County DEI Director Fabricated Work, Education and Business Experience; She Got Hired and Makes $147K

Download and view Alize Asberry Payne’s Dec. 2018 job application, cover letter and resume:

by P.D. Lesko

Records, including public records, show the County’s Racial Equity Officer Alize Asberry Payne lied about her work record, her educational record and accomplishments, and her business accomplishments on her job application to get hired as Washtenaw County’s first racial equity officer. Her cover letter and resume submitted along with her 2018 job application contained fabricated work history, fabricated business ownership facts, fabricated educational achievements, and presented information about her previous job responsibilities that were untrue.

Alize Asberry Payne has had a track record of distributing grant money to applicants who were ineligible to apply or receive funding, she has shown a lack of oversight of federal funds and contracts between the County and its grant recipients, including a group of felons, has used County funds to take almost monthly trips between 2022-2023, and she took advantage of lax financial controls of county-issued credit cards. Her actions have raised questions among county employees. Several of those employees contacted the newspaper with claims that Alize Asberry Payne was a “fraud, a grifter” who had obtained her high-paying job by lying about her qualifications, education and work experience.

The newspaper obtained the cover letter, resume and job application submitted by Asberry Payne when she applied for her present job in Dec. 2018.

One of her listed employers was selected at random. In less than five minutes, public records and a single phone call confirmed that Alize Asberry Payne had fabricated the job and her responsibilities in her cover letter and resume. She did not list the fabricated job in her job application.

Documents used to fact check her application materials included newspaper articles, Assessors’ records, Registrar’s records, San Francisco Superior Court records, Michigan and California Secretary of State Business Entity information.

One of the most surprising facts uncovered, again, with a single Google search, was this: While applying and interviewing for a high-level administrative position in the County, public records show she was the subject of an arrest warrant for repeatedly refusing to appear in San Francisco Superior Court related to a judgement against her. Asberry had admitted responsibility for $9,532 owned to Eric Hendler and Amy Cummins, and had entered into a court-supervised repayment plan. She then stopped paying and left California for Michigan. The warrant was canceled June 12, 2019.

FABRICATION #1 State Senate Campaign Manager

In her Dec. 12, 2018 cover letter submitted for the Racial Equity Officer I/II job, Asberry Payne wrote, “When I arrived in Michigan almost 3 years ago, I was brought on as a campaign manager for a state senate race in the Detroit Metro Area.”

This was a lie. She had fabricated the job and the associated job responsibilities. By using public records and making a single phone call, the fabrication was uncovered.

In Asberry Payne’s Dec. 12, 2018 cover letter submitted to County officials in support of her candidacy for the job of Washtenaw County Racial Equity Officer I/II. In 2016, she claimed to be the Campaign Manager for Durhal for Senate, State Senate District 4.

The detailed work history from her resume about the 2016 job as Campaign Manager for Durhal for State Senate, also submitted on Dec. 12, 2018 included the following:

“Implementation and advising of campaign strategic plan. Responsible for management of all campaign operations, including fundraising, voter engagement, community outreach, volunteer recruitment, communications and get out the vote.”

State of Michigan Campaign Finance database records show Fred C. Durhal did not run for State Senate in 2016. He organized his State Senate campaign committee on Feb. 12, 2018. According to Fred Durhal’s Treasurer, (who is his son) Alize Asberry Payne never worked as his father’s campaign manager, or in any other capacity for the Fred Durhal for State Senate campaign.

County records show that in April 2019, a background check of Alize Asberry Payne was conducted by the County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit, headed by Brian Miller. It was the same “Special Investigations Unit” headed by the same Brian Miller who, in May 2019, conducted a background search on an alleged serial rapist who had applied for a job as a Sheriff’s deputy. In both the case of Asberry Payne and the alleged serial rapist, the applicants’ background checks by Brian Miller’s “Special Investigations Unit” did not keep the applicants from being hired by the County.

Fifteen months after Sheriff’s Deputy D’Angelo Williams was hired, he was arrested and charged with a dozen sex crimes, including rape. He awaits trial in Lenawee County Circuit Court.

California Superior Court records show on June 12, 2019 Asberry informed the judge that she had declared bankruptcy. The remaining $3,180 in debt owed to Hendler and Cummins was discharged. The case was closed and the warrant for her arrest was withdrawn on July 22, 2019.

A July 22, 2019 Court order sent to Alize Asberry was returned to the Court marked as “Return to Sender. Not deliverable as addressed.” This was the same day she began her job as the County’s Racial Equity Officer I/II at a pay rate of $105,000 plus benefits.

