Q & A: Washtenaw Watch Dogs Founder Dr. Douglas Smith

DR. DOUG SMITH, a pathologist, isn’t a guy who rolls over and plays dead in the face of injustice. Prior to July 2011, the University of Michigan’s campus trespass policy permitted lifetime bans. Between 2001 and 2011, 2,050 individuals were barred for life from the  Ann Arbor campus. On April Fool’s Day in 2010, Dr. Smith, along with Dr. Andrei Borisov filed a complaint against U of M DPS officers Jose Dorta and Kevin Lucas. The 12 page complaint, meticulously organized, alleges that Borisov’s trespass citation was bogus and served on him as a means of intimidation. Thirteen months after the complaint filed by Drs. Smith and Borisov, Dr. Borisov won a civil suit and a $550,000 settlement from the University of Michigan. At the same time Doug Smith was helping Andrei Borisov, Smith was trying to get local reporters interested in police records he had gotten in 2009 that documented the alleged rape of a Michigan undergraduate by one of the school’s football players, Brendan Gibbons.

P.D. Lesko: Tell us a little bit about Washtenaw Watch Dogs, the investigative news site you launched. When did you launch it and why?

Doug Smith: I filed a grievance against my chairman in 2008, when he tried to keep about $200,000 that I had earned as the part-time director for a laboratory in Texas (I had been the full-time director before coming to Michigan and they had trouble finding a replacement for me). During the process of documenting the grievance, I filed a lot of FOIA requests and I was finding evidence of significant financial irregularities….

I began to help another whistleblower at U of M, a former research faculty member, who had not only been threatened with police action but was actually arrested in his office, Dr. Andrei Borisov….I had fed information to a Michigan Daily reporter who wrote an award winning article that helped us get the new elections. One of the tools that U of M police and administration had used against Dr. Borisov was the issuance of a trespass warning….

While working with Dr. Borisov, I became acquainted with a number of whistleblowers and whistleblower activists that had worked at U of M….I began the Washtenaw Watchdogs website in June 2013…One of the first stories was the story of Gibbons arrest in 2009 for allegedly raping an undergraduate. That has been the most read story on the web site, by far.

My stories have primarily covered three local institutions, U of M, Washtenaw County and local law enforcement. The issues have concentrated on corruption, abuse of civil rights and wasting taxpayers money. It is primarily a one man operation at the present time, but I hope to find volunteers who will want to cover other public bodies in Washtenaw county, such as the various city governments.

P.D. Lesko: What led you to conclude there was a cover-up of the rape allegations made against U of M football kicker Brendan Gibbons?

Doug Smith: First of all, very few people knew about the story. There were two small stories in AA.com that did not disclose the name when he was arrested and then again when the case was closed. I had not heard about the story until January 2011 when I was discussing a police investigation of a rape allegation against a U of M basketball player,  Jordan Dumars and an EMU basketball player. During that conversation, I was told that there was an earlier rape investigation of Brendan Gibbons, so I FOIA’ed both police reports.

Then you have the lack of response when I spoke about the case at both the November 2011 and the February 2012 meetings of the Board of Regents.

Then you have the recent denial by then Athletic Director, Bill Martin, that he knew anything about the case. That is either untrue or he was not doing his job as athletic director.

P.D. Lesko:  You’ve written that AnnArbor.com editors quashed a story by former sports writers Dave Birkett and Mike Rothstein in 2009, when Brendan Gibbons was a freshman. Had you been in contact with Birkett and/or Rothstein about the incident? Do you have a theory about who quashed the story and why?

Doug Smith: Another source had told me back in 2011 that the sports reporter had gotten the police reports shortly after the case was closed and wanted to write an article but the editors said no. I hadn’t written about that but it was confirmed by Dave Birkett in his Tweets, so I wrote about it.

The official explanation from the AnnArbor.com editors (they told me this anytime I tried to comment on a story about Gibbons), was that since there were no charges it would be unfair to mention Gibbons’s name. However, even when I was careful not to mention his name or even say that he was a football player, the editors would take down my comments.

Not only did I find the police reports convincing that a rape had occurred, but I thought the issue of rapes by athletes being covered up was an important issue not only at U of M but at many universities. I thought the editors were hiding behind a disingenuous excuse and they were really concerned about making the University administration mad.

P.D. Lesko: How many hours each week do you put into working on investigations for the Washtenaw Watchdogs site? How many visitors and page views did the site have in 2013?

Doug Smith: I probably spend about 20 hours a week on stories for the website but I also have been working on helping other whistleblowers from time to time and I am currently working on a murder case where I think the autopsy was wrong.

From July to December 2013 the site had 126,000 visitors and 193,000 page views. In January and February 2014 we have had 50,000 visitors and 96,000 page views.

P.D. Lesko: There is now a federal investigation of the university’s handling of the Gibbons investigation. You triggered that investigation by filing a complaint. What do you want to see happen as the result of the federal investigation into U of M’s handling of the Gibbons investigation?

Doug Smith: I shouldn’t be given credit for triggering the investigation because when I submitted my complaint in August 2013, the Office of Civil Rights told me that I would need to provide them with evidence of the consent of the victim in order to investigate. They said that absent her consent my complaint would be closed in 20 days. Thus, I was surprised when they notified me that they had re-opened the investigation and combined it with a second complaint. Either they decided to waive the requirement for the victim’s consent or the second complaint must have been from the victim or with her consent.