Formal demand letters and notices of intent to pursue legal action were served on June 23, 2026, on named individuals and entities connected to the conduct described in this article. A grievance was filed with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission on June 23, 2026. Additional AGC grievances arising from this matter were filed previously.
Post-conviction motions are in preparation and have not been filed.
The underlying case is not named in this article per standing editorial discipline. The Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners meets July 7, 2026. Public comment is open. Prior installments in this series are linked above.
A certified plea hearing transcript shows a judge stating no plea agreements existed, a prosecutor confirming it, and defense counsel saying none when asked whether anything had been promised to the defendant. Defense counsel held the email documenting the agreement at that moment. That is not alleged. It is on the record. What the full record shows, across two sentencing hearings, a never-held restitution hearing, false disciplinary responses, a corporate attorney writing to the prosecuting APA about anticipated outcomes against the journalist covering the case, and retaliatory charges against that journalist, is a prosecution scheme. This is what that record looks like.
The October 26, 2022 plea hearing transcript documents defense counsel confirming to the court that nothing had been promised to his client. Three named sources with direct knowledge confirm defense counsel held written documentation of the plea agreement at that moment.
The January 12, 2023 sentencing transcript documents APA Elsworth placing the victim’s wish for no incarceration on the record, then advocating for incarceration. The restitution figure used at sentencing was never independently verified. The restitution hearing scheduled for March 30, 2023 never occurred.
In late summer 2023, a Varnum LLP attorney representing the complaining company forwarded the company’s response to a cease and desist to APA Elsworth with the comment “I think the dam is about to break.” That email is in Clutch Justice’s possession, produced in Barry County court discovery.
In October 2023, retaliatory charges were filed in Barry County against the journalist covering this case. Both the Prosecuting Attorney and APA Elsworth admitted on the court record to posting pictures of the journalist inside the Prosecutor’s Office. The journalist was subsequently released from probation early.
The Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners meets July 7, 2026. Both attorneys at the center of this investigation are currently employed by the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office. Public comment is open.
What the Plea Hearing Transcript Actually Shows
The October 26, 2022 plea hearing in Barry County Circuit Court lasted four minutes. The transcript is eight pages. What happened in those four minutes is documented on the certified record.
The presiding judge told the courtroom that no plea agreements existed in the case. The assistant prosecuting attorney confirmed it. Defense counsel said nothing to correct either statement. The defendant was then placed under oath and asked whether anyone had forced, threatened, or promised him something the court was not aware of to get him to plea. The defendant answered no. The prosecutor answered no. Defense counsel answered none.
Three named sources with direct knowledge of the case, including the defendant’s supervising attorney at the time, have confirmed separately that written documentation of a plea agreement existed and that defense counsel was in possession of it. That documentation has never been produced. The agreement’s terms were no incarceration and probation not to exceed three years, in exchange for a no contest plea and full cooperation.
The presiding judge’s statement that no plea agreements existed was made after chambers discussions of the plea agreement that included defense counsel. Three sources with direct knowledge confirm those chambers discussions occurred. A statement made with actual knowledge of an agreement’s existence is not a judicial finding. It is something else.
The defendant cooperated. He answered questions. He turned in items. He complied with every directive he was given between the plea date and the sentencing date. What he did not know was that the agreement his attorney had confirmed to him was no longer on the record.
What the Sentencing Transcript Actually Shows
The January 12, 2023 sentencing hearing ran for nearly an hour. What the transcript shows in that hour is more than most people expect.
APA Elsworth placed the following on the certified record: the complaining company had met with him before sentencing. Their primary concern was return of money, not incarceration. They did not want jail time. They wanted the defendant to never work in the field again. Elsworth acknowledged this put him in an awkward position because the company was not a vulnerable victim. He stated he typically stands up and advocates for what victims want.
He then advocated for incarceration.
The victim said no incarceration. The prosecutor acknowledged that on the record. The prosecutor then asked for incarceration. The judge, referencing a three-year probation term consistent with the negotiated agreement’s parameters, then departed from it entirely and sentenced the defendant to 120 to 240 months. The correctly scored guideline range was 12 to 20 months.