On July 10, 2019, after allegedly going through a background check by the County Sheriff’s “Special Investigations Unit” that may or may not have missed multiple fabrications in her application materials, an active arrest warrant and multiple California Superior Court rulings in favor of people who sued her for financial misdeeds involving tens of thousands of dollars, Alize Asberry was recommended by County Administrator Greg Dill for a County administrative job that paid $105,000. In that job, she would oversee and distribute and track millions of dollars in taxpayer funds, and have access to a County-issued credit card with no spending limit, or financial controls.

County records show between 2019 and 2024, Alize Asberry Payne’s pay was increased from $105,000 to $147,235, a total 40 percent pay hike approved by her supervisor County Administrator Greg Dill. Her Personnel File shows that as her pay was increased by 40 percent, Alize Asberry Payne’s work performance has never been evaluated by Dill or anyone else.

The newspaper submitted a question to Greg Dill asking on what criteria or work performance metrics Asberry Payne’s 40 percent increase in salary was based. He did not reply.

County records also show that between 2022 and 2023, Asberry Payne used her county-issued credit card to charge $115,000 for items including dozens of Uber and Lyft rides, meals out, thousands of dollars on Uber Eats, airplane tickets, hotels, and other travel. In that 24 month period, County credit card and checkbook records show taxpayers paid for Asberry Payne to take 18 trips in 24 months.

Dodging California Debt & Arrest Warrant

Between 2013-2014 Alize Augusta Asberry, as she was identified in court records, and business entity records for a LLC that appears on her job application and resume, was repeatedly sued in California Superior Court by roommates who filed complaints that she’d improperly withheld thousands of dollars of their security deposits. One roommate sued because she claimed Asberry had illegally evicted her and had taken her security deposit. Asberry was ordered to repay the money she took, plus court costs and damages.

Aug. 2014 court records show Asberry became embroiled in a lawsuit with Eric Hendler and Amy Cummins. The complaint appears below:

Under the terms of her own rental agreement with the property owner, Alize Asberry was not legally permitted to rent to them or to collect a security deposit. “She [Alize Asberry] has lied, cheated, and is now attempting to steal from us….[S]he is compounding her initial acts of bad faith by attempting to keep our deposit.”

Hendler and Cummins sued Alize Asberry and won.

In May 2016, three months after Alize Asberry incorporated ALM Group, LLC, a consultancy company in Michigan, California Superior Court Judge Donald S. Mitchell issued a bench warrant for Asberry’s arrest for repeatedly failing to appear at hearings related to the Hendler and Cummins suit. He set bail at $500. On June 1, 2016 Hendler and Cummins assigned the debt to Chris Lane, a debt collector, an action that would have shown up on Asberry’s credit reports. The credit report change would, of course, have led to the California Superior Court case records.

Alize Asberry Payne interviewed for the job of Racial Equity Officer I/II, between Jan. and June 2019. This included a Feb. 2019 35 minute interview in front of members of the public during which she touted her fabricated job experience and stressed the importance of “collective accountability.”

In the videoed interview below, Alize Asberry Payne highlights non-existent accomplishments:

On July 10, 2019, County Administrator Greg Dill submitted “A Resolution to Appoint Alize Asberry Payne as Racial Equity Officer Effective July 22, 2019.” The County Commissioners seated in 2019 voted unanimously to hire a candidate who had fabricated large parts of her employment history, her educational history. They gave access to millions of dollars in public money and a credit card without a spending limit to a woman who had been sued repeatedly for stealing other people’s money and who had dodged an arrest warrant for years. The County Commissioner and County Administrator Greg Dill paid a woman a $105,000 salary despite the fact that just one month earlier the new hire had told the California Superior Court judge assigned to her case that she’d filed for bankruptcy to discharge her debt owned to Hendler and Cummins.

FABRICATION #2:

The job posting for the Racial Equity Officer job required applicants to have experience supervising other employees.

Her hiring was based, in part, on her ownership of a company called NDSF, LLC. In her job application, she described NDSF, LLC as a “development firm specializing in culturally competent social enterprise pilots.” She fleshed out the description in her resume:

According to her resume for the Washtenaw County job, she sold NDSF, LLC in Feb. 2016. She did not.

Instead, she “relocated” to Michigan one month after she’d petitioned the California Superior Court to reduce her monthly debt repayments to Hendler and Cummins from $500 to $100. In Jan. 2016, the judge refused.

State of California Dept. of Labor records show that in Sept. 2016 Asberry’s company was cited because she failed to file the required tax information and forms. In Oct. 2017, the California Dept. of Labor suspended NDSF, LLC for Asberry’s failure to file required information and tax forms beginning in 2015.

