Steve Neavling
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office is inside the new Wayne County Criminal Justice Center in Detroit.
A Detroit man says his ex-partner falsely accused him of molesting their daughter and alleges her powerful, politically connected family helped her get a felony charge dismissed for filing a false police report.
The ex-partner, Taylor Clark, is the granddaughter of retired Wayne County Circuit Judge Michael Hathaway, whose cousin Richard Hathaway is the chief assistant at the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. Clark lives with Michael Hathaway in a luxury apartment in Royal Oak, according to court records. She has resided with the former judge since she was 15, according to her ex-partner, who asked not to be identified because of the severity of the allegations that Clark leveled against him.
On Thursday, after Metro Times asked about the Hathaways’s connection to the case, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said through a spokesperson that she had been unaware of the allegations and will recuse her office from the case.
Worthy “immediately ordered that the paperwork be filed for WCPO to be conflicted out,” spokeswoman Maria Miller said. “We will not handle the case because it falls within our conflict-of-interest policy and to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”
After a Detroit police investigation into the molestation allegations found evidence that Clark was lying, the prosecutor’s office authorized an arrest warrant and a felony charge against her, according to records. The charge is punishable by up to four years in prison.
But a few days later, Clark sent her former partner a message, which was obtained by Metro Times, that insists the charge is “going nowhere lol.” A day later, she said in a message to him, “Grandfather asked. He knows the prosecutor.”
Four days later, Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Halushka informed the ex-partner that a group of prosecutors rescinded the charge after determining there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed. The former partner says both Halushka and Detroit police initially told him there was strong evidence to support the charges. After the case was dropped, he says the Detroit detective who investigated the case told him she has “never seen a prosecutor rescind the charges.”
“She saw the warrant request and said it was pretty strong,” he says.
Metro Times couldn’t immediately reach the detective for comment.
The former partner claims the charge was clearly dropped because of political favoritism. The Hathaway family has deep roots in Michigan’s judicial system. At least six current and retired Wayne County Circuit judges share the Hathaway name, including former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway, who served time in federal prison for bank fraud.”
Richard Hathaway, who previously served as a Wayne County Circuit judge and Wayne County treasurer, is the second-ranking official in the prosecutor’s office and has authority over assistant prosecutors.
Although Clark wrote in a message that her grandfather “knows the prosecutor,” she adamantly denies Michael Hathaway intervened in the case.
“That’s a lie. It’s crazy,” Clark tells Metro Times. “My grandfather can’t get charges dropped against anyone. And he’s not the type of person who would do that.”
Clark insists she only mentioned her grandfather because she asked him questions about the legal process.
On July 17, Clark’s former partner called on the prosecutor’s office to recuse itself, citing the conflict of interest involving the Hathaways and Clark.
“It is my hope now that you have become aware of these new circumstances that your office will recuse itself from this case and refer this matter to the Michigan State Attorney General Office or another County Prosecutor’s Office so that there is no hint of imparity and that justice may be served,” the ex partner wrote in an email to two prosecutors.
Thirteen minutes later, one of the prosecutors told him that she “will forward your email to our Public Integrity Unit.”
Despite the emails, Miller said Worthy was not aware of the allegations.
“Today is the first time that Prosecutor Worthy was made aware of the connection to our Chief Assistant Richard Hathaway through his relationship to his cousin Judge Michael Hathaway,” Miller said.
But now that Worthy is aware of the potential conflict, Miller said the prosecutor’s office will no longer handle the case.
“We are currently waiting for DPD to resubmit the warrant request,” she said. “When we have that we will proceed with the paperwork for WCPO to be disqualified. The office that is appointed to the case will decide the matter.”
Miller said the case got off to a wrong start, leading to the dismissal of the charge.
“The case came into the General Warrants Unit when it should have gone to the Special Victim’s Unit,” Miller said. “It was issued by a General Warrant Unit assistant prosecutor. Several days after that happened, it was sent to supervisors who determined it should be in SVU. When the case was reviewed by a supervisor in SVU, it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the charges, and it was denied and returned to DPD with a request for further investigation.”
Michael Hathaway was accused of intervening in another case involving his granddaughter in September 2020. During a hearing involving parenting issues with Clark’s former partner in Oakland County Circuit Court’s Family Division, Judge Kameshia D. Gant found Clark in contempt and fined her. Michael Hathaway threatened to report Gant to the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission, saying she was too tough on his granddaughter, Gant said during another hearing and in a complaint to the chief judge, according to Clark’s former partner.
Metro Times couldn’t immediately reach Gant for comment.
In a text message from January, Clark said Michael Hathaway was getting involved in a custody dispute with her daughter’s father.
“My grandfather who is a judge is on his ass to get things turned around,” she wrote.
In a statement after her interview with Metro Times, Clark said that her former partner has an ax to grind.
“We are currently involved in a long-standing custody battle, and his recent actions seem driven by resentment, not truth,” Clark said.
She added, “This is not a matter of justice or concern for the truth–it’s about revenge.”
Metro Times was unable to reach Richard and Michael Hathaway.