Last month, the city manager of Hamtramck found himself suspended after he suspended the city’s police chief following multiple allegations of criminal wrongdoing.
City manager Max Garbarino said that was a retaliatory move by Hamtramck’s mayor and City Council. And he said it’s just the latest example of government corruption in the tiny enclave within Detroit’s borders—allegations since laid out in an explosive whistleblower lawsuit.
“Why would I start this immense amount of drama for no reason?”
During a May 27 Hamtramck City Council meeting, Garbarino sat before Mayor Amer Ghalib and council members to defend his decision to put Police Chief Jamiel Altaheri on paid leave.
Garbarino told them he took that step due to several allegations of criminal conduct against Altaheri from multiple sources, including officers within the Hamtramck police department, and noted that suspending an officer is routine in such cases.
“When a police officer in any state, any county, any city across the whole nation is suspected of this, they are put on administrative leave,” Garbarino said. “This is how this works.”
But it didn’t take long for things to become hostile and contentious. Ghalib quickly made clear that he was unimpressed by Garbarino’s arguments. This was just one of many heated exchanges between the two men:
Ghalib: “How do you feel now that you were given the opportunity to address this allegation and you didn't give that opportunity to Jamiel? How do you feel?”
Garbarino: “Mr. Mayor —"
Ghalib: “You deprived him of staying here to defend himself and to make things clear to the public. But you ask for your right to defend yourself right now. And you took like 20 minutes.”
Garbarino held firm that he was following the law and city charter, and had nothing to gain from suspending Altaheri. “Up until recently I had an excellent relationship with the chief. Why would I start this immense amount of drama for no reason?” he said. “It's just insane.”
It was clear from the outset of the meeting that Ghalib and councilmembers were not going to be swayed by Garbarino’s arguments. And in the end, the council did the same thing to Garbarino that Garbarino had done to the chief: suspended him with pay.
But that was far from the end of this story. Last week, Garbarino and Hamtramck police officer David Adamczyk filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city of Hamtramck, Ghalib, and council members. In it, they call Garbarino’s suspension an illegal act of retaliation — but claim that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“There's a lot of information in there,” said Jonathan Marko, the attorney representing Garbarino and Adamcyzk. “It reads out of a season of The Sopranos, the myriad of different, distinct allegations of corruption.”
The accusations the lawsuit documents against Altaheri include reports of domestic violence against his partner, which the chief allegedly ordered officers not to report; illegally accepting money from some Hamtramck business owners; and safeguarding a vehicle stolen from New York in his backyard. Altaheri served in the New York Police Department before coming to Hamtramck.
Marko said Adamczyk personally witnessed a meeting that led to maybe the most eye-popping allegation.
“The police chief of Hamtramck was trying to facilitate — with a known associate of President Trump (Mark Zarkin) — to secure a pardon for a wealthy individual based out of New York,” Marko said.
According to the lawsuit, “Defendant Altaheri and Zarkin were jointly working on a scheme to secure a presidential pardon for one of the Chief’s acquaintances, a wealthy individual from New York who had been charged and/or convicted of serious financial crimes.”
Altaheri could not be reached for comment for this story.
Altaberi's alleged scheme is far from the only corruption accusation involving Hamtramck city officials. The lawsuit lays out claims of long-running absentee ballot fraud, among other suspicious election-related activities, on the part of some elected officials. Both Garbarino and Hamtramck city clerk Rana Faraj have sought help from federal and state law enforcement agencies about the problem.
The Detroit office of the FBI would not confirm the existence of an ongoing investigation, but did confirm that agents were at Hamtramck City Hall in early May.
And then there are questions about the residency status of several Hamtramck Council members. At least two have been formally accused of not meeting charter-mandated residency requirements, and of possibly lying about that on affidavits; a Michigan State Police investigation is ongoing.
Garbarino said this has all taken a toll.
“These past few years have been horrible,” he said. “Dealing with this corrupt council, always doing what I could to hold the line and protect the city. Frankly, they have put my staff and I through hell.”
The lawsuit also contains allegations of discrimination. A council member allegedly said that there were “too many Blacks” in Hamtramck city government. And Garbarino said Mayor Ghalib, who did not respond to a request for comment on this story, pressured him to fire the city assessor for having an LGBTQ Pride flag in his city office.
Ghalib, who is preparing for U.S. Senate confirmation as President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Kuwait, made headlines several years ago by banning the Pride flag from publicly-owned flag poles in Hamtramck.
And Garbarino said he’s dealt with other racial discrimination issues. He said city leaders pressured him to hire Altaheri — who is of Yemeni descent, as are Ghalib and several City Council members--over other candidates. He alleges those officials are now closing ranks around the police chief.
The ongoing saga has split Hamtramck, with some firmly supporting Altaheri despite the allegations. According to Jamiel Jackson, who’s lived in the city since childhood, Altaheri was a popular figure in the community.
“He'd be in different businesses throughout the community, showing people love and respect and just being out there” Jackson said. “We never had nothing like that.”
Jackson said it was right for Garbarino to suspend Altaheri — but he also believes the council did the right thing by suspending Garbarino. “Everybody wants to let the investigation take its course, you know?” he said. “But we would love to have him back as the chief.”
Allegations cause “angst and tension,” but little change to daily life
Hamtramck has long been a magnet for immigrants. For most of the 20century, it was a heavily Polish-Catholic enclave. But in recent years, immigrants from countries like Bangladesh and Yemen have flocked to Hamtramck, making it a majority-Muslim city. And that’s translated into political power — Ghalib and all of the city’s elected leaders are now Muslim.
That political transition reached a turning point of sorts in 2021, when Ghalib defeated longtime Mayor Karen Majewski. She said many of the issues raised in Garbarino’s lawsuit—particularly the allegations of election fraud and residency violations — have been on the community’s radar for years.
Majewski said Garbarino was just doing his job when he reported the corruption allegations, and she called the resulting pushback against him “suspicious.” She’s hopeful that the latest dramatic turn of events will draw enough public scrutiny that some longstanding issues will finally be resolved.
But, “my biggest concern out of all of this slew of controversies is that things will get swept under the rug as they have been before,” Majewski said. “That in the end, these investigations, these high-profile investigations, will go nowhere.”
Majewski said this has caused some “angst and tension” within the community — but despite that, it hasn’t had much effect on daily life in Hamtramck so far. The city still prides itself on its religious and cultural diversity. Blocks remain tight-knit, and most people get along with their neighbors just fine — whatever their backgrounds.
“[It’s] kind of the essence of Hamtramck, where we all live together and we deal with each other,” Majewski said. “That’s still the kind of glue that holds our city together.”
