Sam Riddle hand-washes his shirts in the sink nowadays and dries them on a plant hook because Sam Riddle has to stretch his pennies.
Social Security just doesn’t go that far for a political consultant with refined tastes and a mountain of legal troubles. Riddle is simultaneously battling two corruption cases and one domestic abuse charge, with no visible means of paying his lawyer bills.
He now resides in a dilapidated apartment complex on Detroit’s far west side, the rear of which is wrapped in concertina wire. He appears to be existing on pork chops and strawberry snack cakes. He has given up the Jack Daniels for purple Kool-Aid.
“It’s been the most humbling few months of my life,” Riddle said when I picked him up at his apartment. He was wearing pinstripes, a clean shirt and a court-ordered tracking device. “I’m not getting off on being Sam the Defendant. There’s not really a market for a political consultant who brings along a retinue of federal eavesdroppers.”
As if he hasn’t seen enough courtrooms in the past few months, Riddle wanted to drive to Pontiac to watch his newest lawyer, Richard Convertino, defend a woman accused of smothering her infant to death.
As Riddle lingered in the entrance of the courtroom, all eyes turned to him. The judge, the deputy, the reporters. The jury, too, stared. The witness kept talking. It is Sam Riddle after all, the biggest soap opera in town, one of the last big talkers on the Detroit political scene.
“Heya Rich,” Riddle whispered. Convertino turned and winked.
Convertino, a former federal prosecutor, is most famous for his prosecution of a Detroit terrorist sleeper cell. He won convictions in 2003, but some were overturned after allegations emerged of prosecutorial misconduct. Convertino’s colleagues in the Department of Justice turned and indicted him on obstruction of justice for allegedly withholding evidence from the defense.
Convertino eventually was acquitted. But Convertino has not forgotten. So Riddle’s retrial for allegedly teaming up with his one-time boss, Monica Conyers, to shake down people with business before City Council and the pension board, promises to be a battle royale.
“It’s the world against Sam Riddle and I know what it is to be on the other end of that juggernaut,” Convertino said during a recess at the Oakland County Courthouse, his eyes flashing with cool anger. “I know what it is to have allies who are weak-kneed and narrow shouldered. Sam reached out to me to pull him in the boat and I will try until hell freezes over. And then after that, I will pull him over the ice if I have to.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office is not pleased and fought to keep Convertino away from Riddle, ostensibly because Convertino is representing Riddle’s co-defendant and former live-in companion, Mary Waters, in a separate case involving political corruption allegations in Southfield.
The assistant U.S. attorney argued a conflict of interest; that is, Convertino’s only defense of Waters would be to throw Riddle off the train. Judge Avern Cohn ruled Monday in Riddle’s favor, however, reasoning that Riddle was a big boy and knew what he was in for. “Yeah, I’m worried,” Riddle said. “I don’t want to go to prison.”
He almost went there in February, had it not been for Angela Woods, the lone black juror who refused to convict Riddle of conspiracy and extortion. It ended in mistrial.
Riddle called Woods’ presence “divine intervention.” In that trial, the feds presented what they considered a mountain of evidence against Riddle, likening him and Conyers to “political pirates.”
Among that evidence was taped phone calls between Conyers and Riddle where she famously said: “You better get my loot, that’s all I know.”
It was established — and Riddle does not deny — that Conyers would refer clients to him and he would return money to her as a finder’s fee.
“How does it imply that I did anything illegal?” Riddle asked. “Besides, how would I know that (she) had her hands in everybody’s pocket, taking envelopes in the … Mr. Fish parking lot?”
Conyers pled guilty last month, before trying to withdraw her plea. Judge Cohn would not allow it. She is scheduled to report for prison on July 2 pending an appeal.
As for Riddle, he says he is confident this time around that he has a lawyer who understands his predicament.
“We’ll have a couple surprises,” he promised. “We have a couple things in common.”
Throughout it all Riddle, 63, said he is not too old to have learned some inviolable rules to life: Don’t talk on the phone, don’t get caught up with crazy women, and above all never bring another woman into your live-in woman’s bed.
“Mary (Waters) is not going to testify that I put a shotgun in her face, because it’s not true,” said the defendant, who will hold a legal fundraiser at Bert’s at Eastern Market on April 20.
“She said it because she was mad at me, to teach me a lesson. And I learned it.”
Source:The Detroit News/Charlie LeDuff
