by P.D. Lesko
Prosecutor Eli Savit is a Democratic candidate for Michigan Attorney General. The year 2025 is turning into Savit’s own personal annus horribilis. Long-time Asst. Prosecutor Nimesh Ganatra has sued Savit and the Prosecutor’s Office in federal court for racial discrimination, violation of Ganatra’s free speech and retaliation for reporting unethical conduct by another Asst. Prosecutor to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission (AGC). Another of Savit’s asst. prosecutors, Marieh Tanha, has been accused of submitting false financial disclosures to the 22nd Circuit Court to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars of marital assets, of perjuring herself about the existence of the assets and lying in order to obtain and extend a PPO against her ex-husband. A copy of the AGC complaint filed by Tanha’s ex-husband David Mathieu, was shared with the Ann Arbor Independent.
The AGC complaint against Tanha includes 30 exhibits, from an income tax return that shows Tanha failed to disclose six figures in income to the IRS, to evidence Tanha was gifted real estate in Sweden which she failed to disclose in her first financial disclosure to Judge Tracy E. Van den Bergh to determine division of marital assets. The Mathieu-Tanha divorce was subsequently transferred away from Judge Van den Bergh to Judge Jinan Hamood.
As he investigated his own marital finances in preparation for his divorce from Tanha, David Mathieu discovered that a relationship he thought was a partnership, was not. Mathieu says he discovered Tanha had hidden assets and ownership of property in Sweden from him. Then, says Mathieu, his wife lied to the Court under oath.
On Sept. 3, 2025, the allegations of perjury in the court against Asst. Prosecutor Marieh Tanha came out after Judge Hamood allowed David Mathieu’s brother, J.P. Mathieu, to answer a question put to him by Tanha’s attorney Nik Lulgjuraj. Lulgjuraj asked J.P. Mathieu if he had hired an attorney in Sweden to look into Tanha.
J.P. Mathieu’s answer to Lulgjuraj’s question elicited clarifying questions from the Judge, who took notes as J.P. Mathieu testified: “I also worked with the Swedish tax authority. I found out she [Tanha] not only owned property she lied about, but she also did not disclose she was making money from that on their marital income. Under her second [financial disclosure] form—she actually did a declaration stating she’s never paid taxes [property taxes on properties located in Sweden] when in fact she had paid taxes on two of those properties. I have the tax forms from the Swedish tax authority. There were several instances where we had to confirm, and once we confirmed that, we provided that to the Court. Under oath, her deposition transcript, her answers under oath she said she did not own any properties, well in fact she did and we found them.”
In Mar. 2022, in a deposition, Tanha denied under oath she owned “property overseas.”
Exhibit 7 of the AGC complaint against Tanha includes a second IRS income tax return that shows the Asst. Prosecutor failed to declare to the IRS rental income transferred by wire to her in the U.S. earned from her properties in Sweden. While the property, under Swedish law, would not be subject to a division of martial assets, the income Tanha received from the rental properties would have been subject to a division of joint marital assets.
The AGC complaint includes bank statements from undisclosed accounts as exhibits. Those exhibits show that between Mar. 2019 and Jan. 2021, when Marieh Tanha and her ex-husband David Mathieu were divorcing, in accounts that list Tanha as a co-owner over $420,000 in wire transfers in and out were executed, including foreign wire transfers.
David Mathieu says none of the funds was declared on the couple’s joint income tax returns.
In May 2022, Marieh Tanha submitted a second financial disclosure to the Court. In that disclosure (exhibit 17 in the AGC complaint) Tanha states, “it is important to note that I have not, at any point, paid any money toward taxes, costs of fees, or improvements for any of the properties. This has all been taken care of by my parents. Likewise, no money from those properties have ever been sent to me. My only involvement has been occasionally helping my parents write up a rental agreements, again with the understanding that my parents owned the properties.”
From the AGC complaint: “Per the Swedish Tax Authority, Marieh Tanha has been paying a Real Estate Tax Fee and a Real Estate Tax since 2017
Note: Marieh states ‘no money from those properties have ever been sent to me.’ Again, she signed a POA (Power of Attorney) keeping all property documents/rental income, etc.
(Exhibit 18 A – 2017 Tanha Real Estate Tax Assessment)
(Exhibit 18 B – 2018 Tanha Real Estate Tax Assessment)
(Exhibit 18 C – 2019 Tanha Real Estate Tax Assessment)
(Exhibit 18D – 2020 Tanha Real Estate Tax Assessment)”
Pre-Employment Form Allegedly Forged
Prior to his then wife being hired by Washtenaw County as an Asst. Prosecutor in 2017, David Mathieu says he was supposed to fill out a pre-employment questionnaire from the Sheriff’s Dept. Mathieu says he recently found a copy of the completed questionnaire on a computer the couple shared. Mathieu says he never completed the form, his wife did, signed his name and submitted it.
Mathieu says his wife was asked to leave her job as an Asst. Prosecutor in Kalamazoo County.
The newspaper used FOIA to try to obtain Tanha’s employment records from Kalamazoo County, but too much time had elapsed since Tanha had left her job.
In 2017, at the time David Mathieu supposedly wrote on the questionnaire, “My wife is the most honest, credible person that I know. Her integrity has never come into question. She is honest even when that is not the easiest option,” evidence from the AGC complaint shows Marieh Tanha had not disclosed hundreds of thousands of dollars of wire transfers and income on the joint income tax returns filed with her husband.
The answers on the questionnaire are uniformly grammatical, well-written and glowing.
“Does Applicant get along with other people? Yes, Marieh gets along with every kind of person we have encountered over the years. I cannot remember a time when she has encountered someone she didn’t get along with, professionally or personally.”
“How would you describe the Applicant’s emotional stability and maturity? When I met Marieh I knew she was more mature than most women her age. Her education and upbringing have made her a unique person and I see rare maturity in her and everything she does.”
David Mathieu said in an email about the allegedly forged questionnaire, “I would also suggest if your going to reach out to Marieh former bosses Chris Becker (didn’t hire her) Jeff Getting, that you try to get a hold of Brian Mackie, the previous Washtenaw county prosecutor who hired Marieh. I would ask him if he was aware that she lied to get hired by him. She fraudulently wrote her own pre employment screening/questionnaire saying it was filled out by me, thus employment fraud among other things I’m sure she lied to them during the interviews to get hired.”
In Michigan, judges are required to report attorney misconduct to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission. A judge in Michigan has the discretion to report perjury but is not strictly mandated to do so in every instance; a judge can immediately refer a witness to the prosecuting attorney or police for investigation if a reasonable presumption of perjury exists.
The evidence submitted in the AGC complaint was provided to Judge Van den Bergh in 2022 in a filing to ask the Court revisit the division of assets in the couple’s divorce. Judge Van den Bergh read the evidence, according to a video of the hearing for which the filing was submitted, and then did nothing. It’s not known if Judge Hamood has submitted a complaint against Tanha to the AGC. All of the evidence included in the AGC complaint filed against Tanha is in Judge Hamood’s possession.
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