Official in Michigan's Ionia Township stole $747,000 in long-run con, feds say

Robert Snell, The Detroit News on Jul 1, 2026

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DETROIT — A township treasurer in rural mid-Michigan fraudulently withdrew more than $747,000 in taxpayer money to build herself a vacation home and pay bills, according to federal court records that chronicle a rare and unusually lucrative public corruption case in west Michigan.

Former Ionia Township Treasurer Marilyn Harp, 74, is portrayed in court records as a scheming, lying public official, destroying records, creating phony documents and pocketing so much money that the sum exceeded the $679,000 in revenue the township collected in 2024. That also is the year Harp's alleged scheme crumbled as local officials questioned her use of a township account at the Mercantile Bank of Michigan, according to the government.

"In response, she destroyed relevant records and fabricated others," U.S. Attorney Timothy Verhey wrote in the court filing.

The court records describe a swindle that spanned a decade and included alleged criminal behavior reminiscent of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy scandal that emerged two years ago. In that scandal, former conservancy Chief Financial Officer William Smith stole more than $44 million because he, like Harp, had what prosecutors said was sole control of the purse strings.

The criminal case filed Tuesday in federal court in Grand Rapids accuses Harp, a Republican in a deep-red county, of stealing the money from 2014 until July 2025. That is when she abruptly quit as treasurer of a township with approximately 4,100 residents about 38 miles east of Grand Rapids.

"Specifically, between 2014 and 2025, the defendant wrote approximately 80 checks ... to pay her personal expenses, such as credit card bills and expenses associated with the construction of a vacation home," Verhey wrote.

Harp is charged with bank fraud, a felony that carries a maximum 30-year sentence, mandatory restitution and fines that total twice the gross amount gained during the crime. She was charged in a felony information, a type of charge that indicates a guilty plea is expected.

A woman who answered Harp's cell phone Tuesday referred The Detroit News to her lawyer, whom she refused to identify during a brief phone conversation that ended when she disconnected the call. The lawyer is not identified in court records.

Harp fraudulently said the withdrawals were legitimate township payments and concealed the transactions from township officials, the government alleged.

Harp's job allowed her to collect property tax payments from Ionia Township landowners. She also was responsible for depositing the money into the township bank account and had sole access to the account and "was the only person authorized to withdraw funds from it," the prosecutor wrote.

Township Trustee Aric Pitchford, who was elected to the township board and served during part of the time Harp is accused of stealing money, declined comment Tuesday. Other members of the board, including Supervisor Jamie Stephens, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Harp's vacation home is not identified in the criminal case. But public records show she bought a vacant waterfront lot along Long Lake in nearby Orleans Township in 2015. She sold the vacant lot in October and a $70,000 undeveloped property in Ionia in September, property records show.

Corruption cases are rare on the west side of Michigan. Only seven people have been sentenced to federal prison for bribery/corruption since 2015, and four of those were from the same case. That case was the bribery scandal involving Rick Johnson, the former GOP Michigan House speaker and chairman of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Licensing Board.

In all, Johnson served approximately 21 months of a 55-month sentence for rigging the state's marijuana industry and receiving more than $110,000 in bribes that included money and repeated trysts with a sex worker who called him "Batman."

A broader FBI crackdown on corruption across Metro Detroit in recent years, however, has led to convictions and prison sentences for more than 130 public officials across Metro Detroit. That includes a state senator, a House speaker, Detroit suburban politicians, cops and councilmen, township officials, two United Auto Workers union presidents and school leaders.

The amount of money prosecutors said Harp stole ranks among the most lucrative alleged corruption schemes in the last 20 years in Michigan. A handful of politicians and public officials pocketed more, including former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who prosecutors said deposited $840,962 into his bank accounts on top of his mayoral salary during a racketeering scheme. The money was from kickbacks, bribes and cash generated by a criminal racket that plagued City Hall.

At the top end, James Warner, a former manager at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, was convicted of pocketing $6 million in bribes from contractors. He committed suicide in 2022 before serving a 10-year federal prison sentence.

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