Democratic Aide implicated in Scheme to Bilk Millions out of taxpayers through Michigan Film Credits

For a long time, I've had my doubts about the Democrat's much-touted subsidies and tax credits for filmmaking in Michigan. Most of my doubts center around the fact that these subsidies are being given away with very little oversight and are being given away to those with political connections (for example, Michael Moore sits on the board that recommends who gets these tax credits- and recently gave them to himself). This lack of transparency and political favoritism has not received the attention it should, because hidden behind the wall of secrecy that is the Democratic-run Film Office, there are a lot of corrupt deals being made that are screwing taxpayers over. Now it is confirmed though.

Breaking News: The chief-of-staff for a Grand Rapids Democratic State Congressman has been implicated in a million-dollar fraud scheme whereby he would buy a $4 million dollar building for $50 million and then apply $12.5 million dollars in subsidies through the state of Michigan's disgraced Film Office.

Noah Seifullah, who has been forced to resign from Congressman Robert Dean's staff, was in the process of finalizing the details of the Hangar42 studio scheme when the news broke. The Michigan Film Office had already given preliminary approval to the request for over $10 million in film-credits when the news broke.

This Hanger 42 scheme represents just the tip of the iceberg into the corruption that is rampant in the Michigan Film Office, so much so that Janet Lockwood, who is the director of the Michigan Film Office, is being forced to resign amid the growing criticism. Her office has stonewalled efforts to find out more information about the Hanger 42 deal, and many others, and she has attempted to provide citizens as little information as possible about the decision making process involved in the give-away of millions of taxpayers money.

The Mackinac Center was the first to publicly raise questions about the Hangar 42 deal with an essay and investigative video posted on its website May 20. They reported that the studio was on the market for as little as $9.8 million as late as February, but apparently sold for as much as $40 million not soon after that in order that the buyer could claim a much larger film-credit. As of today, the Michigan Film Office, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the seller and the buyers are all unwilling to answer questions about this scheme, and the Democratic Governor who is so proud of her Film Office (and even bragged about the Hanger 42 deal as evidence of the success of the film-credits in her recent State-of-the-State speech) nor the Democratic-controlled Michigan Legislature have pressed for answers or explanations.

The Grand Rapids Free Press deserves a lot of credit for putting this story together and piecing together the details here. They found the speech where Noah Seifullah outlined a 'hypothetical' situation whereby massive amounts of fraud could bilk the Michigan taxpayers out of millions. They then connected the 'hypothetical' situation described by Siefullah to the real world Hanger 42 project. Give the Grand Rapids Press credit for doing the real work on this story, fighting through government obstruction and attempts by Democrats at every turn to keep the corruption and fraud that is running rampant in their Film Office secret.

This scandal raises important questions. The Michigan Film Office is Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm's pet project, one that she brags about often, and yet this scandal raises questions and concerns about how thoroughly corrupt it is. She continually plows taxpayer money into this project, and yet her top example of success for this program (Hanger 42) has proven to be a corrupt sham. Next, at what point in this sham did someone cry foul- who knew what when at the Michigan Film Office about Hanger 42? Perhaps the Attorney General should start asking some questions. Is this the kind of public-private corporate welfare project that Democrats promote, rife with corruption of public officials? Last, is the corruption limited to just the local (state) Representative? Or is this something that many officials in the Democratic party are caught up in?

Stay tuned for further updates, and please feel free to link to this story- perhaps if this story gets big enough the Michigan Film Office and the millions that it is giving out to politically-connected individuals under great secrecy can be brought to light and analyzed and cleaned up.

UPDATE: Here is a video of the story:


UPDATE II: Looks like the Attorney General is getting into this situation- according to this story, Mike Cox (the AG for Michigan, and GOP candidate for Governor) is looking into the Hanger 42 scheme.

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