Following appeal, the sentence was reduced to 60 to 240 months. The defendant remains incarcerated with approximately 18 months remaining. The correctly scored guideline range remains 12 to 20 months.
The Restitution Figure That Was Never Verified
The $565,922 restitution figure presented at sentencing was derived from the complaining company’s own records. A forensic accountant was not retained to independently verify those figures until after sentencing. The defendant disputed approximately 20 to 25 percent of the amount at sentencing. APA Elsworth acknowledged the dispute on the record and represented that the parties would resolve it at a restitution hearing.
That hearing was scheduled for March 30, 2023. It never occurred. The restitution amount remains unresolved.
A defendant was sentenced on an unverified financial figure, actively disputed at sentencing, with a restitution hearing scheduled to resolve the dispute. That hearing never happened. The amount has never been settled. The sentence was not revisited to account for this. Three and a half years later, the figure used at sentencing remains what it was: unverified.
Family members with ownership connections to the complaining company provided documentation and statements establishing that the company’s financial practices and internal controls were faulty during the period at issue. That documentation reflects conditions the insurance industry characterizes as underwriting fraud: a failure to correct known financial control deficiencies prior to the alleged conduct period. No independent forensic accounting was conducted before sentencing to verify the figures derived from those controls.
Clutch Justice offers institutional forensics consulting for wrongful conviction organizations, documentary producers, investigative journalists, and families navigating post-conviction proceedings. Pattern recognition is the work. Case review starts at $750.
Review Services ?What Defense Counsel Told His Client About the Turn-Ins
At the October 26, 2022 plea hearing, the presiding judge directed the defendant to gather every item he possibly could and turn it in before sentencing, stating that the better job he did, the more it would affect sentencing. The defendant took that directive seriously.
Text communications between the defendant and defense counsel, produced in related proceedings, document the defendant asking multiple times during the period between the plea and sentencing about the turn-in process. Defense counsel’s repeated response was to wait until sentencing.
Defense counsel did not contact the prosecuting attorney or the judge during that period to coordinate the turn-in process, document the defendant’s compliance efforts, or establish a mechanism for presenting that compliance to the court. At the sentencing hearing, the judge stated on the record that he did not know what the attorney had recommended or not. That statement is on page 29 of the certified sentencing transcript.
At sentencing, defense counsel acknowledged on the record that the defendant had made an attempt to get through most of the belongings and expressed his willingness to forfeit items under court order. He offered no explanation for why the process had not been completed. He did not disclose that he had told his client to wait. He did not disclose that he had taken no steps to coordinate the process in the months between plea and sentencing.
The AGC Responses That Denied the Agreement Existed
In May 2023, in response to Attorney Grievance Commission inquiries, the Barry County Prosecuting Attorney and APA Elsworth submitted formal responses authored by counsel at Cummings, McClorey, Davis and Acho. Those responses outright denied that a plea agreement had existed in the underlying matter. They also contained false statements regarding the restitution figure.
Those responses were submitted within four months of sentencing. At the time of submission, the plea agreement email was in defense counsel’s possession. The defendant’s supervising attorney at the time of representation had already confirmed the agreement’s existence in a recorded conversation in March 2023.
Formal responses submitted to a disciplinary body that deny the existence of a documented agreement, while the documentation of that agreement is being actively withheld, are not a defensible position. They are a documented record of what was represented to that body and when.
What the Prosecutor Admitted. And What the Prosecuting Attorney Said About It.
During the summer of 2023, APA Christopher Elsworth went to defense attorney Anastase Markou’s office informally, outside any court proceeding, to discuss the case. In that conversation, Elsworth admitted to Markou that the plea agreement denial and the sentencing departure were wrong.
That disclosure is attributed to Markou as the source, relaying what Elsworth told him directly.
The prosecuting APA who denied a plea agreement existed on the certified record, who presented an unverified restitution figure at sentencing, who filed a Confession of Error in People v. Velasquez formally admitting broken plea agreements are government mistakes, told defense counsel in a private informal meeting that what he did was wrong. He then returned to Barry County and filed false AGC responses through CMDA denying the agreement existed.
