In Michigan, you can’t get a car with a salvage title on the road legally without first having it inspected by a state certified salvage vehicle inspector, typically a specially trained police officer. The officer inspects the car for safety and checks the Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN) to make sure the VIN hasn’t been reported as stolen. The car’s owner pays a $100 cash fee to be forwarded to the state government, the inspector signs off on the forms, and the state issues a new, clean title.
That is unless Seth Swanson was your inspector, allegedly.
Former Michigan State Police trooper, Swanson, 31 of Royal Oak, has been charged by the state attorney general with felony counts of embezzlement and forgery for pocketing over $170,000 in fees in what appears, based on the large number of cars involved, to have been an organized title washing scheme.
From August 2014 till the end of 2015, the state attorney general alleges Swanson kept the fees from 1,701 inspections he certified. He’s also alleged to have falsely certified that he checked to make sure the cars were not listed as stolen on LEIN. Following an investigation, Michigan State Police suspended Swanson without pay last February. He resigned from the force earlier last week.
A state trooper since 2009, Swanson was regarded as a hero for his actions resuscitating and saving a 10-year-old child involved in a multiple fatality chain reaction crash on I-75 caused by a snow storm in 2013.
Prosecutors have not released many details, but — reading between the lines — this may have involved an organized car theft ring. The number of titles involved works out to 100 cars a month and it seems to me such a large number of cars means Swanson was either working with organized criminals or was known as the go-to guy for independent car thieves.
Swanson has also only been charged with a single count of embezzlement by a public official and a single count of uttering and publishing (i.e. forgery). Each individual fee he stole and each certification he signed are separately chargeable felonies, so he could have been and still be charged with over 3,400 crimes.
The story broke after the Michigan attorney general issued a press release, not because Swanson showed up on a police blotter or court docket. That seems unusual to me. Combine that with the fact that he’s only been charged with two crimes, he’s waived his preliminary hearing and no further court dates are set makes me believe a plea bargain is in the works and Swanson will likely testify against others involved in the scheme.
TTAC has asked the Attorney General’s office if they expect other indictments, but we didn’t receive a response by the time of publication.
The state police are working with the Michigan Secretary of State’s office to identify the vehicles affected, contact the owners to arrange for new inspections, ensure they are safe to drive and have not been stolen.
If Swanson indeed worked with professional car thieves, I presume not all the registered owners will readily cooperate.
Such a curious legal system, the way it adjusts the charges based on snitching. I understand the logic, you roll up the small fish to get bigger fish, but the way they bury the deals makes it so easy to sweeten the deals for friends. These kinds of deals ought to be left to juries — charge him the full 3402 counts, let the jury decide how much his snitching and prior service justifies a reduced sentence.
I agree. The other factor in play here is “hero” LEO.
The whole purpose of the plea bargain for catching bigger targets is that it keeps the snitch’s actions out off the public record. Once a Jury is involved the snitch will not bargain. It would be nice to be able to do this, but bad guys are never going to capitulate if they will be outed.
The plea system is to keep the justice system from getting bogged down with having to go to a judge or jury for every crime. If juries were going to decide what kind of plea bargain could be offered then 1) it defeats the purpose 2) it will take years to see a trial for everyone.
Sure, there are abuses, the most obvious ones are the deals given to members of the blue, but I wouldn’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
And people wonder why there is little faith in Government.
How was it possible that this went on for years without anyone missing the $100 per vehicle? Wouldn’t the coffers be higher when he was off or on vacation?
I find it hard to believe that there were not others at the state level no either involved or looking the other way.
Actually, it states that ‘From August 2014 till the end of 2015’ this went on. In the grand scheme of embezzlement or fraud this is quite short. Keep in mind Bernie Madoff was committing Ponzi like fraud starting in the late 60’s and made it all the way to the mid 00’s even though multiple people, on multiple occasions turned him in to the SEC for fraud.
I would rather argue the fine folks in Michigan did a great job sniffing this fraud out and doing something about it rather quickly. They probably watched him/his work for a couple of months just to be sure and suspended him in February of this year.
