From the Detroit Free Press (H/T Indianz):
Assault case topples Greektown Casino chairman:Acccused by a woman, he’s also suspended as cop
December 13, 2007
The chairman of the Greektown Casino board of directors has been forced to step down after being accused of assaulting a woman who fought off his sexual advances.
Fred Paquin, who is also police chief for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, was removed as chairman of the Detroit casino in November — only three months after taking the post — under pressure from state gaming officials.
Paquin, 50, who denies an assault, faces a February trial in Chippewa County on the misdemeanor charge.
The Free Press obtained the police report, Paquin’s police interview and taped telephone conversations between the woman and Paquin under the Freedom of Information Act.
The woman, a tribal member and employee, told a State Police investigator Paquin smacked the back of her head, yanked her ponytail and hit her forehead after she told him to stop kissing and groping her in August. She said she had to wrestle his arm out of her shirt.
In a taped police interview, Paquin countered that the woman was the aggressor and denied hitting her, though he conceded he may have pushed her away to fend her off.
He said he’d had an affair with the woman, who is married, for more than two years and they fought over money he had given her. She got angry, he said, when he told her: “It’s all about what you can get.”
His lawyer, Joe Kwiatkowski, said: “We’re absolutely convinced that her allegation is not going to be proven beyond the reasonable doubt standards.”
The woman, 34, a legal secretary with the tribe’s prosecutor’s office, denied an affair with Paquin.
She declined comment to the Free Press, which is not naming her due to the sexual nature of her allegations.
Asked to step down
Paquin is a longtime police chief for Michigan’s largest tribe, with 37,000 members, and is one of 13 elected leaders.
In August, the Greektown Casino’s management board elected him chairman. The management board is made of members of the Sault Tribe’s board of directors.
The tribe is the casino’s majority owner; but the casino is regulated by the state.
A tribal spokesman, Cory Wilson, said Paquin voluntarily resigned from the casino board. Todd K. Gravelle, a lawyer and member of the tribal board, said the Michigan Gaming Control Board pressured Paquin to give up his seat.
John Page, deputy director of enforcement for the state board, confirmed the agency “thought it would be best” that Paquin step down until the assault case is resolved.
Paquin is also suspended, with pay, as tribal police chief while the case is pending.
Page said the board was also investigating an incident at the Greektown Casino this fall in which an illegal lottery, or drawing, allegedly took place.
Gravelle, a member of the tribe’s gaming commission, said Paquin sold tribal raffle tickets to benefit a tribal charity inside the Greektown Casino — in apparent violation of state and tribal law.
Paquin’s tribal gaming license has been revoked, Gravelle said.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office is handling the assault trial, set for Feb. 14. If convicted, Paquin faces up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Threats and contradictions
According to the police report, Paquin, the woman and others met at a Sault Ste. Marie bar the night of Aug. 20 after her softball team played several games. Paquin and the woman left in separate cars.
She said she passed him at a park and stopped to talk. He got in her car, and she drove them into her garage.
Paquin said it was a prearranged meeting and he left his car at the park so her nosy neighbors would not see it.
The woman said Paquin kissed her and put his hand under her shirt and touched her “just above her crotch area.”
When she told him to stop, the report said, “it was like a switch was flipped in Paquin. He got real mad at her. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her arm downward. He pushed her up against the car.”
They got back into the car, she told police, and he “smacked her in the back of the head with an open hand. He started going nuts, yelling at her, calling her a tease.”
According to the report, he told her that she, her husband and her father were “done” with the tribe.
“I’ll show you who is in charge,” she quoted him. Her father works for the tribe. Gravelle said her husband works for a Greektown contractor.
Paquin did not deny the statements but told police they were merely “cheap threats.”
After the incident, State Police secretly taped the woman’s telephone calls with Paquin. “I’m sick, all right, literally, completely, totally sick over it,” Paquin said on the calls. “I still love you, and I probably will for a long time.”
Paquin told police, though, he regretted the alleged affair.
“It’s a bad thing,” he said, “messing around with a married woman.”
Turtle Talk 