The Stop and the Two Cases
On or about May 30, 2024, a traffic stop on US-2 in Escanaba produced two separate felony prosecutions in Delta County. The charging documents in the file we obtained identify the arresting agency as the Michigan State Police, give a police report number of MSP 80-85-24, and name Trooper Tyler Vargo as the complaining witness on both files. Four law enforcement officers appear across the two documents: Trooper Vargo, Trooper Andrew Peterson, Trooper Shane Hauff and Officer Austin Young. The stop is described in the public request that generated this file as a UPSET operation — the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team — though no UPSET report, task-force referral, or multi-agency record was produced.
Two men were charged with the same count under the same statute. Ruemondo Juan Murray was charged in Case No. 2024000077, District Case No. 24-FY-244. Christian Cimone Cane was charged in District Case No. 24-FY-245, Circuit Case No. 24-11177-FH. Both were charged with Controlled Substance — Delivery/Manufacture — Methamphetamine, contrary to MCL 333.7401(2)(b)(i), a felony carrying up to 20 years and/or a $25,000 fine.
Then the two files diverged. On June 12, 2024, Prosecutor Lauren M. Wickman moved for a nolle prosequi in Murray's case. The entire stated reason, in the motion as filed, is one sentence: "Defendant was federally indicted based on the same events." Judge Steven C. Parks granted the motion and dismissed the case without prejudice. Because item 1 of the order was checked, the order also directs the court clerk to send a copy to the Michigan State Police Central Records Division so that the criminal history record is deleted under MCL 769.16a, and advises the defendant that his fingerprints, arrest card and description will be destroyed or returned within 60 days.
Cane's file shows a Felony Information signed by the same prosecutor, alleging the same offence on the same date, with a proof of service dated June 20, 2024. That is the last dated event in anything the office produced. What happened after June 20, 2024 — whether the case is pending, was dismissed, was pleaded, or went to trial — is not in the file, because the office declined to say.
This page is built from the eleven-page response package released under FOIA Request #25-131 and the four pages of responsive records enclosed with it. Every factual assertion below is tied to one of those documents or to the text of the Michigan Freedom of Information Act. Where the record is silent, this page says so rather than filling the gap.
No document produced under this request states the weight of any controlled substance. The phrase "approximately 12 ounces of methamphetamine" originates in the requester's own description of a news account and is repeated in the office's response letter only because the office quoted the request back. The complaint and the information allege possession with intent to deliver; neither alleges a quantity, a field-test result or a laboratory result. Likewise, no produced document says either defendant is "Detroit-based," and no produced document contains a federal case number, a federal district, or an indictment date.
Case Timeline
The chronology below is limited to dates that appear in a produced document. Where a date is the requester's or the office's characterization rather than a date on a record, it is labelled.
Traffic stop on US-2, Escanaba
The Felony Information in Cane's case alleges the offence occurred "on or about 05/30/2024" in Escanaba City, Delta County. Both charging documents list Michigan State Police report 80-85-24. No incident report, citation, tow record or UPSET documentation was produced.
Nolle prosequi granted in Murray's case
Prosecutor Wickman moves to dismiss Case No. 2024000077 because the "Defendant was federally indicted based on the same events." Judge Steven C. Parks grants the motion and dismisses without prejudice. The order triggers the MCL 769.16a record-deletion instruction to the Michigan State Police.
Proof of service in Cane's case
Paige Tardiff certifies service of the Felony Information on Andrew Jones. This is the last dated event in the Cane file as produced. Nothing after this date was released.
FOIA request dated and transmitted
The request asks for all records on the May 2024 UPSET stop, and specifically for case numbers, charging documentation with statutes, and the current status or final disposition of each case.
Request received by fax
The office's own fax notification records receipt at 8:41 a.m. Eastern. Under MCL 15.235(1) a faxed request is not received until one business day after transmission, so June 27 is the operative receipt date — the same date the office used.
Response: granted in part, denied in part
Four business days after receipt and within the five-business-day limit of MCL 15.235(2). Three records released for Murray and Cane; Cane's status denied; redactions applied for "personal nature" information. No fee was quoted.
Appeal window closes
One hundred eighty days after the July 3, 2025 determination, the period for a written appeal to the head of the public body or a civil action under MCL 15.240(1) expired. As of publication this window has run; see Remedies and Deadlines.
Federal prosecution — unverified
The only reference to a federal case is the prosecutor's one-sentence assertion in the nolle prosequi motion. No federal docket number, district, indictment or disposition was produced, and this page does not assert that a federal case exists or what became of it.
