Prosecutor Drops All Charges Against Jeffrey Dwayne Smith, $3M Bond Rescinded

Note: This article has been updated with comments from Carla Marable, Jeffrey Dwayne Smith’s lawyer.

by P.D. Lesko

Jeffrey Dwayne Smith, 47, a resident of Flat Rock, Michigan and a graduate of Eastern Michigan University, was arrested by U.S. Marshals and arraigned before Magistrate Elisha Fink on Sept. 19. Prosecutor Eli Savit’s office had requested $500,000 cash bond for each of the three charges for which Smith was arraigned (domestic violence [2 charges] and sexual assault). Fink, instead, set Smith’s bond at $3 million, cash surety and, as a result, Smith was housed in the Washtenaw County jail for a month. On October 21, 2021, 15th District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson set Jeffrey Dwayne Smith free after Washtenaw County First Prosecuting Attorney Christina Hines dropped the charges. On September 30, Simpson had refused to lower or rescind Smith’s bond at the request of his lawyer Carla Marable.

At his arraignment, investigators said Smith sent his alleged victim threatening text messages and death threats while she was housed in SafeHouse Center, messages which the victim showed SafeHouse Center officials. In one of the messages, Smith allegedly told the victim he was going to go to SafeHouse with an AK-47 and kill everyone in the building. In setting the $3 million cash surety bond, Fink said, “Even if one of these texts is from Mr. Smith, he’s an extremely dangerous person.” Fink added, “This is not a situation where I can take any chances. It’s about the information I’ve received. My job as the Magistrate is to set a bond that will protect the community.” 

According to First Assistant Prosecutor Christina Hines, “There is not sufficient evidence to go forward with these charges.” Hines added, “Obviously, this is not what anyone wanted.” Hines said that the County Sheriff’s office had followed all the leads.

The victim, a 27-year-old woman, however, was sharply critical of both Hines and the detectives assigned to her case. Hines said before the case is officially closed, her office intends to contact “other people.” The victim claims that the detectives and the Prosecutor’s Office were given the names of four people, including two psychotherapists, who could verify the allegations against Smith, but that prior to the preliminary hearing on October 21, the individuals had not heard from anyone in either the Prosecutor’s Office, or the Sheriff’s Department. The case, which involved cyber-stalking, necessitated the forensic examination of both the victim’s and the alleged assailant’s phones and computers.

The victim pointed out that even though her case allegedly involved cyberstalking, “They [Hines and the Sheriff’s detectives] didn’t involve the FBI or Homeland Security in the examination of the electronics until just days before the [October 21] hearing.” Such expert forensic examinations of electronics can take weeks or months. The victim also pointed out that Hines and the Sheriff’s Office never obtained her medical records, which could have been used to prove the alleged assaults had occurred. Ordinarily, such records are not discoverable by defense attorneys. However, Michigan Court rule 6.201(C)(2) states as follows:

If a defendant demonstrates a good-faith belief, grounded in articulable fact, that there is a reasonable probability that records protected by privilege are likely to contain material information necessary to the defense, the trial court shall conduct an in camera inspection of the records.

First Assistant Prosecutor Hines said when asked about the forensic examination of the electronics that turned up no evidence, “That’s a question for the Sheriff’s Department.” Hines went on to say that, “The phones and computers were analyzed by an expert.” Jeffrey Smith holds a degree in Internet Technology from Eastern Michigan University. A source within the Sheriff’s Department said that no policing agency in Washtenaw County has anyone on staff with expertise in the forensic examination of electronics to match that of the FBI and Homeland Security.

In August of 2021, Hines offered a plea deal to Dustyn Durbin, 25, of Frenchtown Township. Durbin is charged with 13 counts of criminal sexual conduct involving nine women, including two first-degree counts punishable by up to life in prison, for reported incidents during his time at EMU. if he pleaded as charged for those two heftiest counts, he’d be sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison with a lifetime of electronic monitoring. 

