News Hits is happy to report that con man Rick Stover, the subject of last week’s Metro Times cover story, is no longer eluding authorities (“When crime pays,” Metro Times, May 14-20). Stover, wanted for a probation violation, was arrested by Macomb County sheriff’s deputies last Thursday.
Police are tight-lipped about the arrest, refusing to say whether it was the result of a tip. But there apparently was no shortage of Stover acquaintances willing to rat him out. After reading our story, two of them called Metro Times with info about his whereabouts. We, in turn, suggested that they contact the authorities.
We also checked out a tip contradicting Stover’s claim — made during a recent meeting with the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office — that a severe back problem prevented him from finding work and, hence, repaying a court-ordered restitution of $80,000 to employers he’d swindled.
It appears that his inability to find work was another of Stover’s fibs. Mance Singleton, owner of M&R Grinding in Mt. Clemens, tells us he’s been renting office space to Stover for four months, and that Stover has run a “pick-up and delivery” business there during that time. We thought that a particularly interesting line of work for a guy with a debilitating back injury.
Ron Bargman, the Warren businessman who first accused Stover of embezzlement and then issued a stream of letters urging the Prosecutor’s Office and judges to lock Stover up, sent one more such letter Friday.
Bargman noted that he was informed by police that Stover had as much as $2,000 in cash when arrested, and that he produced an Indiana driver’s license in an attempt to convince them they were nabbing the wrong guy.
Concerned that Stover would flee, Bargman urged that he be kept behind bars until his trial.
Wrote Bargman, “… anyone who looks you directly in the eye while testifying at length under oath that he is totally destitute, and then is arrested with a pocketful of $100 bills, should certainly not be given the benefit of any reasonableness as far as bond is concerned.”
Stover was scheduled to be arraigned Monday before Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Edward Servitto.
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