Her Magistrate, Her Brother, the Court Officer’s Household: Who Paid for Judge Kathleen Galen’s Re-Election

Judge Kathleen Galen’s committee told the state in 2020 it would not raise or spend more than $1,000 an election. Its first itemized report of 2026, filed eleven days before the vote, shows $34,130 raised, and a donor list that reads like the staff directory of her courtroom and the caption of the lawsuit against her opponent.

Clutch Justice has spent two months reporting on Judge Kathleen Galen and the 38th District Court in Eastpointe: her pre-bench liquor-license dispute, the Court of Appeals reversal of her sentence of Zsazsa Soward, the record gaps in her courtroom, her brother’s failed residency lawsuit against her opponent, her magistrate’s residency, and the $160,969.57 her court paid one visiting judge’s household. Through all of it, one record was missing. Her campaign committee had filed no itemized report for this election, because it held a waiver that excused it from filing.

That changed on October 23. The committee submitted its October campaign statement, 57 pages signed by its current treasurer, covering every dollar received and spent from January 1 through October 20. This piece is built from that filing, read entry by entry, and from the court records and earlier reporting it lines up against.

A $1,000 Waiver and a $34,130 Campaign

Michigan lets a campaign committee skip itemized reporting if it files a statement that it does not expect to receive or spend more than $1,000 in an election. The waiver is built for the smallest campaigns, the township trustee or library board candidate who spends a few hundred dollars on yard signs. Galen’s committee was formed on April 24, 2020, with the waiver box checked “No” on its Statement of Organization. Eight months later, on December 16, 2020, it was granted a waiver, and that waiver was still listed as active when Clutch Justice reviewed the state’s records in September.

The October statement shows what the 2026 campaign actually looked like. The committee opened its bank account on March 20 with a $100 deposit from Galen herself. It crossed $1,000 on April 23, at a fundraiser that brought in $5,250. Its June 16 kickoff at the Villa Restaurant on Gratiot brought in $17,300 from 100 attendees, plus $975 in food and drink the restaurant donated. A September 23 event at Cloverleaf brought in $10,505 more.

Michigan law says a committee that files a waiver statement and then receives or spends more than $1,000 becomes subject to the act’s ordinary filing requirements. The October report lists the ending balance of the committee’s last report as zero. Its coverage period begins January 1, six months before the kickoff, which means every dollar of the 2026 campaign appears in public for the first time in a filing submitted eleven days before voters decide.

The People Who Work Inside Her Court

When the committee was formed in 2020, its Statement of Organization named Mark Makoski as treasurer and Heather Froias as designated record keeper. Both later took jobs inside Galen’s court. Makoski became her part-time magistrate in 2022. Froias is the 38th District Court’s certified court recorder.

The October filing shows both of them still attached to the campaign. Froias remains the committee’s designated record keeper, at the same Hoover Road address in Warren the committee has used since 2020. The treasurer has changed to Sean Taylor, a Warren attorney, who also gave the committee $1,225, the legal maximum.

Makoski gave $250 at the April fundraiser and $1,000 at the June kickoff, $1,250 in all, which is $25 over the $1,225 limit for a district this size. The committee refunded the $25 on October 16, four days before the reporting period closed and four months after the contribution that put him over.

The Address on the Check

On both contribution entries and on the refund, Makoski lists his home address as the house next door to Judge Galen’s on the same Eastpointe street. That is the address Clutch Justice has been reporting on since September, and this filing makes those water records harder to explain, not easier.

In June 2022, Makoski certified to the Warren assessor, under penalty of perjury, that he no longer lived in the Warren house he had claimed as his principal residence since 1994. He became Galen’s magistrate the same year. Since then, the city’s own utility records show the Eastpointe rental averaging about 9.6 gallons of water a day from December 2022 through October 2026, roughly 12 percent of what the EPA says one person uses indoors. The Warren house he swore he left used about 66,572 gallons in the first eight months of 2026 alone, about 273 gallons a day.

Those are the same months he was writing checks to Galen’s campaign. In the ten months from mid-December 2025 to mid-October 2026, the Eastpointe meter recorded four units, about 2,992 gallons, or under 10 gallons a day. The newest reading, taken October 15, shows one unit in the two months since August, about 12 gallons a day. The next day, October 16, the committee mailed his $25 refund to that address. In April and June, Makoski told the state’s campaign finance system that Eastpointe house was his home. In 2020, when he signed the committee’s Statement of Organization as its treasurer, he gave a Warren address as his own. Six years later, on the same committee’s report, his home is the house next door to the judge.

