A mid-Michigan motorist is fighting to suppress a trunk full of trouble in a federal criminal case that raises questions about whether investigators trampled on his constitutional rights and thwarted a terrorism plot after discovering a bomb built out of a bottle of booze.
Federal court records and video from police officers’ body cameras illuminate a case involving what started as a routine traffic stop on a wintry night in Alma in February before turning into the latest crackdown on improvised explosive devices built and stored in Michigan neighborhoods.
Laid-off brass rod manufacturer Tex Ward, 35, of Perrinton, a community midway between Lansing and Mount Pleasant, asked U.S. District Judge David Lawson on Thursday to suppress evidence seized without a search warrant and statements Ward made during the traffic stop. His lawyers also want the judge to dismiss the case, which could send Ward to federal prison for 10 years or longer.
During a Thursday hearing, the judge framed the legal fight around whether Alma Police Officer Ethan Malek had a valid reason to stop the vehicle and if there were questions asked while Ward was in police custody before receiving a Miranda warning.
Ward was questioned by investigators who failed to fully advise him of his right to remain silent, his lawyers argued. Investigators also conducted an illegal traffic stop and search, according to Ward’s defense team, that uncovered a hidden gun, knives, a machete, bolt cutters, rope, binoculars, books about civil unrest and a Molotov cocktail made from a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum.
“…It’s a little weird,” the officer told Ward during the traffic stop, according to footage from a body camera that recorded the traffic stop.
“I know it looks bad,” Ward said.
“Yeah,” the officer said, “it does.”
Ward, dressed in a dark dress shirt and pants, sat quietly at the defense table Thursday in federal court in Detroit as his lawyers fought to end the criminal case. He is charged with possessing an unregistered destructive device and a firearm unidentified by serial number.
Prosecutors are fighting the defense requests. They argued officers legally stopped and searched Ward’s vehicle and did not violate his Miranda rights.
“Officer Malek adequately warned Ward of his Miranda rights and Ward validly waived those rights, free of coercion, and made further statements,” Assistant U.S. Attorney William Orr argued.
The judge did not decide Thursday whether to suppress the evidence and statements or dismiss the case. Instead, he is giving prosecutors and the defense additional time to file arguments.
A feared bomb threat meets concern about illegal search
The case about Miranda warnings and a bomb in the trunk stemmed from a traffic stop that raised serious concerns about Ward’s intentions.
“Officer Malek went back to his patrol car and again berated Mr. Ward, believing that Mr. Ward was about to launch a terrorist-type attack,” Ward’s lawyer, Patricia Maceroni, wrote in a motion to suppress evidence.
The man’s arrest followed a rise in the seizure of explosives, guns and ammunition by law enforcement investigators trying to thwart explosions, bombings and threats from extremists targeting politicians, religious leaders and government buildings.
Ward’s lawyers argued officers failed to issue a Miranda warning advising him of the right to remain silent before questioning him.
During the traffic stop, Ward said he was not planning to use the Molotov cocktail to hurt anybody.
“I just, I made it for fun, dude,” Ward said, according to a video of the arrest obtained by The Detroit News.
“I didn’t make it to, like, do anything with it,” he continued. “You know what I mean? Not like anything weird or crazy. Like, my dad has some property out in Columbiaville, and sometimes we make stuff like that.”
“You also have a giant other machete in your trunk,” the officer said. “So you’re loaded down with knives and a gun and you got a Molotov cocktail.”
“…I have a whole survival kit in there,” Ward told the officer. “Dude. I’m, I’m kind of like a prepper.”
“Yeah,” the officer said.
What happened during the traffic stop of Tex Ward
The case against Ward emerged Feb. 4 when Ward drove through Alma after being laid off from his job at Mueller Brass in Port Huron. At the time, he was living with his mother and stepfather in the small village of about 500 people south of Alma.
A police officer driving behind Ward activated his vehicle’s emergency lights because the car Ward was driving had a broken taillight, according to police.
Ward wanted proof.
“…You can take my word for it,” Malek, the officer, told him.
Ward’s lawyer, however, says the taillights were working that night.
The officer soon learned Ward’s vehicle insurance had expired.
“He was ordered out of the car, patted down and handcuffed,” Ward’s lawyer wrote. “By this time, several other Alma police department police officers had arrived, in full uniform, and surrounded Mr. Ward.”
The officer was disingenuous when Ward asked why he was handcuffed and being arrested, the lawyer wrote.
During a walk to his patrol car, the officer said Ward was merely being “detained.” But once in the patrol car, the officer admitted Ward was being arrested for driving with no insurance, a misdemeanor, court records alleged.
“Officer Malek did not read Mr. Ward his Miranda rights,” Maceroni wrote.
Instead, the officer asked Ward about what items were in the car.
Ward said there was a registered firearm under the front seat and a legal amount of marijuana.
“At no point did Officer Malek ask Mr. Ward for consent to search the car,” Maceroni wrote. “Even assuming Mr. Ward lawfully volunteered the information about the gun, the subsequent search of the passenger compartment was unauthorized and excessive.”
Did police give a faulty Miranda warning to Tex Ward?
Ward’s lawyer described what the officer did after finding the firearm under the driver’s front seat.
“He asked his co-workers for a Miranda warnings card, as he had not been given one by the Alma Police Department,” Maceroni wrote. “None of the officers had one.”
Instead, Malek searched Google and recited the warning to Ward, except the last part about whether Ward wished to talk to officers and waive his right to remain silent, the man’s legal team said.
An express waiver, however, is not required, the prosecutor countered.
Meanwhile, officers searched the rest of the vehicle, according to the motion to suppress.
In the trunk, investigators found a backpack. In the backpack was a “Captain Morgan’s rum bottle that had been decorated with pieces of cloth. Inside the bottle was a clear liquid,” court records show.
On Thursday, Malek testified that he smelled the liquid.
“It smelled like some form of gasoline mixture,” the officer said.
The liquid, however, was never analyzed. Instead, the liquid was poured out into the snow, Ward’s lawyer wrote.
“No probable cause existed to open the locked trunk, let alone empty and rifle through the bags and backpacks,” his lawyer argued.
Orr, the prosecutor, said the inoperable taillights gave investigators probable cause to stop Ward. Officers also had probable cause to search the vehicle after finding the gun and a pill bottle in a backpack in the passenger compartment with a white powdery residue that investigators believed was a controlled substance.
“This then provided probable cause for law enforcement to search for other potential evidence of controlled substance possession as well as weapons,” Orr wrote. “Eventually, officers searched the trunk and found the Molotov cocktail….”
Ward, during the traffic stop, explained why he was driving with a gun in the car when he did not have a concealed pistol license.
“I don’t know. It was stupid,” Ward said. “I should have put it in my trunk. . . . Things are scary sometimes, you know?
“Like, the world’s a scary place,” he added, “and I, I just, I’m not a very big guy, man.”
rsnell@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Mid-Michigan bomb bust raises terror, constitutional questions
Reporting by Robert Snell, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Robert Snell, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