Do you mean Madoff?
Because one officer involved in 3400 crimes in a state of just under 10 million did something wrong, everybody distrusts the government? This is called narrative framework control theory, basically this is a story at all and specifically ON TTAC because it fits their inherent narrative towards automobiles and government setup.
If you want, and Mark agrees, I’ll be happy to show you the email chain involved in the production of this post. Contrary to your fevered conspiracy theory, there was never any discussion at all about government, politics, or narratives. It was all about ‘hey, this looks like a state trooper was washing titles for organized car thieves’.
I saw the story at the Detroit News. The state police post he worked at is about a mile from my house. He was arraigned in the same court that I’ll be at in two weeks for an alleged turn signal violation. The press release seemed curious by what it didn’t say. Since it’s a state district court and Michigan won’t be putting those records online till next year that release is all the information that’s accessible right now. To see if there was more to the story, I spoke with a spokesperson from the AG’s office and they forwarded my question about further indictments to their communications team.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
“The press release seemed curious by what it didn’t say.”
That bit of “analysis” comes straight out of your backside.
Stick to the facts. Your wingnut editorializing with no factual support only harms the credibility of this website.
And neither do your comments that continually attack certain writers at TTAC. If you want to criticize the content of a piece, go ahead, but take it no further.
This is your warning.
The comment that he made has no factual support.
That comment is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is part of an ongoing pattern of posting pieces that are factually wrong and that are not corrected or taken down even when it has been demonstrated that they are wrong.
I’m sorry, but the problem is with the inaccuracies, not with those who point them out. And I’m not alone in noting this.
@Pch101 What comment? At no point does Ronnie say it _is_ a car theft ring or a title-washing operation. Every single time, Ronnie says it _appears_ to be such. Judging by the sheer volume of cars this guy “inspected,” I’m inclined to agree, though the AG’s office hasn’t said anything to date.
Having read Mr. Schreiber’s comments around here for a decade, I’m pretty sure that he is convinced that the cop in question wasn’t hauled away in chains in the middle of the night because of some preferential treatment.
He doesn’t realize that given the circumstances (a lengthy investigation into a possible non-violent white-collar crime that was conducted by the state AG and FBI over an extended period, of which the defendant was well aware) that it would not be unusual for the attorney general’s office to just contact the defendant’s lawyer and tell him to bring his client to the arraignment.
This is not NYPD Blue or CSI Miami. If they were truly concerned that he was some kind of flight risk or danger to the public, then they would have picked him up and more bail would have been required. Sending in the calvary wasn’t necessary, and being a cop didn’t have much to do with it. (Cops can get preferential treatment and unfairly so, but this does not sound like an example of it.)
@Pch101 I brought up preferential treatment when Ronnie and I discussed the story. He poo-poo’d it. So there goes your angle. Want to try another one?
Pch,
as in the George Hotz posts, regardless on whether I agree or disagree with any author (no matter how vehemently) I would much prefer hearing what they think directly from them instead of your presumptions about what they think.
Thank you.
I’d like to second Pch101 and Xeranars’ comments. I’m pretty near leaving the TTAC readership because of the anti-government slant lately. There have been some articles with unsupported comments added solely to bash government. I come here to read about cars, not your political opinions. If the political opinionizing were in the comments section I wouldn’t care, but don’t put it in the articles.
Whatever you need to do Mark but I feel I need to say this: Pointing out it’s a narrative framework control theory doesn’t mean I hate Ronnie or think he has some blood vendetta against the government. My point if you’ll bear with me here is that Ronnie has a continued and impassioned position that I am diametrically opposed to on most fronts. So just as I often will support government and point out that it’s an isolated incident, he will do the opposite. We’re not naturally planning some aggressive and secret cabal but just like what Fox News reports because of cultural bias (and MSNBC to be fair) it’s a natural extension of who we are.
