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topicnews · October 24, 2024

Oakland’s Wayne Co. sheriff challengers are hoping voters will ignore their criminal records

Oakland’s Wayne Co. sheriff challengers are hoping voters will ignore their criminal records

Amrit Kohli said he is qualified to be Oakland County sheriff because he has been an Oakland County Jail inmate and knows what needs to be fixed.

Wayne County sheriff candidate TP Nykoriak said his federal conviction for stealing from a Detroit church should not keep him from being elected as the county’s top law enforcement officer.

Kohli, a Democrat, and Nykoriak, a Republican, each acknowledged that their campaigns are well against the incumbents, although both challengers said they hoped to win and viewed their candidacies for sheriff as more than symbolic.

Kohli is running against Republican Michael Bouchard, the longtime Oakland County sheriff first elected in 1999, while Nykoriak hopes to unseat Wayne County Sheriff Raphael Washington, a Democrat seeking a second full term after being elected in 2021 The death of former sheriff Benny Napoleon was appointed to office.

“I want to get elected so I can disrupt the policing of the sheriff’s office and try to set an example for what policing can do when it doesn’t involve guns and repression,” said Kohli, a 2003 drunk-driving conviction and malicious destruction of property in 2004. “The police are the oppressive apparatus and in my opinion have committed genocide.”

Nykoriak, who was convicted in federal court in 2015 of stealing more than $70,000 in U.S. savings bonds from St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Detroit, said his criminal record “should not be the focus.”

“This race is not symbolic,” said Nykoriak, who has unsuccessfully run for Wayne County sheriff three times. “My opponent can’t handle prison. There have been a number of lawsuits and suicides, with one prisoner recently dying in the old prison after being beaten by another prisoner. These people went to prison for some reason, but they didn’t expect to be left in body bags is due to my opponent’s incompetence.

The new Wayne County Criminal Justice Center, home to the Wayne County Circuit Court, Jail and Juvenile Detention Center, opened in early September and has been plagued with problems.

Two inmates have died by suicide since mid-September, lawyers said they had to wait hours to meet with their clients in prison, and inmates refused to go to court in protest at living conditions, and it continues There is a lack of deputies to ensure the smooth running of the prison. Earlier this week, a Roseville man filed a class-action lawsuit after he said he was held in the Wayne County Jail for six days after a judge ordered his release.

The Washington office did not respond to requests for comment. Wayne County is a Democratic stronghold where Washington was elected 81% to 11% over Libertarian Joseph LeBlanc to a partial two-year term in 2022 after he was appointed to the post following the death of Sheriff Benny Napoleon

In September 2023, Washington praised Executive Director Warren Evans for negotiating contracts with unionized deputies that would increase salaries and benefits to retain and hire more deputies.

Kohli, a folk singer and guitarist, said he considered pausing his campaign for Oakland County sheriff when he released an album called “Mama, I Can’t Breathe” in July.

“I wasn’t sure if I should continue after releasing the album,” Kohli said of the 12-song release honoring George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020 during an arrest. “Do you see how bad the optics are of releasing an album about George Floyd while he’s running for sheriff? But I won’t stop the campaign. I didn’t back down.”

Bouchard said his opponent “would not qualify for an entry-level position in our office.”

“He said he didn’t even want the job,” said Bouchard, a Republican who has been sheriff since 1999. “It would be pretty difficult to put someone in charge of one of the largest police departments in America when they have so little credentials.

Bouchard said whoever is elected will have to adapt to new challenges.

“The landscape has changed a lot since my time at the police academy and the responsibilities have expanded dramatically,” he said. “You have to be knowledgeable about counterterrorism, and one of the biggest changes has been the number of responses to mental health calls. We’ve had to expand our training and repertoire to deal with more emotionally disturbed individuals, and I’m sure this is the case. “As the world changes, law enforcement needs to continue to expand and change.”

Oakland County is a former Republican stronghold that has become more reliably Democratic over the past decade. Bouchard was re-elected in 2020 by a 54% to 46% margin over Democrat Vincent Gregory, a former Wayne County Sheriff’s Department employee.

Kohli said if elected he would reduce the cost of phone calls from the Oakland County Jail.

“I was in this prison. I’m proud of my time in the Oakland County prison system,” said Kohli, who was convicted of driving under the influence in Royal Oak in 2003 and malicious damage to property in Troy in 2004. “I think the prison system needs to be reformed. First, I would make phone calls (from prison) much cheaper, if not free. And I would take away all the dark money that goes into prison. “Prisons.”

When asked about the details of his conviction for destroying property, Kohli said it was “related to my mental health”.

Nykoriak said he is still paying $400 a month in state-mandated restitution for his crime, with about $20,000 remaining.

“I plead guilty and they put me on a payment plan,” he said. “It was a debtors’ prison – ‘Pay us or we’ll screw you.'”

When sentencing, Nykoriak said it was a misunderstanding.

“I served as an officer of the church where I was on the board,” he said. “I am still a member of the church; no one fired me from office. But I pleaded guilty.”

“People want to make my record the main topic,” Nykoriak said. “But the main problem is that the people of Wayne County are having to pay millions of dollars in lawsuits because of my opponent’s mistakes.”

In Macomb County, incumbent Sheriff Anthony Wickersham, a Democrat, is being challenged by former deputy Terence Mekoski, a Republican who also ran for sheriff in 2020.

gunter@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2134

@GeorgeHunter_DN

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