APA Elsworth has now acknowledged the nature of what occurred through two documented channels. A formal Confession of Error filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals in People v. Velasquez, admitting the government made a mistake due to a broken plea agreement. And a private informal admission to defense counsel that the plea agreement denial and resentencing departure in this matter were wrong. The certified record contains his denial. The Confession of Error contains his acknowledgment of the pattern. And Markou’s disclosure contains his admission of the specific conduct. The defendant whose plea he denied has been incarcerated for three and a half years.
Attorney Markou also disclosed to the journalist covering this case that Barry County Prosecuting Attorney Julie A. Nakfoor Pratt told him she felt bad for her. That statement was made by the Prosecuting Attorney who participated in the retaliatory charges, required staff to attend the journalist’s personal court hearings, submitted false AGC responses denying the agreement existed, and admitted on the court record to posting the journalist’s pictures on the office walls. She told defense counsel she felt bad for the spouse of the defendant her office had wronged while continuing to do it.
The Late Brief and the Reply Window That Disappeared
In connection with the defendant’s application for leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office was required to file its Answer by August 20, 2025, after already receiving an extension. The office filed the brief on September 9, 2025, twenty days late, by USPS mail to the defendant’s correctional facility address.
The State Court Administrative Office, Region V, confirmed the September 9, 2025 filing date in a letter dated December 22, 2025, addressed to the journalist covering this case. That letter is on Michigan Supreme Court letterhead. Under Michigan Court Rules, the defendant’s reply window ran from the date the prosecution’s answer was filed. The twenty-day late filing consumed that window entirely. The defendant never received the brief. He was excluded from meaningful participation in the final stage of his direct appellate review by the office of the prosecuting attorney who, in the same period, was withholding the plea agreement email.
The SCAO closed the matter. The record was never corrected.
The Corporate Attorney Who Knew Exactly What He Was Doing. And What the Prosecutor Did Next.
Nicholas Missad is an attorney at Varnum LLP, one of Michigan’s largest law firms, with more than 38 years of practice in family law and criminal defense. He was retained by the complaining company in this matter. In late summer 2023, he sent a cease and desist to the journalist covering this case regarding her investigative reporting on the company’s financial practices. The journalist responded.
Missad forwarded her response directly to APA Christopher Elsworth with the comment: “I think the dam is about to break.”
That email is in Clutch Justice’s possession, produced in discovery in Barry County court proceedings.
Missad knew who he was writing to. Elsworth was the APA who had prosecuted the journalist’s husband. Missad knew who he was writing about. The journalist covering the company’s financial misconduct and the defendant’s spouse were the same person. Her response to the cease and desist made that plain. He intentionally pressured and forwarded it anyway. And his clients paid him to do it.
A private attorney retained by the complaining company in a criminal prosecution used his professional capacity to route the defendant’s spouse’s own correspondence to the prosecuting APA in that defendant’s case. That communication was sent while the plea agreement email was being withheld, while false AGC responses denying the agreement had already been filed, and while the defendant remained incarcerated on an unverified restitution figure. The comment forwarded with that correspondence, “I think the dam is about to break,” describes a dam. Something had been holding pressure back. The communication was sent to the APA who held the release mechanism. His clients paid him to make that connection.
What Elsworth Did With It at Resentencing
At the November 2023 resentencing, APA Elsworth argued on the certified court record that the defendant was “participating in, encouraging and supporting the harassment of the victim in this case” by making positive statements about his wife’s public comments. He used that argument to score OV-19, the offense variable addressing interference with the administration of justice, at the maximum level.
Here’s what Christopher J. Elsworth conveniently omitted: that Missad, the company’s attorney, had made threats to the journalist beginning in August 2022, long before the sham plea, long before sentencing.