At the same time she “hired and supervised” a staff of eight, she was repeatedly sued for stealing her roommates’ security deposits, and for owing Hendler and Cummins over $9,000.

There are no state records that show NDSF, LLC was sold or transferred to any other individual or business entity. California business entity records do show on Dec. 12, 2017, NDSF, LLC was suspended and barred from doing business in the state of California.

On Feb. 22. 2016, Alize Asberry Payne registered the ALM Group, LLC consulting business in Michigan, similar to the consulting business she’d registered in California in 2013. She listed the Michigan consulting firm on her resume submitted to Washtenaw County. However, she fudged the date on which her “employment” began with the company she incorporated.

In her Dec. 2018 Washtenaw County job application, Asberry Payne listed the ALM Group, LLC as her current employer. State incorporation documents show between 2017-2019, she did not submit any state required annual filings or pay her annual filing fees. In 2019, ALM Group, LLC was declared a Michigan business “not in good standing.”

The County’s Racial Equity Officer: A Creatively “Curated” Past Meets a “Woke” County Hiring Process

Alize Asberry Payne’s bio. is consistent, at least. “She brings a community-centered passion and professionalism to equity work, incorporating her experience as a community organizer, consultant, and strategist. Alize has over 20-years of experience in public policy, strategy, community engagement and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her work is centered in ensuring that the most vulnerable have equitable access to resources and the opportunity to thrive.” The claims are not, however, supported by either her employment history or her record of business ownership.

According to County records, “The newly created Racial Equity Officer was posted from December 3 – 25, 2018. The Action Team reviewed the 67 applications submitted via the County’s Recruitment & Hiring website, as well as 110 resumes submitted through Indeed. Following the completing of this process, the
first phase of interviews occurred on January 23, 2019, offering six (6) candidates the opportunity to participate in behavioral-based interviewing and respond to a bias scenario in written format. A second public presentation / interview session was held with three (3) of the final candidates on the evening of February 25, 2019 followed by a meet and great with the candidates for those interested.”

Buzz wordy “behavioral-based interviewing” was no match for a candidate who repeatedly took other people’s money, and lied on her job application, cover letter and resume.

FABRICATIONS #3 and #4: “Moved 97,000 to Vote Yes?” No. Worked for Michigan Voice in 2017? Company Dissolved in 1998

While leading the ALM Group, LLC Asberry Payne’s resume shows she was a consultant working for the Detroit People’s Platform/Building Movement Project. In her resume, Asberry Payne claims to have “designed and implemented Detroit Community Benefits Agreement Proposal A field campaign and redistricting education canvass during 2016 election cycle. Campaign moved approximately 97,000 voters toward support of Community Benefits Agreement Proposal A.”

She repeated this claim in her cover letter

According to Nov. 2016 reporting from MLive, “The Wayne County Clerk’s office reports Proposal B garnered 85,368 votes, 53.35 percent in favor, compared to Proposal A’s 77,414 “Yes” votes, good for only 45.79 percent.

Asberry Payne’s resume also states that in 2017 she was a consultant for “Michigan Voice.” She repeated this in her job application. Michigan Voice doesn’t exist. According to Michigan records, the company was dissolved in 1998.

College Registrars Reveal Asberry Payne Falsified and Fabricated Her Educational Achievements

The job posting for RACIAL EQUITY OFFICER I/II that drew over 170 applicants required a “Bachelor’s degree public administration, public policy, political science, education, sociology, social work, communications or related field. Master’s degree preferred.” Calls to all of the Registrars at the institutions, below, listed on the resume Alize Asberry Payne submitted along with a cover letter and job application, revealed that Alize Asberry Payne did meet the required minimum educational qualifications.

Though she listed San Francisco State University first in the list, as if she’d graduated, the college’s Registrar confirmed she attended, beginning in 2013, when she incorporated NDSF, LLC, but did not graduate. She did not study “Political Science Studies with emphasis on constitutional law, prelaw track.” She took courses in Criminal Justice.

FABRICATION #5: NO BACHELOR’S DEGREE, NO DEGREE WITH HONORS, NO DEGREE IN ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

On her resume, above, Alize Asberry Payne provided no years of attendance. For applicants over 40, experts say excluding dates thwarts age discrimination.

Elaine Varelas is the managing partner at career consulting firm Keystone Partners. She said, “When you include your graduation date, you’re giving the employer a sense of your age, which can actually hinder your chances of getting hired as you approach 50.”

