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Charles B. "Chuck" Rizzo, the former CEO of Rizzo Environmental Services, wore an FBI wire for months and secretly recorded numerous public officials and a well-known businessman in a major Macomb County briber investiogation, the Detroit Free Press reports.
But the Bloomfield Hills man stopped cooperating at some point because he had no guarantees from the feds that he would avoid prison time, reports Tresa Baldas, citing "multiple sources familiar with the case."
Legal experts tell the paper his move to withdraw cooperation likely hurt him. Cooperating doesn't always guarantee no prison time, but it almost certainly helps in most cases to get a better deal with the feds.
A federal grand jury indictment charges Rizzo, 46, with five counts of bribery and three counts of conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with garbage contracts in Clinton, Macomb, and Chesterfield townships.
Wednesday's indictment also charges for men -- Rizzo, his father Charles P. Rizzo, 70, of New Baltimore, towing company owner Gasper Fiore, 56, of Grosse Pointe Shores and Derrick Hicks, 47, of Bloomfield Hills -- with scheming to steal hundreds of thousand of dollars from Rizzo Environmental Services between from 2013-16 when the majority owner was a New York private equity firm. The company has since been sold to GFL (Green For Life) Environmental..
The group is accused of using a fake legal settlement agreement, fraudulent consulting deals, cash kickbacks and shell companies to steal from the garbage firm. Some money covered part of the costs of building Charles B. Rizzo’s Bloomfield Township mansion, authorities charge.
Some stolen money was also used to pay bribes to public officials to maintain and secure additional municipal garbage contracts.
Rizzo's cooperation helped bring indictments of Macomb County politicians.