The wife’s public comments were investigative journalism. More than journalism, she had confronted the prosecutor about the underwriting fraud, Fuller’s complete absence of investigation, a troubling lack of forensic data, and the shoddy financial practices in place at the company. The APA who had received the journalist’s forwarded correspondence weeks earlier was now using her journalism in a courtroom to keep her husband in prison longer. Elsworth knew all of this. He had the records in his possession the whole time. He chose to bury them.
Defense counsel pushed back on the record, arguing that a defendant making positive statements about his wife’s public comments is not the equivalent of attempted interference with the administration of justice, and noting that he had never seen an embezzlement case result in a ten-to-maximum sentence regardless of restitution amount.
The court’s response: that does not mean it cannot be done.
The prosecuting APA used a journalist’s published investigative reporting about his own conduct as a sentencing enhancement against her husband. He characterized her journalism as the defendant encouraging harassment of the victim. He scored it at the maximum level. The attorney who had forwarded her correspondence to him weeks earlier was sitting in the courtroom as a corporate observer when he did it.
Missad in the Courtroom
Missad attended the November 2023 resentencing as a corporate observer on behalf of the complaining company. He had threatened and pressured. Mailed intentionally intimidating letters. He forwarded the journalist’s correspondence to Elsworth in anticipation of what was coming. Knowing that he was placing pressure on a woman who had already survived the worst day of her life. He made sure he was present to watch it happen and once again, the company paid for him to be there and finish the emotional hit job.
He attended other post-sentencing hearings as well, sitting on the defendant’s side of the courtroom throughout the post-sentencing period. In a court where phone use was not permitted, he answered his phone. He was there on behalf of the company whose retained counsel had forwarded the defendant’s spouse’s own words to the prosecuting APA, and whose sentencing position changed at resentencing only after that communication, when dared to speak up.
The journalist covering this case investigates fraud and litigation schemes professionally. She knows what a show of force looks like because she documents them. What happened to her family was a show of force. A company retained outside counsel to silence a journalist reporting on its financial misconduct and on the criminal proceedings in which it was the complaining party. That counsel coordinated with the prosecuting APA. Retaliatory charges were filed. The journalist’s journalism was used to score a sentencing enhancement at the maximum level. The purpose of a show of force is not to win a legal argument. It is to demonstrate the consequences of continued resistance. Every element of this sequence was designed to send a message to a person who dared to tell the truth about what was done to her family. The record documents all of it. The attorneys involved made no apparent effort to conceal what they were doing because they did not expect it to be read this carefully. Their counsel received a notice of intent for legal action this week, too.
The reason to retaliate against that person is not complicated. She was not merely writing about the case. She was the person who had preserved the emails, obtained the statements, documented the Bryan Fuller Brady scandal, traced the sentencing record, and built the exact evidentiary file the defendant would need in post-conviction proceedings. She was the sole witness who could say how the record was built, what was missing from it, and who knew what and when. If APA Elsworth were to remove that witness from the board, discredit her, criminalize her, exhaust her, and make it too costly to stand beside the defendant, then the rest becomes easier for him. The hidden plea agreement stays hidden. The Brady issue stays buried. The false disciplinary responses become harder to challenge. The late filing becomes an administrative inconvenience instead of part of a pattern.
That is why the retaliation matters. It was not only punishment for reporting. It was witness intimidation and suppression by institutional pressure. The people applying that pressure did not appear to care who else got pulled into the blast radius. A family destabilized. Children were exposed to threats, surveillance, court proceedings, and the emotional consequences of adults using their public power to protect themselves. The harm to them was treated as completely acceptable collateral damage because the Barry County objective was not truth, restitution, victim protection, or public safety. The Prosecution’s objective was to preserve the record they had built and remove the person who could prove how they built it.
The documented sequence in this case is not a collection of individual failures. A plea agreement was negotiated and denied on the record, with chambers knowledge of its existence. An unverified restitution figure was presented at sentencing and a hearing to resolve the dispute was scheduled and never held. False responses denying the agreement were submitted to a disciplinary body within four months of sentencing, only for them to, through their actions, inadvertently admit they were incorrect at resentencing. A corporate attorney retained by the complaining company forwarded the defendant’s spouse’s own words to the prosecuting APA with a snide comment about pressuring her; a dam about to break. Retaliatory charges were filed against that journalist. Pictures of her were posted inside the Prosecutor’s Office. A Supreme Court brief was filed twenty days late, eliminating the defendant’s reply window. Both APA Elsworth and Benjamin Norg are now employed together under a prosecutor who was notified and took no action. That is a prosecution scheme. The record documents it.