The Two Defendants
The office released the charging paperwork for both men. It released the outcome for one. The difference between the two cards below is the entire subject of this case watch.
Note what the office was able to do. It could identify Cane's district case number, his circuit case number, his judge, his TCN, the county and city of the offence, the date of the offence and the statute charged. All of that came out of the office's own file. The one thing it could not produce was the answer to the question the request was actually built around: what happened to the case.
What the Office Released
Five documents make up the public record of this request. Each is reproduced below as a redacted transcription. Personal identifiers — the requester's name, address, out-of-state ZIP, fax station identifier, the defendants' dates of birth and defence counsel's email address — have been removed. Nothing substantive has been altered, and the unredacted originals are retained privately.
No incident report. No UPSET report or task-force referral. No lab report or drug weight. No register of actions for either case. No plea, sentencing or dismissal document for Cane. No federal indictment, docket sheet or superseding information. No fee itemization, because no fee was charged. The absence of a register of actions is the most consequential gap, because that is the record that would answer the request in a single page.
The Denial: Two Answers to One Question
The request asked one question about Cane: what is the current status or final disposition of his case. The office answered it twice, in the same letter, in two ways that cannot both be true.
There is a second layer to this. The certificate says the records do not exist "under the name nor any other name reasonably known to the public body." But the same four-page production includes Cane's Felony Information, which the office located in its own file, and which bears his case numbers, his judge, his TCN and a proof of service prepared by a member of the office's staff. The office plainly knows the name and plainly holds the file. What it says it cannot find is not the person or the case — it is the outcome.
And there is a third layer. If the office truly does not hold a dispositional record for Cane, that itself would be a notable fact, because the office is the charging authority. It filed the Information. It served it. Under the Crime Victims Rights Act and the ordinary mechanics of circuit court practice, the prosecuting attorney is a party to the case and receives notice of every adjournment, plea, dismissal and sentencing. A prosecutor's file that contains a charging information but no disposition is not a complete file; it is a file with a hole in it.
Analysis
The sections below examine the legal and practical problems in the response. They are grouped so that documented fact, the office's own assertions, and this site's interpretation stay distinguishable. Where the law is clear, the statute is quoted. Where the answer depends on facts not in the record, that is said plainly.
1. The statute the office cited does not do what the office says it does
The letter relies on MCL 15.232(h)(iv) and describes it as an exemption. It is not an exemption. Section 2 of the act is the definitions section, and subsection (h) defines the term "public body." The fourth clause of that definition reads:
"Any other body that is created by state or local authority or is primarily funded by or through state or local authority, except that the judiciary, including the office of the county clerk and its employees when acting in the capacity of clerk to the circuit court, is not included in the definition of public body."
So MCL 15.232(h)(iv) says that the judiciary is not a public body for purposes of FOIA. That is a true and useful statement of law. It explains why a requester cannot send a FOIA request to the circuit court clerk and expect a statutory response. It says absolutely nothing about records held by a body that is a public body.
The Delta County Prosecutor's Office is a public body under MCL 15.232(h)(iii), which covers a "board, department, commission, council, or agency" of a county. The exemption regime that applies to it is section 13, MCL 15.243, plus any specific statutory exemption elsewhere. The definitional exclusion of the judiciary cannot be borrowed to shield records in the prosecutor's own custody, because the prosecutor is not the judiciary.
The office's reasoning, reduced to its structure, is: the courts are not subject to FOIA; therefore our copy of a court document is exempt. The premise is correct and the conclusion does not follow. If the office holds a copy, the copy is a writing "prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by" the office in the performance of an official function, which is the definition of a public record in MCL 15.232(i). It then has to be analysed under section 13 like anything else.
2. The denial notice is missing what MCL 15.235(5) requires it to contain
MCL 15.235(5) sets out what a written denial "must contain." Three of its requirements are relevant here.
Subsection (5)(a) requires "an explanation of the basis under this act or other statute for the determination that the public record, or portion of that public record, is exempt from disclosure." The office's explanation is a citation to a definitional subsection that does not create an exemption. That is not an explanation of a basis under the act.
Subsection (5)(c) requires "a description of a public record or information on a public record that is separated or deleted under section 14, if a separation or deletion is made." Redactions were made — the letter says so. On the Notice of Denial, box 3 ("Redaction") is not checked, and the line reserved for "a brief description of the information that had to be separated or deleted" is blank. The only description anywhere is the cover letter's prose reference to "telephone numbers, dates of births, telephone numbers."