However, when listing attendance at colleges from which one did not graduate, one lists the number of credit hours earned, not a description that could be misconstrued as a degree earned, as Asberry Payne did. Asberry Payne did not list her attendance at San Francisco State University on her job application, or mention any of her educational qualifications in her cover letter.

Instead, in her job application she listed City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and years completed as “4.” This makes it appear as though she attended a four-year institution and graduated within four years.

CCSF is a community college in the Bay area. In her resume, Asberry Payne lists a slightly different academic course of study at CCSF and claims to have earned an Associate’s degree in “Social and Behavioral Sciences; Criminal Justice Studies; Pol Sci Pre-law.” “Yes, with honors.”

In the job application, above, she did not list the Associate’s Degree earned at CCSF, but rather claimed to have completed her degree in four years, with honors. It appears, then, she earned a four-year degree, which was required of all applicants.

The Registrar at CCSF could not confirm the claims Asberry Payne made about her course of study in her resume and her job application.

The community college offers a two-year Liberal Arts degree with an “Emphasis in Social and Behavioral Sciences.” According to the Registrar, when Asberry attended, CCSF had no program in “Criminal Justice Studies with emphasis on juvenile issues,” and no program in “Pol Sci Pre-law.” No such courses of study or attainment appears on her official transcripts.

Asberry Payne fabricated those academic achievements in both her resume and job application.

Finally, the Registrar found no evidence that Alize Asberry Payne graduated “with honors.” CCSF does not award Associate’s degrees with honors.

At CCSF, students enroll in Honor’s courses, and for each course completed a notation is made on the student’s official transcript. According to the college’s website: “When students take an honors course, an honors designation appears on their transcripts. One such designation can give students a sharper edge when applying for admission and scholarship. Additional honors designations make students even more desirable to institutions of higher learning.” CCSF Honor’s courses, then, are designed to help students who intend to transfer to four-year institutions.

Had Washtenaw County officials, including the Sheriff’s “Special Investigations Unit,” asked Alize Asberry Payne for transcripts of her college attendance, or confirmed with college officials Asberry Payne’s attendance and degrees earned, her numerous fabrications would have been immediately uncovered.

What’s Next for Alize Asberry Payne?

In 2005, the state legislature passed Michigan’s Authentic Credentials in Education Act (ACEA). The Act protects employers by providing a cause of action against individuals that use false academic credentials to obtain employment, promotions or increases in compensation. In 2016, the ACEA was first successfully used by a municipal employer to pursue a claim.

In 2018, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the ACEA supported an employer claim against an employee who used resume fraud to obtain employment. The employer claimed that it gave the employee promotions and pay raises in continued reliance on the employee’s original resume fraud. The employer relied on the ACEA’s damages section, which states that a plaintiff “may recover costs, reasonable attorney fees, and the greater of either the person’s actual damages or $100,000.00.”

County Administrator Greg Dill, Ann Arbor Commissioner Yousef Rabhi and County Board Chair Justin Hodge were all asked if the Board of Commissioners intended to investigate Asberry Payne for having lied in her application materials. Commissioners Rabhi and Hodge did not respond.

County Administrator Dill was asked if he intended to use ACEA to claw back money Asberry Payne took from taxpayers based on falsifying her work and academic credentials. He did not respond.

In 2012, the University of Michigan fired Jordan Miller, “a 31-year-old former advertising copywriter, social media strategist, journalist with the Ann Arbor News and contributor for AnnArbor.com.” Miller, in her resume, had claimed a college degree which she did not have.

More recently, former U.S. Congressman from New York George Santos was in the news (and ended up as many a social media meme) for lying about his education and work history.

Enrique Anguiano is a former recruiter from the Chicago area and now a professional resume writer, he said that resume falsehoods tend to be more embellishments than lies, such as adding the word “proficient” to a skill on a resume when the job candidate is not. And the subtlety is the reason why many employers may fail to notice.

“Typically, people don’t lie about where they went to school or what degree they completed — those are bigger than just a white lie — and they understand the liability behind that,” he said.

Amy Moor Gaylord is a labor employment attorney in Chicago who has been practicing for 25 years. In 2023, she was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying, “It would surprise me that people would lie on their resumes now because it is so easy to Google somebody or run a background check and find these things out.”

In Washtenaw County government, it would appear, Google and background checks aren’t finding the alleged rapists who apply to work for the Sheriff, not to mention the grifters and fraudsters who apply to upper-level administrative positions.

The newspaper contacted Alize Asberry Payne and asked her to comment on the discrepancies and fabrications in her job application materials. She did not reply.