Attorney criticizes Dino Bucci ticket
Federally-indicted former Macomb county and township official Dino Bucci was involved in a pair of bizarre property damage auto accidents last month for which he is charged with a misdemeanor.
A Macomb County Sheriff’s report indicates on Jan. 21 Bucci was driving a black Cadillac rental SUV that struck traffic signs at Hall Road and Marketplace Boulevard in Chesterfield Township and moments later hit two community mailboxes while performing a U-turn off Heydenreich Road in Macomb Township.
Bucci was ticketed for failure to stop after a property damage accident, punishable by up to 90 days in jail, and a deputy indicated he would seek to have Bucci undergo a driver examination, saying, “I believe (Bucci) should not be driving on the road.”
Bucci’s attorney, Stephen Rabaut, said his client should not have been charged because he was suffering from a diabetic reaction. He called the charge politically motivated.
“I will try this case against any prosecutor any day of the week,” Rabaut told The Macomb Daily. “This case is junk. It never should have been charged. It’s junk, it’s bull——.
“He is being charged because of who he is. If it was you or I, we wouldn’t have been charged.”
Rabaut conceded Bucci’s driving was below par.
“I’m not defending his driving, but it wasn’t criminal,” he said.
He said Bucci is suffering from multiple health issues, including poor kidney function requiring dialysis. Bucci was returning home from dialysis when the incidents occurred, he said.
Bucci, the former operations chief under former Macomb County Public Works commissioner Anthony Marrocco, pleaded guilty last May to extortion and theft conspiracies for his roles in public works and Macomb Township government, where he served as a trustee for several years.
Bucci is scheduled to be sentenced July 27 in U.S. District Court.
According to 14-page police report regarding last month’s incident, dispatchers received “several calls” at about 8 a.m. that day regarding a black Cadillac SUV “with heavy front end damage all over the road.”
Deputies found Bucci driving the Cadillac as he pulled out of a Starbucks drive-thru line on Hall just east of Heydenreich Road.
Deputy Jonathan Potocki said Bucci appeared “very calm” when he approached and told him he noticed damage to his vehicle.
“I lost control and I hit a mailbox,” Bucci told the deputy of the second incident, according to bodycamera video shown on WWYZ-TV (Channel 7).
Deputies are heard on the video saying, “It just doesn’t make sense … You hit all these different objects at different locations and you don’t stop.”
Of the first accident, Bucci said, “I know, I was ran off the roadway by a red Chevy Malibu, and I hit a sign,” according to the police report.
He said moments before the second incident he intended to get coffee at Starbucks but passed the entrance driveway so he needed to turn around, the report says. His SUV struck mailboxes on Kenmare Street near Limerick Street where the vehicle “made a wide turn” and drove onto private property then got back onto the street, a witness says in the report.
When asked if he thought he hit anything, Bucci replied, “Ya, I think a mailbox. I freaked out because this is a rental car and I need to get it back to them,” according to the report.
An unidentified witness of the incident at Hall and Marketplace says in a written statement he saw the vehicle traveling on a median island “dragging the signs they just ran through.”
“The person pulled back onto Hall Road like nothing happened,” the witness wrote.
The vehicle then “left the road again about 100 yards down and ran through another couple signs and continued to drive on the grass and I lost sight of them,” he says.
Bucci indicated he was returning from a doctor’s appointment at 19 Mile and Garfield roads.
He suggested to deputies he take a breathalyzer test to prove he was not under the influence of alcohol, and the subsequent test revealed he had no alcohol in his system. Bucci, who was using a cane, according to the report, passed other field sobriety tests.
He was medically checked at the scene and released.
Detective Mark Morfino discovered the vehicle was a rental from Jim Riehl’s Friendly Cadillac. The report says Morfino requested a damage estimate from the dealership.
The damaged community mailboxes belonged to the Haberlein-Association Management, which requested the U.S. Postal Service to replace them, the report says.
Secretary of State records indicate Bucci was referred for a driver-improvement re-examination Jan. 22. Bucci also got a speeding ticket for 60 mph in a 55 mph zone last Dec. 4 in Utica or Shelby Township, records say.
Bucci is scheduled to face an April 22 arraignment/ pretrial in 41A District Court in Shelby Township.
In the corruption case, Bucci, who was Marrocco’s chief of operations for 22 years, remains free after pleading as part of a deal to provide information about Marrocco to the feds. Bucci was indicted in November 2017 on 18 counts of conspiracy, bribery, theft, extortion, mail fraud and money laundering in connection with public contracts for alleged actions involved his two posts.
U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Gina Balaya said the office has no comment. The incident would be addressed by a pretrial services officer at the court.
Marrocco, who served in the post for 24 years through 2016, was indicted last June on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, two counts of extortion and one count of attempted extortion for his actions in office.
No court date is scheduled in Marrocco’s case, according to federal court records.