Subsection (5)(d)(i) requires a full explanation of the right to "submit to the head of the public body a written appeal that specifically states the word 'appeal'." The letter instead directs an appeal to "the chairperson of the Delta County Board of Commissioners." The prosecuting attorney is an independent elected county officer, not an officer of the Board of Commissioners. Whether the Board chair is the "head of the public body" for a request decided by the prosecutor is, at best, doubtful — and a requester who follows the letter's instruction may find the appeal lodged with the wrong decision-maker.
3. The redactions cite a sentiment, not a subsection
The letter's stated ground for redaction is that the information "is of a personal nature where public disclosure of the information would clearly constitute an unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy." That is a paraphrase of MCL 15.243(1)(a), which exempts "information of a personal nature where the public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy."
The paraphrase is close enough that the intent is unmistakable. But the subsection is never cited, and on the Notice of Denial the space for "FOIA Section 13, Subsection (insert number)" is left blank. MCL 15.235(5)(a) requires the basis to be explained; a requester cannot test an exemption that is never named.
Two further points matter. First, section 13(1)(a) is discretionary — it says a public body "may" exempt such information. Discretion has to be exercised, and the exercise has to be explained, particularly where the information is a date of birth on a charging document that is already public in the court file. Second, the exemption is not a blanket. It protects information "of a personal nature," not the fact of a charge, the identity of a defendant, or the disposition of a case. Nothing in the letter explains why a date of birth on a public charging document needed to be withheld when the same document is available unredacted at the courthouse.
There is also a drafting problem that undercuts the credibility of the whole passage. The list of redacted categories reads "telephone numbers, dates of births, telephone numbers" — telephone numbers appears twice, and the sentence is otherwise ungrammatical. A denial notice is a legal document. When the operative sentence is visibly unedited boilerplate, it is fair to ask how much attention was paid to the rest of the determination.
4. Segregation was never addressed
MCL 15.244 requires that when a public record contains both exempt and nonexempt material, the public body "shall separate the exempt and nonexempt material and make the nonexempt material available." The duty is mandatory, and it is a duty to explain as well as to do: a body that withholds an entire record on exemption grounds has to be able to say why no meaningful portion could be released.
Here, the office did not withhold an entire record. It withheld one fact — the status of a case — while releasing the charging document for that same case. If the concern was that a court document contains exempt material, the obvious answer is to release the case number, the charge, the next scheduled event, or the docket entry showing a dismissal, and redact anything genuinely private. None of that was done or discussed.
This is the point at which the response stops looking like a considered application of an exemption and starts looking like a decision not to answer. A body that has the file, knows the case number and the judge, and holds a proof of service prepared by its own staff is not in a position to say that the outcome is beyond its reach.
5. A dismissal built on an assertion, with the record trail being deleted
The nolle prosequi motion is one sentence long. It asserts a federal indictment and gives no district, no case number, no date and no charging document. The order granting it is a form with a checkbox. Nothing in the four pages of responsive records corroborates the federal case, and the office did not produce a federal docket when asked for the status of the matter.
That is a problem for public oversight in both directions. If a federal case exists, the state case was properly dismissed and the public's interest shifts to the federal file — which the public cannot reach through a FOIA request to Delta County, and which the office did not identify. If a federal case does not exist, or was later declined, then a felony charge carrying 20 years was dismissed on an unverified premise. The record as produced does not let a reader tell which of those is true.
The dismissal is without prejudice. That is the legally correct label for a dismissal that does not adjudicate the merits, and it means the charge could be refiled. It also means the dismissal is not an exoneration, and this page does not treat it as one.
Then there is the record-destruction instruction. Because item 1 of the order was checked, the form directs the clerk to send a copy to the Michigan State Police Central Records Division "to delete this criminal history record as required under MCL 769.16a," and tells the defendant his fingerprints, arrest card and description will be destroyed or returned within 60 days. That is a routine consequence of a dismissal-and-discharge order. But it has a specific effect here: at the same time the office declines to describe the federal case that supposedly replaced the state case, the state-side record of the arrest is on a path to deletion. The public record is being narrowed at both ends.
6. The response was timely, and that matters
It is worth saying clearly, because a critique that overstates its case is worth less than one that does not: the office met its deadline. The request was faxed June 26, 2025 and, under MCL 15.235(1), was not received until one business day later — Friday, June 27. Counting business days from June 27, the five-day period under MCL 15.235(2) ran to Friday, July 4. The determination issued July 3, on the fourth business day. No extension notice was needed and none was issued.
The office also charged nothing. For a request that produced five documents and required a search across two case files, the fee was zero. That is a genuine point of contrast with other requests to the same office, and it is discussed in the comparison below.
