Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Counterclaim filed in township embezzlement case

By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

Bessemer — There are now multiple lawsuits in the Ironwood Township embezzlement case after Jim McKenzie, representing former Ironwood Township treasurer Jyl Olson-DeRosso, filed a counterclaim Thursday to the lawsuit Ironwood Township filed against Olson-DeRosso.

The township’s suit, filed June 15, is seeking “in excess of $1.2 million in damages” it says were the result of Olson-DeRosso’s alleged embezzlement while treasurer.

The counterclaim doesn’t specify a damage amount, rather asking the court to determine the appropriate amount. It is also seeking attorney fees and other costs, as well as any other relief the court deems appropriate.

Township Supervisor Steve Boyd told the Daily Globe — following the filing of the township’s suit — the $1.2 million in damages include various costs associated with the investigation into the alleged embezzlement and isn’t necessarily representative of the amount the township is accusing Olson-DeRosso of allegedly taking.

The township board of trustees hired a forensic auditor at a special June 28 meeting to determine the total amount of the alleged embezzlement.

Olson-DeRosso’s response to the suit denies all the allegations of financial impropriety in the township’s lawsuit. In response to several points made in the township’s suit, the response alleges if there were any shortfalls, they “were the result of actions of others.”

Olson-DeRosso’s counterclaim alleges the township’s representatives have falsely accused her of embezzlement and deleting, or failing to turn over, financial records following her loss to Maria Graser in November’s election, both at open meetings and in the press.

“Each of the allegations were made in public by agents of the (township) and communicated to individual members of the public with the malicious intent to defame the defendant/counter plaintiff and were made with reckless disregard for the truth of any alleged amounts or were made knowing the same to be false and untrue,” the counterclaim reads. “(Olson-DeRosso) has been injured and damaged by the intentionally defamatory conduct of agents and officials of (the township).”

In addition to the township’s suit, Olson-DeRosso is facing 10 felonies in connection with the embezzlement alleged to have occurred from 2011 to 2016.

Olson-DeRosso is charged with five counts of forgery, one count of embezzlement by a public official, refusing to turn over records to the successor treasurer, removal and destruction of public records, using public money for her own use and diversion of taxes or public money by a public official.

The most serious charges against her, the forgery charges, each carry a potential maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Olson-DeRosso is accused of issuing checks to herself and taking cash funds in the amount of $114,470 from the tax fund and $81,392 from the trust and agency fund — for a total of $196,862 in the five-year period between 2011 and 2016, according to Gogebic County Prosecutor Nick Jacobs.

In addition to filing the counterclaim, McKenzie also filed a motion to disqualify Circuit Judge Michael Pope from hearing both the civil and criminal cases.

The basis for the motion is a potential conflict of interest stemming from Pope’s tenure representing Ironwood Township, prior to current township attorney Mark McDonald’s hiring. In court Thursday, McDonald said he believed he began representing the township in 2005.

While the motion was supposed to be argued Thursday, the hearing was adjourned until July 18 so both the civil and criminal motions could be argued at the same time.