by P.D. Lesko

Supreme Felons, Inc., a local non-profit that was awarded $1.2 million in federal funding by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in July 2022, has never filed state or federal tax returns, public records show. According to state incorporation documents, Supreme Felons, Inc. was incorporated in April 2019 by Alan Fuqua and Billy Cole. Fuqua is a registered sex offender who served a 17-year sentence for multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct with a child under 13. Cole is a murderer on parole until August 2023 from a life plus 60 year sentence handed down by a Washtenaw County judge. At the time the non-profit’s signed incorporation documents were filed with the State of Michigan, Fuqua was still in prison. Between Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2023, records show that non-profit Supreme Felons, Inc. filed no 990 or 990-N federal tax returns, as required by law.

In a Nov. 7, 2022 piece, The Ann Arbor Independent revealed that public records showed the grant proposal submitted by Supreme Felons, Inc. president Billy Cole was based on multiple fabrications.

In 2022, after the A2Indy revealed that Cole’s non-profit asked for public money for felons to mentor felons, for felons to mentor school kids and offer programming in Ypsilanti parks, Cole told WEMU that he’d had no idea that Fuqua was a sex offender when Supreme Felons, Inc. had been incorporated. Cole told WEMU that as soon as he’d realized Fuqua was a sex offender, he had cut ties with him.

Months after the Washtenaw County Commissioners awarded the $1.2 million ARPA grant to Supreme Felons, Inc. the Ypsilanti DDA was given a version of the non-profit’s grant proposal that listed Alan Fuqua as the President of Supreme Felons, Inc. and Billy Cole as the Vice President.

In his grant proposal to the County, Supreme Felons, Inc. president Billy Cole lied and claimed that felons in the group had worked in local public schools and would “expand” that work. Cole also lied when he claimed in the grant proposal that Supreme Felons, Inc. had been doing “outreach” work in the community. In his grant proposal, Cole claimed that the County Sheriff’s Office had evidence of Supreme Felons, Inc. work. A Freedom of Information Act request for those records revealed the outreach work which Cole’s grant proposal claimed had been done by his non-profit, had been done by the Sheriff’s outreach staffers, including sworn officers.

Public records show Cole was hired in 2020 as a part-time outreach staffer in the County Sheriff’s Dept. His job title is “Temporary Law Enforcement.” He is the only outreach worker on parole, and the only felon employed in the Sheriff’s Dept. with that job title.

Cole is supervised by Marvin Gundy and Derrick Jackson. Jackson, is the Community Engagement Dir. for the Sheriff’s Dept. Gundy, the Sheriff’s Dept. Community Outreach Coordinator, is currently under investigation for witness tampering/intimidation by the Michigan Attorney General.

According to the IRS website page that deals with 501(c)3 charities and non-profits: “In general, the maximum penalty for any return is the lesser of $10,500 or 5 percent of the organization’s gross receipts for the year.  For returns required to be filed in 2021, for an organization that has gross receipts of over $1,084,000 for the year, the penalty is $105 a day up to a maximum of $54,000.  For returns required to be filed in 2022, for an organization that has gross receipts of over $1,094,500 for the year, the penalty is $105 a day up to a maximum of $54,500.”

Furthermore, according to IRS regulations, a non-profit that fails to file income tax returns for three consecutive years automatically loses its 501(c)3 status. This means that the Washtenaw County Administrator Greg Dill recommended in July 2022 that County Commissioners vote to award $1.2 million in federal ARPA funding to a non-profit that was responsible for thousands in fines to the IRS, and whose 501(c)3 status was in jeopardy of being revoked.

The Supreme Felons, Inc. budget, below, included with Cole’s grant application, includes nothing to pay an accountant, an auditor or IRS fines. Furthermore, the budget includes no money to pay federal and state withholding taxes required by law.

A worker paid $50,000 in salary requires the employer to pay 7.2 percent on the gross pay in matching withholding taxes. The same is true of an employer who hires part-time employees. Thus, the $750,000 in salaries projected to be paid over three years (in a budget vetted by four senior County staffers, the County Administrator and all nine members of the County Commission) has no line item to account for $108,000 in withholding taxes the non-profit will be required to pay.

In April 2022, when Billy Cole applied for the ARPA funding awarded by the County Commissioners, the non-profit already owed thousands in fines to the IRS: $20 per day for every day the non-profit did not submit an income tax return in 2020, 2021. The State of Michigan has no record of an income tax filing in 2019, the year the entity was incorporated, and one year before the IRS recognized Supreme Felons, Inc. as a 501(c)3 charitable organization.

The grant was awarded to Supreme Felons, Inc. after four County staffers allegedly determined the non-profit’s eligibility and the veracity of the information presented in applicants’ grant applications.

Those four senior County staffers are Alize Asberry Payne, Racial Equity Officer; Crystal Campbell, Information Officer Administration; Andrew DeLeeuw, Director of Strategic Planning and Kelly Belknap, Finance Special Projects. Asberry Payne when reached by phone for a comment, refused to answer questions about Supreme Felons, Inc. When asked if she’d been a member of the citizen advisory group who worked on evaluating the Supreme Felons, Inc. grant application, Campbell said she had not been. When told public records and participants in the group identified her as a participant, Campbell ended the conversation.

Crystal Campbell placed the entire responsibility for the grant to Supreme Felons, Inc. on the County Commissioners.

“Supreme Felons. They’re not just felons, they’re supreme felons,” said Doug Winters, an Ypsilanti Twp. attorney who knew the 24-year-old EMU grad whom Billy Cole bound and shot twice in the head during the robbery of a convenience store that netted less than $150. Winters has repeatedly expressed concerns about the legality of the July 2022 $1.2 million federal ARPA funding grant awarded to Supreme Felons, Inc.

An Ypsilanti non-profit leader who asked not to be identified because their group received an ARPA-funded grant said, “I heard that SF [Supreme Felons] changed their state records. Now their ‘offices’ are located in a performance venue owned by Steve Pierce. How perfect. This whole mess with their fraudulent grant and the County Commissioners’ involvement has been My Big Fat Felon Farce.”

The A2Indy called Pierce to confirm the accuracy of public records filed by Cole that show Supreme Felons, Inc. has a registered office in Pierce’s building, a non-profit performance venue that received its non-profit status in 2022. Pierce answered then, when asked if Supreme Felons, Inc. was renting space from him said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

Supreme Felons, Inc. Board members were asked to comment via email about whether the organization intends to file its 2020, 2021 and 2022 federal 990 income tax forms. County Administrator Greg Dill, and Washtenaw County Commissioners Yousef Rabhi and Annie Somerville (elected in Nov. 2022) were asked by email to comment on whether they intend to revisit the grant. None of them has responded as of yet. The Ann Arbor Independent recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request to determine if any of the $1.2 million in federal funds has been handed over by Washtenaw County to the non-profit.