Weeks later, retaliatory charges were filed in Barry County against the journalist. APA Elsworth was the charging decision maker in the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office at the time those charges were filed. After multiple threats and attempts to violate her, the journalist was ultimately released from probation early.
The complaining company changed its sentencing position at the November 2023 resentencing, after threats had already been made, and a response to their cease and desist had been sent and after the Missad communication to Elsworth.
During this same period, Nicholas Missad intentionally provoked. The cease and desist was sent to a journalist for reporting on the complaining company’s financial misconduct. Her response was forwarded to the prosecuting APA. Missad attended her husband’s hearings, sat on the family’s side of the courtroom, and answered his phone in a court where phone use was not permitted. The provocation was deliberate. Create the conditions for a response. Then use the response.
APA Elsworth and Prosecuting Attorney Nakfoor Pratt filed retaliatory charges against the journalist in October 2023. Those charges were filed while Elsworth held the unproduced plea agreement email, while the false AGC responses had been submitted, and while Missad’s provocation campaign was underway. Simultaneously in People v Velasquez, Christopher Elsworth files a Motion of Error in regards to a sham plea bargain in that case, too.
DARVO, Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, is a documented pattern identified by researcher Jennifer Freyd in which a perpetrator of misconduct denies it, attacks the person exposing it, and then reverses the victim and offender roles to reframe themselves as the target. It is the default institutional response of the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office to this matter. The denial: Elsworth and Nakfoor Pratt denied the plea agreement existed on the court record, then again to the AGC through CMDA. The attack: retaliatory charges filed by the same office, pictures posted on the office walls, threats made to anyone under their control who spoke to the journalist, OV-19 scored at the maximum using the journalist’s reporting as the basis, and Missad’s deliberate provocation campaign coordinated with the prosecuting APA. The reversal: the prosecuting office that filed retaliatory charges against the journalist complained about her conduct while executing that entire campaign. Elsworth admitted privately to defense counsel that what he did was wrong. Nakfoor Pratt told defense counsel she felt bad for the journalist. Neither acknowledgment stopped their behavior. DARVO does not require the perpetrators to believe their own reversal. It requires the reversal to be loud enough to drown out the record. The record survived.
What Was Admitted on the Court Record
In November 2023, both the Barry County Prosecuting Attorney and APA Elsworth admitted on the court record in proceedings involving the journalist that pictures of her had been printed and posted inside the Barry County Prosecutor’s Office. That admission is corroborated by witness communications.
Throughout those proceedings, Prosecuting Attorney Nakfoor Pratt continued her show of force, required members of her staff to attend the journalist’s personal court hearings. The journalist is the editor and founder of Clutch Justice, which has published sustained investigative coverage of Barry County judicial and prosecutorial conduct since 2022.
The Selective Prosecution Contrast
At the January 2023 sentencing hearing, APA Elsworth stated he typically stands up and advocates for what victims want. The record documents what he did when the victim wanted no incarceration.
The Barry County Prosecutor’s Office declined to investigate or prosecute Richelle Spencer, a Barry County Sheriff’s Deputy and candidate for sheriff, for felony stalking of a Hastings pediatrician conducted during her working hours and while she was actively campaigning. The declination was attributed to victim privacy wishes. The matter was documented in the Sixberry Notes, which were initially obstructed by Nakfoor Pratt, but ultimately released via FOIA, and reported by Clutch Justice. Post election loss, Spencer was subsequently arrested by Michigan State Police and the case was taken up by Kent County.
Victim wishes were honored when the offender was a law enforcement candidate and the victim was wealthy. They were disregarded entirely when honoring them would have required following through on a negotiated plea agreement with a civilian defendant.