If you think I come here to belittle TTAC, please rethink your argument. Had I wanted to lambaste the place, I would simply stop reading. I enjoy commenting here and getting into the tussle as often as I lurk. I feel that maybe my comment was taken out of context (and re-reading it, I was overly harsh) it isn’t that I feel TTAC is bad, it’s a center-right kind of place and I accept it. It doesn’t mean I am not going to point out inherent bias from time to time. It just means I’m trying to keep the players honest. :)
No harm, no foul in my view, you kept your union-bashing off the table since the take over which is good in my view. So we all have our positions staked out.
PS: I can send you some wonderful paperwork on Narrative control theory if you ever get tired of reading the hot sheets on cars. :P
Well, there’s at least one 13 year-old out there who along with family would cut him some slack for his proactive retirement planning.
His job was to **Protect and Serve**. I contend he did his job that day, and did it well. He does not get a free pass to be complicit in a stolen car ring.
If you don’t want to save a life every now and then, don’t sign up to be a cop or fireman…it’s kinda a job requirement.
Meh… he didn’t kill nobody.
We don’t know that yet. He could have passed an unsafe car.
Well, he might be an accomplice in Used Car Sales, that’s about all.
No, he didn’t kill anybody, but I bet he facilitated the theft of a bunch of folks’ daily drivers, causing a lot of havoc in their lives.
LOL, you mean you don’t subscribe to the hero worship for all these people doing their jobs with full salary, pension and benefits?
I’m being sarcastic but not insincere. I don’t even think it’s a hot take to suggest that doing one’s job doesn’t elevate a person to hero status. Of course we pay them lower salaries because hero worship has traditionally offset the lower pay. This goes back to pre-Roman times.
But all the same, we have the frothing Facebookers who believe non-service-people are being protected by selfless heroes… and us wussies who cower behind them should be never-endingly grateful, otherwise we get punched!!
When you say Michigan issues a new, “clean” title, does that mean the car is no longer a salvage title? Or do you mean it now has a rebuilt salvage title?
great question that i had too when reading the article. perhaps ronnie will clarify.
Michigan issues a “rebuilt” branded title if a car is repaired and passes an inspection. Title washing is usually selling/re-titling it in another state which doesn’t brand titles, then bringing it back in with a “clean” title.
Look up the Lehto’s Law podcast (or Youtube video series,) I think he covers title washing and title skipping a couple of times.
Sorry for the confusion. I meant clean in the sense that it wasn’t listed as stolen. The reissued title still indicates that it’s a salvaged vehicle. Current titles are labeled “Rebuilt Salvage”.
http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-1585_1587_1588-76323–,00.html
Volkswagen is disappointed. They were hoping to recycle their “TDI” cars as “TSI” cars with mere paperwork.
that’s funny.
and it gives me an idea for my passat tdi………
I’m sure there is a mix of owners who knew it was a scam and willingly participated and others who are now left holding the bag with a stolen car in their possession. What a mess. The State of Michigan will be keeping their lawyers busy for a long time on this one.
I have a hard time believing that this was done with locally stolen cars, unless the state’s system is that messed up, or if he was putting a different VIN on the paper work and then getting lucky that the car with that VIN was not registered in his state. The computer should spit out that there is a duplicate or a new title issued on a car that is shown as stolen and not recovered.
In general though the guy is an idiot. The way to do this and not get caught is to charge the person the $100 for the paper work that goes to the state as normal and $100 for a “special handling fee” for doctoring the paper work to hide that it is stolen.
Agreed, the guy is a dolt, stupidly brazen. To begin with, the shear number of titles involved was bound to catch someone’s attention. The process is not all computerized. Also, every time the LEIN system is accessed, that is logged. Once they had suspicions, all they had to do was check his paperwork against the LEIN logins.
My guess is plea bargain to those single counts and then into the witness protection system.
Ronnie, Mark ;
Good story well done .
This Trooper was a boob, not real bright it appears .
Ignore the ‘ Nattering Nabobs Of negativity ‘ .
-Nate