Timeliness and a zero fee are the two things the act makes easiest to measure, and the office got both right. The problems in this file are not about speed or cost. They are about what the answer said.
7. What the records do not establish — and why that is stated here
Three claims circulate around this incident that the produced records do not support. Each is worth separating out, because repeating an unverified detail is how a watchdog page becomes indistinguishable from the thing it criticises.
The quantity. "Approximately 12 ounces of methamphetamine" appears in the request and in the office's quotation of the request. It does not appear in the complaint or the information, neither of which alleges any weight. A 12-ounce quantity would be a significant trafficking amount and would tend to support federal interest; that is precisely why it should not be asserted without a document.
The origin. "Detroit-based suspect" likewise comes from the requester's description. No produced record states either man's residence, and the address fields on the charging documents were redacted by the office.
The federal case. The only evidence of a federal prosecution in this file is the prosecutor's own sentence in the nolle prosequi motion. That is an assertion by an interested party, not a court record. This page reports it as the office's stated reason and does not report it as an established fact.
None of this weakens the central finding. The central finding does not depend on the weight of the drugs or on where anyone lived. It depends only on the four corners of the July 3, 2025 letter, which gives two incompatible reasons for withholding one fact that the office was plainly in a position to know.
Transparency Concerns
The questions below are the ones a reader of this file would reasonably ask, and the ones the response does not answer. They are framed as questions rather than conclusions because the underlying facts are in the office's possession and not in the public record.
A one-page register of actions for Circuit Case No. 24-11177-FH, or a statement that the case is pending with the next scheduled event. If the case was resolved, the judgment of sentence, the plea transcript index, or the order of dismissal. If it was transferred, the federal district and docket number. If the office genuinely holds none of these, a certificate limited to that fact, unaccompanied by an exemption claim that contradicts it. And a denial notice that names the section 13 subsection applied to each redaction and describes what was removed, as MCL 15.235(5)(a) and (c) require.
Comparison With Other Requests to the Same Office
The most useful comparison is not with a case in another county. It is with other requests decided by the same office, in the same period, under the same statute. The table below sets 25-131 against two other requests documented on this site.
| Factor | #25-131 This case |
#26-22 Conviction-rate statistics |
#25-201 Case-management contracts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Two felony case files | Aggregate outcome statistics | Vendor contracts |
| Determination | Granted in part | Denied | Granted in part |
| Records released | 5 documents | None | Contract documents |
| Fee quoted | $0 | $9,548.00 | $0 |
| Fee basis | None stated | Search, review, redaction | None stated |
| Exemption cited | MCL 15.232(h)(iv) | Section 13, unspecified | None for released items |
| Segregation discussed | No | No | Not applicable |
| Response time | 4 business days | Within statutory period | Within statutory period |
| Core problem | Contradictory denial grounds | Prohibitive fee, no waiver analysis | Heavy redaction of contract terms |
The pattern that emerges is not a single recurring violation but a recurring habit: the office tends to answer the easy part of a request and then stop. In 25-131 it released the charging documents and withheld the outcome. In 26-22 it declined to produce a statistic and quoted a fee large enough to end the conversation. In 25-201 it produced contracts with substantial portions blacked out. In each case the released material is real and the withheld material is the part that would let a reader evaluate what the office actually did.
The fee contrast deserves a note of its own. A request that required staff to locate and review two case files, apply redactions, and draft a denial was processed at no charge. A request for a single existing statistical output was quoted at $9,548.00. Whatever explains that difference, it is not the volume of paper.
FOIA 25-130 was faxed to this office in the same June 26, 2025 batch and answered on the same day as this one, with the same zero fee and the same four business days. It concerned a different investigation with the same structural feature: two defendants. The difference is instructive. Here the office produced the second defendant’s charging information and then denied his disposition on two incompatible grounds — a defective answer, but an answer, and one a requester could appeal. In 25-130 the office produced one defendant’s judgments and said nothing whatever about the other. That is the more complete form of withholding, because a denial at least tells the requester there is something to challenge.
FOIA Request Details
What was requested
"Please provide all records and documentation related to the May 2024 UPSET traffic stop on US-2 involving a Detroit-based suspect who was reportedly lodged at the Delta County Jail after being found with approximately 12 ounces of methamphetamine."
FOIA Request #25-131, June 26, 2025
The request then narrowed to three items: any case numbers assigned by the office; documentation of charges filed, including descriptions and statutes; and the current status or final disposition of the case, "including whether the case is still pending, has been dismissed, resulted in a plea deal, or went to trial."