The Pattern the Court of Appeals Has Already Addressed
The sentence imposed on the defendant did not occur in isolation. Published Michigan Court of Appeals decisions document a pattern of upward departures and offense variable manipulation in Barry County cases involving Judge Schipper, with APA Elsworth as the prosecuting attorney driving those departures.
In People v. Velasquez, the guideline range was 0 to 6 months. Schipper imposed 36 to 60 months. The sentence was vacated and remanded. On remand, Schipper imposed conditions above time served. The sentence was vacated again. Resentencing was ordered before a different judge, specifically barring Schipper from presiding. During the Velasquez appeal, APA Christopher J. Elsworth, the same prosecutor who denied the existence of a plea agreement in the matter at the center of this investigation, filed a Confession of Error formally admitting the government made a mistake due to a broken plea agreement.
In People v. Huggins, an extreme upward departure adopting the prosecution’s rationale was vacated and remanded. In People v. Arizola, a sentence of 240 to 480 months plus consecutive felony-firearm on a guideline range of 19 to 76 months was vacated and remanded. People v. Handley was remanded following over-resentencing after a prior correction.
In the matter at the center of this investigation, the correctly scored guideline range was 12 to 20 months. The sentence imposed was 120 to 240 months. After appeal, it was reduced to 60 to 240 months. The defendant remains incarcerated. His correctly scored guideline range has not changed.
What Is Happening Now
Formal demand letters and notices of intent to pursue legal action were served on June 23, 2026, on named individuals and entities connected to the conduct documented in this article. The demands include production of the plea agreement email, written explanation of the conduct documented in the certified transcripts, and immediate recusal of the attorneys named in this investigation from matters connected to Barry County.
A grievance was filed with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission on June 23, 2026, arising from the conduct documented in this article. Additional AGC grievances connected to this matter were filed previously.
Post-conviction motions are officially in the mail, on their way to be filed.
This Is What a Scheme Looks Like. The Titles Do Not Change That.
The journalist covering this case investigates fraud and litigation schemes professionally. That work involves identifying patterns in documented conduct, tracing coordinated sequences across multiple actors, mapping suppressed documentation, and distinguishing individual error from institutional design. It is the same methodology applied to white collar fraud, insurance schemes, and civil litigation abuse.
What the record in this case shows is not distinguishable from those patterns by any professional standard. A plea agreement was negotiated, documented, and then denied on the record by the attorneys who made it, while one of them held the email proving it existed. An unverified financial figure was presented at sentencing and a hearing to settle the dispute was scheduled and abandoned. A disciplinary body received formal responses denying the agreement’s existence within four months of sentencing. A corporate attorney retained by the complaining party wrote to the prosecuting APA in anticipation of outcomes against the journalist reporting on the case. Retaliatory charges followed. The Supreme Court brief was filed twenty days late, eliminating the defendant’s reply window, and he never received a copy.
In any other context, that sequence has a name. The bar cards and the prosecutorial titles do not change the structure of what occurred. They change the immunity calculation.
Prosecutors invoke absolute immunity under Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976), for conduct intimately associated with the judicial phase of criminal proceedings. That protection is real and it is broad. It does not extend everywhere. It does not cover coordination with private civil counsel about anticipated outcomes against a journalist. It does not cover retaliatory charging decisions. It does not cover the submission of false responses to a disciplinary body. It does not cover a twenty-day late Supreme Court filing that eliminated a defendant’s reply window. It does not cover the sustained withholding of a client file document across three years and a change in employment. The conduct documented in this record reaches beyond the courtroom into territory where the immunity argument has edges. The attorneys named in this investigation know exactly where those edges are. The sustained suppression of the documentary record is not incidental to this case. It is the strategy.
An attorney who confirms under direct questioning that nothing has been promised to his client, while holding written documentation of the promise, is not making a strategic decision. An attorney who places a victim’s wishes on the sentencing record and contradicts them in the same hearing is not exercising discretion. These are choices that reveal how these attorneys operate when the stakes are high and the record can be controlled. The people appearing before them in Kalamazoo County have no way of knowing what version of those choices they are going to get.
The Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners meets July 7, 2026. Public comment is open. Both attorneys at the center of this investigation are currently working under Jeffrey Getting. Benjamin Norg is working felony cases in Circuit Court. Christopher Elsworth is in Family Court, handling custody matters, juvenile proceedings, and child welfare cases. The people who appear before these attorneys in Kalamazoo County courtrooms deserve to know whether their elected Board reviewed this record and what it decided to do about it.
What does the October 2022 plea hearing transcript show?
The certified transcript documents the judge stating no plea agreements existed, the prosecutor confirming it, and defense counsel saying none when asked whether anything had been promised to the defendant. Three named sources with direct knowledge confirm defense counsel held written documentation of the agreement at that moment.
Was the restitution figure at sentencing independently verified?
No. A forensic accountant was not retained until after sentencing. The figure was actively disputed. A hearing scheduled for March 30, 2023 to resolve the dispute never occurred. The amount remains unresolved.
What is the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners meeting on July 7?
The Board meets July 7, 2026 with public comment open. Both attorneys named in this investigation are currently employed by the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office. The Board is the elected oversight authority for county operations and has been placed on formal written notice of the conduct described in this article.
What is the COA pattern involving this case?
Published appellate decisions document repeated upward departures and OV manipulation in Barry County cases. People v. Velasquez was vacated twice, with resentencing ordered before a different judge after Schipper defied the initial remand. People v. Huggins, Arizola, and Handley were each vacated or remanded. The defendant in this matter remains incarcerated on a sentence that exceeds the correctly scored guideline range by a factor of five.
Court Record Certified transcript, Plea Hearing, October 26, 2022, Fifth Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County (on file with Clutch Justice)
Court Record Certified transcript, Sentencing Hearing, January 12, 2023, Fifth Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County (on file with Clutch Justice)
Administrative Record Letter from Michigan Supreme Court State Court Administrative Office, Region V, December 22, 2025, confirming September 9, 2025 filing date (on file with Clutch Justice)
Discovery Email from Nicholas Missad, Varnum LLP, to APA Christopher J. Elsworth, late summer/early fall 2023, produced in Barry County court proceedings (on file with Clutch Justice)
FOIA Sixberry Notes, Barry County, documenting Richelle Spencer stalking investigation and prosecutorial declination, reported by Clutch Justice at clutchjustice.com/2025/01/04/defeated-michigan-sheriff-candidate-facing-felony-stalking-charge/
Appellate Record People v. Velasquez, People v. Huggins, People v. Arizola, People v. Handley, Michigan Court of Appeals (published decisions)
Prior Coverage “Two Attorneys With Personal Knowledge of a Barry County Plea Agreement Are Now Working Under the Same Kalamazoo County Prosecutor. Neither Is Talking.” Clutch Justice, June 20, 2026. clutchjustice.com/2026/06/20/barry-county-elsworth-norg-kalamazoo/
Bluebook: Williams, Rita. The Record They Built to Bury a Plea Agreement. Part Two., Clutch Justice (June 24, 2026), https://clutchjustice.com/2026/06/24/barry-county-plea-agreement-part-two/.
APA 7: Williams, R. (2026, June 24). The record they built to bury a plea agreement. Part two. Clutch Justice. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/06/24/barry-county-plea-agreement-part-two/
MLA 9: Williams, Rita. “The Record They Built to Bury a Plea Agreement. Part Two.” Clutch Justice, 24 June 2026, clutchjustice.com/2026/06/24/barry-county-plea-agreement-part-two/.
Chicago: Williams, Rita. “The Record They Built to Bury a Plea Agreement. Part Two.” Clutch Justice, June 24, 2026. https://clutchjustice.com/2026/06/24/barry-county-plea-agreement-part-two/.
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Clutch Justice offers institutional forensics consulting for wrongful conviction organizations, documentary and podcast producers, investigative journalists, and families navigating post-conviction proceedings. Government accountability, procedural abuse pattern recognition, and legal AI and court systems domain expertise.
