Political aide accused of sabotaging campaign has long history with Sigma Pi
The political aide accused of sabotaging a former U.S. representative's campaign to repay Central Michigan University's Sigma Pi chapter has a long history with the fraternity.
Don Yowchuang was accused in an October legal complaint filed by his old boss, former U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, of accepting a bribe from an unknown source worth approximately $20,000 to repay money he allegedly embezzled from the fraternity's housing board, the Delta Alpha Association.
In return, he allegedly submitted fraudulent nominating petitions to the Michigan Secretary of State, preventing McCotter, widely considered a lock for a sixth term in the House, from being placed on the August 2012 primary ballot. McCotter resigned from Congress in June 2012.
The metro Detroit Republican claims in the complaint, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit against Yowchuang's personal Chapter 7 case, that his former aide took a bribe to repay the board for $22,000 he allegedly embezzled between 2005 and 2007 during his tenure at the DAA. In state corporation documents filed in 2008, he listed himself as the board's president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and director.
Yowchuang began his tenure on the housing board in 2005, where he remained until 2010, when he resigned at the request of Sigma Pi alumni in response to the fraternity's four-year ban from CMU for violating the university's hazing and alcohol policies, according to McCotter.
The ban ended in 2012, and the fraternity is now re-colonized at CMU, looking to again become a fully chartered member. A new DAA board has since been formed.
Between 2010 and 2011, according to the complaint, the new DAA board contacted Yowchuang to explain why property taxes and insurance went unpaid for several years during his tenure, demanding he turn over the DAA's checkbook and savings accounts, which remained his even after resigning, so they could determine how he managed finances.
An examination of Mount Pleasant property records by Central Michigan Life found that between 2006 and 2010, the DAA failed to pay $22,698.70 in property taxes to the city for the fraternity house, located at 1016 S. Main St.
In his Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, Yowchuang lists that he repaid approximately $22,000 to the DAA in a deal in September 2012 after two years of back and forth over his finance record at the DAA, which would have included the money he allegedly embezzled between 2005 and 2007.
CMU Director of Student Conduct Tom Idema, who served in the Office of Student Life as campus Greek adviser during Yowchuang's tenure at the DAA, said he had not received any notice about unpaid property taxes or allegedly embezzled funds.
"This is news to us," Idema said. "We don't own the (Greek) houses. There are some universities where the university owns the houses and the chapter members or whoever pay the university. But we don't own any of the houses, so we have nothing to do with any of that stuff."
Calls placed to McCotter's attorney, David Ottenwess, and Yowchuang's bankruptcy attorney, John Lange, were not returned in time for publication, nor was an email to Sigma Pi Executive Director Michael Ayalon.
How Yowchuang and the DAA reached a deal, in addition to the deal's contents, is unknown.
"The secret agreement's specifics are unknown because the DAA has refused to discuss the matter, citing the fact that a confidentiality provision was made part of the settlement even though Yowchuang had just been charged with several felonies (related to the faulty petition signatures) and the Sigma Pi fraternity was scheduled to operate at CMU for the first time since its 2008 ban from campus," McCotter's complaint reads.
McCotter alleges that the money he used to pay the DAA likely came from an illicit source because the payment was made at a time when Yowchuang listed a household net monthly income of $0.
When asked in an interview with an Attorney General investigator on June 29, 2012 about how his financial situation improved quickly enough by that point that he could almost repay the DAA, Yowchuang said he did not have the money to pay them in 2011 because of a pending loan for a newly purchased home he and his wife were moving to. Only after it was approved, he said, was he able to pay the DAA.
When asked directly about the possibility of bribery, Yowchuang denied doing so.
"I can tell you it would take a hell of a lot more money than $20,000 to do that," he said.
McCotter alleges in the complaint that "Yowchuang accepted funds in return for his deliberate sabotage of McCotter's campaign, and that these funds have been deliberately concealed and or disguised in order to avoid further criminal charges and relinquishment of the wrongfully attained funds."
He also claims the only reason Yowchuang filed for bankruptcy is so he could "avoid the discovery process" of how his "financial condition magically changed" by the time he was able to repay DAA in McCotter's civil lawsuit of his former aide.
McCotter, who briefly ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, sued Yowchuang and volunteer Dillon Breen for deliberately sabotaging his House re-election campaign by blatantly copying or altering petition signatures submitted to the Secretary of State.
