Thursday, June 1, 2023
Since 1854 — News from Montcalm County and Ionia County, Michigan
Shortly after he was admitted to the bar, a young Robert Sykes Jr. had a court hearing in the late 1980s before Ionia-Montcalm Circuit Court Judge James “Jim” Banks.
Sykes asked the judge to enforce a provision of the parties’ divorce judgment while Greenville attorney Jim Mullendore made the argument that the parties had orally amended the judgment, which Sykes’ client denied.
The Ionia County Board of Commissioners deliberated for about 50 minutes before approving in a split vote to provide state-mandated pay raises for attorneys in the county’s Public Defender Office.
The motion approved by the board will also increase the salaries of attorneys in the county’s Prosecutor’s Office so that both sides of the bench will be equally compensated.
A perjury dismissal request that went to the Michigan Court of Appeals and was sent back to Ionia County has revealed heated tensions between the judge and the prosecutor in the case.
The Court of Appeals in a Sept. 1 order peremptorily reversed and vacated Ionia County Circuit Court Judge Ronald Schafer’s ruling and remanded the case back to Circuit Court to grant Prosecutor Kyle Butler’s requests for nolle prosequi (no longer wishing to prosecute) and to enter an order dismissing charges against June Marie Peiffer.
Ten Questions is a weekly feature by the Daily News profiling some of our many local community leaders.
The Ionia County Prosecutor’s Office officially welcomed its newest assistant prosecutor with a swearing-in by District Court Judge Raymond Voet on Thursday afternoon.
Caitlin McBride, 27, of Grand Ledge, started in her new role on Feb. 7. She replaces Barbara Tsaturova who previously worked as an assistant prosecutor for just four months in 2017 before resigning to take a job with Spectrum Health, then returned as an assistant prosecutor in March 2019.
Assistant prosecuting attorneys in Ionia County who are on-call nights and weekends will see their paychecks restored.
The Ionia County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 10 voted unanimously to reinstate prosecutors’ on-call pay.
The Ionia County prosecutor is hoping to appeal a Saranac speeding case to the U.S. Supreme Court after the conviction was overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Anthony Michael Owen of Saranac was stopped by an Ionia County Sheriff’s deputy in September 2015 for allegedly speeding on Parsonage Road in Saranac while driving at 43 mph, which, according to court documents, the deputy believed to be a 25 mph zone. The deputy required Owen to perform a series of field sobriety tests and gave him a preliminary breath test, which Owen allegedly failed, and the deputy placed him under arrest.
