Clutch Justice obtained Allegan County’s file on a 2023 collision judicial candidate Tom Siver was involved in. The record includes his account. It does not include anyone else’s.
Clutch Justice has obtained the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office report on the June 9, 2023 jet ski collision between judicial candidate Tom Siver and a woman injured badly enough to need hospital treatment. The report was completed four days after the crash, in a single narrative that does not say whose account it reflects. It names two witnesses without recording anything either of them said. It logs the injured woman’s boating information without ever presenting her version of events. It states that both personal watercraft were owned by Siver and had not been registered, and records his claim of a purchase within the preceding ten days. The report does not independently establish the purchase dates or whether temporary registration requirements were met. No citation appears in the file, but the record does not establish a registration violation. Clutch Justice’s earlier reporting on Siver’s candidacy cited people who called this same collision intentional. This record does not settle that question. It does not appear to have tried.
Tom Siver is running for judge of the 57th District Court in Allegan County. Clutch Justice’s August 2026 reporting on his candidacy, Before the Bench: A Pattern of Concern Follows Judicial Candidate Tom Siver, cited people who described a Lake Sixteen jet ski collision as an intentional attempt to hit a woman. That reporting noted a records request on the incident was still pending. It has now come back. What it shows is not an answer. It is a gap where the answer should be.
What the Record Says Happened
On June 9, 2023, at 4:30 in the afternoon, Siver and a woman were each riding a personal watercraft on Lake Sixteen in Martin Township, roughly seventy five yards south of a residence on 120th Avenue. Both watercraft, Sea-Doo GTX models, belonged to Siver. He was operating one. The woman was operating the other.
The report’s narrative describes the two of them cruising the lake and jumping each other’s wakes when the woman lost track of Siver’s position and turned into his path. His watercraft struck hers on the right side. She was thrown into the water. Neither watercraft was disabled and both were able to return to shore. Siver transported her to Allegan General for treatment, where she was later moved to Ascension Borgess Allegan Hospital and treated by an emergency room physician the report does not name. She suffered a laceration and bruising on her lower leg and was not incapacitated for more than 24 hours, per the form.
Previously Described as Nonexistent
According to a victim’s advocate, an earlier attempt to obtain this report and a second report was met with a response that the records did not exist. Allegan County has now provided Clutch Justice with the collision report. That raises a specific question: why was this record produced now after the advocate was reportedly told it did not exist?
Without comparing the earlier request and the agency’s exact response with the request that produced this report, and obtaining an explanation from the records custodian, the reason remains unresolved. Production of this report does not establish whether the separately requested report exists.
A Report Filed Four Days Later, In One Voice
The accident happened on June 9. The report is dated June 13, completed at 5:30 that evening by Deputy William Greene. The file does not explain what happened in those four days, whether the crash went unreported until then or whether it was reported promptly and the paperwork simply lagged behind it. Either version is worth knowing. The report answers neither.
What the report does contain is a single paragraph of narrative, written in the third person, describing what both riders were doing and how the collision happened. It reads like a summary, not a transcript. It does not say whose account it draws from, whether it was built from Siver’s statement alone, from the woman’s, from both, or from an officer’s own reconstruction. For a document whose entire purpose is to record an investigation, that is not a small gap.
A boating accident report exists to document what investigators found, not simply what one party said happened. This one does not identify its own source.
The Witnesses Nobody Quotes
The report lists two named witnesses, with addresses redacted, both located generally east of where the collision occurred, on the same lake. Their presence is documented. Their account is not. Nothing attributed to either witness appears anywhere in the file, no paraphrase, no summary, no indication an investigator asked them what they saw beyond recording that they exist.
A sheriff’s report that names witnesses but never tells you what they said has not shown its work. It has shown that witnesses were available to interview. Whether they were interviewed is a separate question the document leaves open.
The Missing Account and the Question of Follow-Up
The woman injured in the collision appears throughout the report, as a name, an address, a phone number, a set of biographical fields describing her boating experience. All of that is administrative information tied to her role as the second vessel’s operator. None of it is a statement. Nowhere in the file does her own account of what happened appear in her words or attributed to her directly.
Clutch Justice has learned that the woman was heavily medicated at the hospital and unable to provide a statement at that time. That context matters: the absence of a hospital statement should not, by itself, be treated as an investigative failure. The question is whether investigators sought her account after she recovered sufficiently to give one. The report does not document whether that follow-up occurred.
The report also marks no indication of impairment for either rider, a box checked on a form completed four days after the fact, with no field sobriety test or breath test documented for either operator at any point in the file. That does not mean nothing was done. It means the record does not say what was done.
Her inability to provide a statement at the hospital explains why an account could not be obtained at that time. The unresolved issue is whether investigators followed up when she was able to participate. The file does not answer that question.
Two Personal Watercraft, Unresolved Registration Questions
Both Sea-Doos belonged to Siver, and the report states that neither had been registered. It also records his claim that he had purchased them within the preceding ten days. Michigan provides for a 15-day temporary watercraft registration issued by a dealer. The report does not independently establish the purchase dates or whether either watercraft had temporary registration. It therefore does not establish whether Siver qualified for that provision or whether a registration violation occurred. No citation appears in the file, but the absence of a citation alone does not demonstrate a failure to enforce registration requirements.