A campaign filing is a sworn document too. The October statement carries the treasurer’s certification that its contents are true, accurate and complete, and every donor address in it is information the donor supplied. The address Makoski supplied now sits in three official records: his magistrate appointment, his voter registration, and the campaign report of the judge he serves. The water meter at that address has not moved much in four years, and it did not move this fall either.

The Residency Suit, on the Donor List

James Galen Jr., the judge’s brother and a Clinton Township defense attorney, filed an objection to Richard Goodman’s candidacy on April 27, then sued in Macomb Circuit Court and the Michigan Court of Claims. Both cases were dismissed without any court ruling on where Goodman lives. On June 16, four weeks after his Macomb suit was filed, Galen Jr. gave his sister’s campaign $1,000 and then $225, landing exactly on the $1,225 limit.

His co-plaintiff, Cindy Jakubiszen, gave $100 at the kickoff and $50 in September. She lists her address on the same Eastpointe street as Galen and Makoski.

At the August 19 hearing in Oakland County, the plaintiffs were represented by attorney Raechel Badalamenti, a member of Kirk, Huth, Lange & Badalamenti in Clinton Township. Robert Kirk and Robert Huth each gave Galen’s campaign $250 on April 23 and $125 on June 26, $375 apiece. Both list their address as 19500 Hall Road, Suite 100, Clinton Township, the firm’s office address, and both list their employer as Centre Court Properties LLC.

One Night in April

The April 23 fundraiser was small. The filing lists 15 attendees at the Pantry Restaurant in Clinton Township and $5,250 in receipts. It was the campaign’s first event of the year.

The calendar around it is what stands out. Goodman had filed to run on April 15. A private investigator hired to document where Goodman slept conducted surveillance from April 18 through April 26, according to the Court of Claims order that later dismissed the case. Galen Jr. filed his objection with the state on April 27 and Jakubiszen filed hers on April 28. In between, on April 23, Kirk and Huth gave at the Pantry, along with Makoski and Annette Manzella, who gave $1,000. Galen Jr. himself does not appear on the April receipts.

The Court Officer’s Household

Vito Manzella is a court officer, the person a district court sends to carry out its orders on evictions, property seizures and collections. He runs Metro Process Service, and the 16th Judicial Circuit Court’s court officer listing shows him appointed to serve the Macomb district courts, the 38th among them. On the October filing he lists his occupation as state court officer and process server. He gave two contributions of $500 at the September 23 fundraiser, $1,000 in total.

Annette Manzella, his wife, lists Metro Process Service as her employer and gave $1,000 at the April 23 fundraiser. The couple list the same Clinton Township home address. Together they gave $2,000, more than any single donor in the filing.

What Landlords Say It Costs

Landlords who file in the 38th District Court tell Clutch Justice that the price of having an eviction carried out in Eastpointe has climbed sharply during Galen’s time on the bench. That is the part of the court’s business that runs through a court officer, and it is why a court officer’s household writing $2,000 in checks to the judge reads differently than an ordinary donation.

Michigan law sets a court officer’s base fee for executing an order of eviction at a fixed amount per defendant, plus mileage. Two things can push the bill above it: the actual and reasonable cost of physically removing property from the home, and any higher fee the officer and the landlord agree to in writing in advance. Both depend on what the officer charges and what the court accepts. Under MCR 3.106, court officers are appointed by the court’s chief judge, and Galen signed the 38th District Court’s records as chief judge from 2021 through 2024. The landlords paying those bills are the people who appear before her, and the officer billing them is on her donor list.

The fee itself is a court-adjacent cost that falls hardest on the people with the least room to absorb it. Landlords pass it along in judgments and costs, and tenants facing eviction in a city with a 17.5 percent poverty rate are the ones who end up owing it.

A third Manzella, Vincenzo, an attorney with the Clinton Township firm Lucido & Manzella, gave $300 in September. The filing does not state his relationship to Vito and Annette.

The Visiting Judge’s Household

On September 28, Clutch Justice reported that records from Galen’s court show one visiting judge, William Crouchman, receiving $76,132.07, about 70 percent of everything the 38th District Court spent on visiting judges from 2021 through May 2026. A separate ledger showed his wife, Paula Mack-Crouchman, submitting 75 invoices totaling $84,837.50 for consulting, court administrator coverage and grant coordination, with no contract for that work in the records produced. The two streams total $160,969.57. Galen signed the court’s absence reports as chief judge for four of those five years.