Jeffrey Dwayne Smith, who is Black, was initially arrested on three charges and then more charges were later levied against him by the Prosecutor’s Office, including kidnapping. His $3 million cash bond is the largest ever set by a Washtenaw County judge. In dropping all of the charges against Smith, Savit, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Victoria Burton-Harris and Hines all face questions about whether their office may have illegally detained an innocent Black man by setting a $3 million cash bond, and whether a dozen charges, including sexual assault, stalking, kidnapping and domestic violence should have been levied in the first place. The Prosecutor’s Office and the County Sheriff also face criticisms from domestic violence advocates that they bungled the victim’s case through sloppy detective work, and poor prosecutorial planning.

The victim told The Ann Arbor Independent that one of the detectives assigned to her case spoke incessantly about his upcoming retirement. She said the detective was diffident, necessary subpoenas were only obtained days before the preliminary hearing on October 21. This resulted in First Assistant Prosecutor Hines having no evidence of any crimes to show Judge Simpson.

When running for County Prosecutor, Eli Savit fielded questions about how he could do the job without ever having handled a criminal prosecution. Savit fired back with a glitzy endorsement from John Legend. Savit was elected and in January of 2021, he installed as a County First Assistant Prosecutor, Christina Hines. Hines, with six years of experience, leap-frogged multiple attorneys in the Prosecutor’s office with significantly more experience. Hines came from the office Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Hines joined Worthy’s office straight out of Wayne State Law School.

A source in the Prosecutor’s office alleged that the case was an ongoing source of bitter disagreement within the Prosecutor’s office. Savit, who had never prosecuted a single case before his election, and the detectives did not have the expertise to investigate and prosecute the complex case, the source said, and the case should have been handed over to the FBI.

In an unusual statement released to the public about his office dropping the dozen charges it had lodged only 30 days earlier against Smith, Prosecutor Eli Savit alleged, “In addition, forensic evidence from the young woman’s electronic devices suggested that she could not have been at the site of an alleged physical assault at the time she claimed it occurred. Emails recovered from her phone also indicate that she had previously made accusations which almost exactly mirror the allegations made against the defendant in this case—but that were made against a different person entirely.” Savit went on to say, “Further, though the young woman asserted that the defendant in this case had ‘hacked’ into her iPhone and was controlling it remotely, any hacking in the manner described is believed to be technologically impossible. Notably, it would be the first known instance of such hacking of an iPhone running iOS 14.7 *anywhere in the world.*”

Jeffrey Smith’s lawyer Carla Marable, when reached by phone, said that it was she who had asked the Washtenaw County Prosecutor to obtain the forensic evidence from the victim’s electronic devices referred to by Savit above. “I worked with Christina Hines when she was in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office,” said Marable.

In his public statement, Savit did not say where he had obtained his “expert” information about hacking, iPhones and iOS 14.7. His statement, however, clearly seeks to exculpate his office and detectives from allegations, including from among Savit’s own staff, of having bungled a high profile prosecution.

Savit’s statement attacking the victim contradicted Hines’s assertions made only an hour earlier that the Prosecutor’s Office, “doesn’t want to make the victim any worse than she already does.” Hines added, “I hope other survivors don’t feel like they can’t come forward.”

Contrary to Savit’s dramatic assertion about the impossibility of a hack resulting in the remote control of an iPhone, in May 2020, The Verge published an article about an iPhone vulnerability discovered by a Google Zero researcher that allowed hackers to remotely take over an Apple device. The article explained that, “a variety of Apple iPhones and other iOS devices were vulnerable to an incredible exploit that could let attackers remotely reboot and take complete control of their devices from a distance — including reading emails and other messages, downloading photos, and even potentially watching and listening to you through the iPhone’s microphone and camera.” Apple did not dispute the exploit existed, according to The Verge.

In July 2021, Apple announced an issue labelled as CVE-2021-30807. It impacts iOS 14.7 and is said to allow an attacker to reportedly take full control over an iPhone, or other Apple device.

When asked if Smith intended to take any legal action against the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office for wrongful imprisonment or wrongful prosecution Marable said, “Those are difficult cases to win. If the Prosecutor believes, in good faith, that the charges should be prosecuted, it’s hard to win that argument in court, because the Prosecutor enjoys governmental immunity.” Marable added that she doesn’t handle such cases.

“I specialize in criminal defense,” said Marable. The lawyer also said she expected Jeffrey Smith to be processed out of the Washtenaw County jail on the same day Judge Simpson ordered his release.