Siver and the woman collide on Lake Sixteen on watercraft he owns. She is thrown into the water and later treated at a hospital for a laceration and bruising.
Deputy William Greene completes the report at 5:30 p.m., four days after the crash. Two witnesses are named. Neither is quoted. The case closes as service rendered.
Michael Null, one of Siver’s clients, is acquitted in Antrim County of charges connected to the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, alongside William Null and Eric Molitor. A separate, later account describes a gathering afterward, addressed further below.
Clutch Justice’s reporting on Siver’s judicial candidacy cites people who describe the Lake Sixteen collision as intentional. The reporting notes a records request on the incident is still pending.
Clutch Justice obtains the county’s report. It characterizes the collision as an accident, on the strength of a narrative that does not say where it came from.
Where the Investigation Appears to Fall Short
The central problem is what the file allows a reader to verify. It offers a narrative of the collision without identifying whose account supports it, and basic information about the watercraft without explaining how their condition was assessed. Those omissions limit the record’s usefulness in evaluating how the collision happened.
Statements Without an Identified Source
The report names two witnesses but includes no statements attributed to either. Its collision narrative does not identify the person or people who supplied that account. The injured woman was heavily medicated at the hospital and unable to provide a statement at that time; the unanswered question is whether investigators sought her account after she recovered sufficiently to participate. The file does not document that follow-up. These gaps do not establish that no interviews occurred. They mean the reader cannot determine who was interviewed, what each person said, or how investigators resolved any differences between their accounts.
Damage Entries Without a Documented Assessment
The report is not entirely silent about the watercraft’s condition. It lists damage of $500 for one vessel and $500 or more for the other, and states that neither was disabled and both returned to shore. Those entries provide basic information, but they do not explain the basis for the estimates or establish that the watercraft underwent a physical inspection.
The account of one watercraft striking the other’s right side also leaves a separate question: what physical damage supported that description? The file, as described here, does not provide a detailed assessment connecting the location and extent of damage on each watercraft to the reported collision. It does not explain how any damage was distinguished from preexisting wear or damage, or whether the steering, throttle, or other operating components were examined for a possible contribution to the crash. Returning to shore establishes that the vessels remained operable; it does not resolve those questions.
No Clear Link Between the Accounts and the Physical Evidence
A record that identifies its sources and documents the physical evidence would give readers a basis to assess the collision narrative. Here, the missing attributed statements and limited damage information leave that basis unclear. The defensible conclusion is that the released file does not show how investigators tested the account against witness information and the condition of the two watercraft. That is a limitation of the documented investigation, not proof of what caused the collision or whether it was intentional.
What This Means for the “Intentional” Question
I want to be direct about what this document can and cannot do. It cannot prove the collision was an accident, and it cannot prove it was intentional. What it can do is tell you how thin the official version is. An account with no named source, built on a report filed four days late, that never quotes a witness and never records the injured party’s own words, is not strong enough to close the question either way. Clutch Justice’s earlier reporting cited people who came to their own conclusion about intent. The county’s file does not contradict them. It simply never tried hard enough to find out.
A report that never says whose story it is telling cannot be used to settle whose story is true.
Records requests, source protection, and the hours it takes to read a four page report line by line all cost something. Clutch Confidential members fund that work and get early access, investigation votes, and members-only briefings in return.
$10/month ?A Separate Account From the Lake
A source who lives across the lake from Siver, and who Clutch Justice is not naming at that person’s request, described a different incident to Clutch Justice this week, one that took place months after the June 9 collision and involves no overlap with it beyond the lake itself.
The source told Clutch Justice he did not witness the gathering or the wave running himself. He says neighbors described guests riding personal watercraft on the lake without life jackets sometime after Siver’s client was acquitted, that one neighbor called Allegan County Sheriff’s Office about it, and that a deputy responded. He says his understanding, secondhand, is that no action resulted.
This is a secondhand account relayed by a source who did not witness the events described. Clutch Justice has not confirmed it against any dispatch log, incident report, or independent witness, and it describes a separate incident from the June 9, 2023 collision documented above. It is included here as context the source considered relevant, clearly labeled as unverified.
Clutch Justice has previously reported that Siver represented Michael Null, one of the men acquitted in September 2023 of charges tied to the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer, a matter of public record confirmed independently of this source. Whether any gathering afterward occurred as described, and whether a deputy response went undocumented or simply wasn’t escalated, is not something this reporting can currently confirm. It is noted here, and flagged, not asserted.
Why This Matters Beyond One Collision
Here is what I keep coming back to. Allegan County voters are being asked to put a name on a ballot for district court judge, a job that exists to weigh whose account of events is credible when two people disagree. The county’s own sheriff’s office, presented with exactly that kind of disagreement involving that same candidate, produced a file that never says whose account it used, never quotes the two witnesses it names, and never records the injured party’s own words.
That is not proof of what happened on Lake Sixteen. It is proof of how little effort went into finding out. Institutions that fail to investigate quietly do not announce it. They just close the file and move on, and only a records request four days, or three years, later shows the shape of what got skipped.
Continue Your Investigation
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