Monday, May 17, 2004
This story has been told in several ways here in Costa Rica --- and now --- here is the way it played in Detroit after their return. --- chuck
'Michigan Boys' in Costa Rica ---
By Steve Wilson of WXYZ-TV --- Channel 7 in Detroit, Michigan
They are some of Detroit’s leading citizens who call themselves the "Michigan Boys." These boys are quite a bunch. They’re leaders of local business and industry, men who labor at blue collar jobs, even a well-known sports hero. Frankly, if the group did not include some public officials who themselves acknowledge they should be held to a higher standard of conduct and character, this is a story we might never have aired.
Many gathered before dawn at the Macomb County restaurant where bartender Angelo Nucci has served up this annual junket for nine years now. A long line of limos transported the men to Metro Airport where a planeload of gregarious gringos - 167 of them - couldn’t wait to be headed south to beautiful Costa Rica in a chartered jetliner. What was this trip? Most undoubtedly told their friends and families, their wives and their girlfriends, that this was just a fishing trip.
But about six hours later, when they arrived at a small Costa Rican airfield, the men stepped down into a faraway land where they suspected no one would be watching or care how they were greeted by natives who couldn’t have been friendlier if they’d been paid. So what could be wrong with this picture?
Bruce Harris, is director of Casa Alianza, an affiliate of Detroit’s Covenant House. His organization works to improve the condition of families and children in Latin America, and Harris says, "The Michigan Boys, it’s sort of like a myth here. They’re known. We know what’s going on." "They’ve been here year after year and it’s one of the sad situations for Costa Rica," says Harris. "Supposedly they come on fishing trips, but when you start to hear some of the stories, it’s a lot more than fishing that they’re hooking into." Apparently many of the beautiful Costa Rican women were paid - and for much more than that friendly welcome they gave the Michigan Boys at the airport.
When the Boys’ busses arrived at their luxury seaside hotel, and for the duration of their five-day stay, dozens of prostitutes were waiting to party. One madam who brought at least two of her girls to work the Michigan men confided to Chief Investigative Reporter Steve Wilson that each of more than 70 prostitutes on hand paid up to $300 for the privilege of marketing themselves. The madam told Wilson that the money went to the Boys’ local organizer, boat captain Sonny Koczis. Koczis is an American expatriate with roots in Tampa. He’s hooked up with the Michigan Boys for years now. The fee he reportedly collected essentially licensed the working girls to enter the hotel to mingle among the Michigan men and offer themselves for sex.
While prostitution is legal in Costa Rica, it is not when such arrangements or any such kind of pimping is involved. A Costa Rican local working for 7 Action News also confirmed those arrangements in conversations with many of the girls and hotel workers he surreptitiously recorded with our equipment. The hookers who didn’t hand over top dollar were simply not provided with wristband passes that allowed them onto the hotel property. One detailed the system: "We can’t get into the hotel because of different color wrist bands."
Now, Steve Wilson has spoken with many of the Michigan Boys. According to virtually every one of them, this could have been a church retreat - nothing more than some innocent fishing, a bite to eat, and off to bed early - and alone. This was not the story that Steve Wilson and his investigative team the story heard from the working girls down there and other Costa Ricans in a position to know. One hotel worker put it simply to our hidden camera: "The men and women are up to 5 A.M. partying. The girls go from guy to guy."
Our team, which included journalists from Costa Rica’s largest daily newspaper, witnessed several Michigan men heading off to their rooms with prostitutes. And the final night, in the darkness next to the pool teams of naked men and women were in competition to see who could out-gross the other.
And with all this going on, what worried Michigan Boys’ organizer Angelo Nucci the most? Somebody finding out who was there and what really goes on with some of the boys when the fishing day is done. On tape, Nucci says just that. "The problem with our trip is that some of the guys go there and party and they talk too much," he says. "And then somebody hears in a bar about - wife or sister-in-law hears - and it’s said because not everybody goes there and does it."
And public officials we spotted on the trip, people like City of Warren Police Chief Danny Clark, they all deny any wrongdoing. Clark, who avoided us for two days, even said, "I did not know that they were hookers."
"Yes, there were women at the bar," Clark later said. "And in your professional opinion, in your opinion as just an observer, would you say those women were prostitutes?" asked Steve Wilson. "Did that thought ever cross your mind?"
"Yes it did," answered Clark.
But he was there for the fishing, not to reel in an hourly girlfriend. He claims he merely chatted with the girls, but never touched a one. So is the chief, who like the others points out that he went on his own dime and his own time, entirely innocent here? "I was there in Costa Rica for a fishing trip. I did not solicit any prostitutes. I did not use the services of any prostitutes, did not leave with any prostitutes, dance with any prostitutes," said Chief Clark.
Steve Wilson spoke to Mark Steenbergh, the mayor of Warren. "Would it concern you that one of your appointees, the leader of your police department in this community, would be cavorting with prostitutes far away?" he asked.
"Well, yeah, it would concern me," answered Steenbergh. "I say, if there’s something that comes forward and he’s in that kind of position, we’ll investigate thoroughly." So, what concerns the mayor and the city’s police commissioner? It’s more than just the hypocrisy of a top cop fighting prostitution at home and rubbing elbows with hookers faraway where he thinks nobody will see.
James Vohs is the police commissioner in Warren. Speaking of Chief Clark he says: "And for him, as chief, he’s a semi-public official."
Steve Wilson: "Semi-public?" Commissioner Vohs: "Or a public. . . well, he’s in the limelight. He’s not elected. He’s not. . .
Steve Wilson: Do you expect higher standards of your police chief than to be doing that? Commissioner Vohs: "If that’s what he’s doing, yes I would." "We got a higher standard that we have to live up to whether we’re here or someplace else, you know, that we have to show." Mayor Mark Steenbergh had a similar opinion. "If it was proven that he was doing that kind of thing, I think it would be wrong," said the Warren mayor. "On a moral basis, it would be wrong."
And that’s the point for the Michigan Boys who are public officials subject to higher standards and constant public scrutiny. Our judges, for instance, are required to restrict their own conduct to avoid even the appearance of impropriety because situations just like this can erode public confidence.
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