recharacterize the facts” to fit with new changes to federal bribery laws.
“The inconsistency of Sollars’s new assertions demonstrates that his arguments ring hollow,” prosecutors wrote.