What was provided
Case numbers for both defendants. The charging documents for both defendants, with the statute identified as MCL 333.7401(2)(b)(i). The disposition of Murray's case, by way of the nolle prosequi order. Redactions applied to telephone numbers and dates of birth.
What was withheld
The current status or final disposition of Cane's case, on two inconsistent grounds. A description of the redacted material, as required by MCL 15.235(5)(c). The section 13 subsection applied to the redactions. Any federal case identifier supporting the nolle prosequi. Any incident, task-force or laboratory record.
Court contacts given in the response
Circuit Court Clerk, 906-789-5105. District Court, 906-789-5106. Probate Court, 906-789-5112. The office directed the requester to these numbers for "details on how to obtain the documents." A request to a court clerk is not a FOIA request, because the judiciary is excluded from the definition of public body — which is the one thing MCL 15.232(h)(iv) actually establishes.
Remedies, Deadlines and Next Steps
The statutory appeal window for this determination has closed. That does not mean the questions are closed, and it is worth setting out what the options were and what remains.
The window that ran
Under MCL 15.240(1), a person denied all or part of a request may either submit a written appeal to the head of the public body that specifically states the word "appeal" and identifies the reasons for reversal, or commence a civil action in the circuit court. Both routes carry a 180-day limit running from the public body's final determination. For a July 3, 2025 determination, that period ended on or about December 30, 2025. As of this page's publication, it has expired.
What a new request can still obtain
A fresh, narrower request is not barred by the earlier denial, and a differently framed request may produce a different answer. The productive framing is to ask for a specific existing record rather than a status: the register of actions in Circuit Case No. 24-11177-FH; any judgment of sentence, order of dismissal, or plea agreement in that case; and any correspondence between the office and a federal prosecutor concerning either defendant. Naming the document is the single most effective way to defeat a certificate of nonexistence, because the certificate speaks to records sought "under the name given by the requester."
If a fee is quoted
This request cost nothing, but other requests to this office have not. If a fee is quoted, MCL 15.234(2) requires an itemization expressing both the hourly wage and the number of hours. A body that is not in compliance with the act's procedures and guidelines may not require deposits or charge fees at all, under MCL 15.234(4). Fee disputes have their own appeal path under MCL 15.240a, including a civil action within 45 days and a $500 civil fine plus up to $500 in punitive damages where the reduction is at least 50 percent.
If a denial is appealed or litigated
In circuit court the burden is on the public body to sustain the denial, and review is de novo. Where the court finds the body arbitrarily and capriciously violated the act, MCL 15.240(7) provides for a civil fine of $1,000 and punitive damages of $1,000, in addition to attorney fees, costs and disbursements. A requester who prevails on a fee dispute under MCL 15.240a faces a lower threshold: a reduction of at least half the fee.
What this site will do
This page will be updated if the office produces a disposition for Cane, identifies a federal docket, or revises its reading of MCL 15.232(h)(iv). Corrections of fact are published as corrections, not as silent edits. Anyone with a document that bears on the points above is invited to send it.
Sources and Method
This page was built from two files: the eleven-page response package released under FOIA Request #25-131, and the four pages of responsive records enclosed with it. Both were read in full, and every quotation above is transcribed from those pages. The redacted PDFs linked in Section 04 are faithful transcriptions with personal identifiers removed; the unredacted originals are retained privately and are available to the county, to counsel, or to a court on request.
Statutory text is quoted from the Michigan Compiled Laws as published by the Michigan Legislature. The provisions relied on are MCL 15.232 (definitions, including "public body" and "public record"), MCL 15.235 (response and denial requirements), MCL 15.240 (appeals and remedies), MCL 15.240a (fee appeals), MCL 15.243 (exemptions) and MCL 15.244 (segregation). No judicial decision is cited on this page, because the analysis does not turn on one.
Three categories of statement are kept separate throughout. Documented facts are things that appear on the face of a produced record, such as case numbers, dates, statutes and the text of the denial. Agency assertions are things the office says that no produced record corroborates, chiefly the existence of a federal indictment. Interpretation is this site's reading of the statutes and of the response, and is labelled as such. Where the record is silent, this page says it is silent rather than supplying an inference.
An earlier version of this case was published on this site under the heading "Detroit-Based Drug Suspect Case Dismissed." That page stated the charge as MCL 333.7401(2)(b)(iv). The charging documents in this file read MCL 333.7401(2)(b)(i), and this page uses the statute as it appears on the complaint and the information. The earlier page also presented the 12-ounce quantity and the federal prosecution as established facts; neither is established by any produced record, and both are treated here as unverified.