William and Paula Crouchman each gave Galen’s campaign $100 at the June kickoff and $100 at the September fundraiser, $400 combined. On the filing, he lists himself as a retired judge and she lists herself as a retired court administrator, both of the 40th District Court in St. Clair Shores.

The amount is small. The direction of the money is the point. The household the court paid $160,969.57 is on the list of people paying to keep the judge who ran that court on the bench.

Judges, Prosecutors and the Bench Above Her

Of the 111 people other than Galen who contributed, 70 list their occupation as attorney or prosecutor, and they gave $23,375, about 70 percent of the cash raised. Many practice in front of her. That is common in judicial races, and Michigan’s Code of Judicial Conduct allows it, which is why the code routes all solicitation through a committee rather than the judge.

The list goes further than the practicing bar. Eight people who list their occupation as judge gave a combined $2,275. Michael Chupa of the 37th District Court gave the $1,225 maximum. Two of the eight, Julie Gatti and Tracy Yokich, sit on the Macomb County Circuit Court, the court that hears appeals from Galen’s courtroom. Galen’s sentence of Zsazsa Soward was appealed to that court before it reached the Court of Appeals.

Nine people who list the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office as their employer, or list their occupation as prosecutor, gave $1,500. That office prosecutes state charges in the 38th District Court. A Macomb County public defender also gave. So did two Macomb County commissioners, including Sarah Lucido, who represents Eastpointe on the county board.

What the Filing Shows About Compliance

For district court races in districts of 85,000 people or fewer, Michigan caps an individual’s contribution at $1,225. The 38th District falls in that tier. The filing shows three donors over that line, all later refunded:

Attorney Nanette Cortese gave $1,250 on June 16 and was refunded $25 six days later. Makoski gave $1,250 by June 16 and was refunded $25 on October 16. Attorney Robert Ihrie’s entries are harder to follow. He gave $300 in April and $200 in June. On July 23 the committee refunded him $300 and $200, both labeled “overpayment on limit,” when his total at that point was $500, under half the limit. He then gave $1,000 on September 23, and the filing’s own running total for him reads $1,500. After the refunds, he netted $1,000, but the refunds are dated two months before the contribution that would have put him over.

The same July 23 batch refunded seven people who gave at the June kickoff, $800 in all, each labeled as a refund of a cash payment. The amounts ran from $100 to $200. Michigan’s Campaign Finance Act bars any person from making or accepting a single contribution of more than $20 in cash. The filing shows the committee took that cash on June 16 and returned it five weeks later. Two of the seven, attorneys Jennifer Chupa and Denise Hirschmann, gave again in September.

Where the Money Went

The spending side reads like an ordinary local campaign, with two entries worth noting. On October 2 the committee paid $5,000, its single largest expense, to a vendor listed only as “Mass Mailing,” at an address on Mound Road in Sterling Heights, for a mass mailing. On June 3 it paid $1,000 to the Eastpointe Downtown Development Authority for a sign at the city’s summer concert series, which put the judge’s campaign in front of residents at a city-run event.

The rest went to printing, signs, T-shirts, newspaper ads in the Eastsider, postage, food for the three fundraisers, Stripe processing fees and bank charges. The filing reports no debts, no loans and no payment to any private investigator.

Why This Matters Now

Kathleen Galen is on the November 3 ballot against Richard Goodman. Every earlier piece in this series turned on records that were hard to get: a city liquor-license packet, a certified transcript, court ledgers produced through public-records requests. This one turned on a record the committee was supposed to file, and for six months of fundraising had not.

Judicial campaigns in Michigan are built on the idea that a judge keeps a distance from her own fundraising. The committee raises the money, the judge does not ask, and the public can see who gave. On this filing, the distance runs short. The person keeping her courtroom’s record keeps her campaign’s records. The magistrate who hears matters in her court gave over the limit from the house next door to hers, a house whose water meter barely moves while the Warren home he swore he left runs every day. The court officer who carries out her court’s evictions, at a price landlords say has climbed sharply on her watch, and the visiting judge whose household her court paid six figures, are both on the list. So is the brother whose lawsuit tried to take her opponent off the ballot, and the office of the lawyer who argued it.

Voters asked to choose between Galen and Goodman can now see, eleven days out, who paid to keep her there.