Crime & Safety

Former Prosecutor Tried to Hire Hit Man: Report

The man Clarence Gomery allegedly tried to hire to kill another attorney who successfully sued him for fraud and malpractice blew the whistle and told police of the plan.

A former Michigan prosecutor now in private practice has found himself on the opposite side of the courtroom after a man he allegedly tried to hire to kill another lawyer blew the whistle on him.

Clarence Gomery, a Leelanau County prosecutor in the late 1990s, has been charged in neighboring Grand Traverse County with solicitation of murder, WDIV, Channel 4, reports.

Officials there said the intended hit was on attorney Chris Cooke, who successfully sued Gomery for fraud in a lawsuit brought by a $57 million lottery winner.

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The man Gomery is accused of trying to hire for $20,000 to carry out the hit, Dale Fisher, went to police, investigators said. The agreement included $1,000 paid to Fisher to buy the gone.

"I was trying to be a morally sound person and do the right thing, to do what any law-abiding citizen would do," Fisher told the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

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Grand Traverse County Sheriff Ron Bensley said Fisher likely saved Cooke’s life.

“Had he not come forward, Mr. Gomery very well may have found someone else to carry out his plan, and we’d be investigating a murder, not this incident,” said Bensley, who called the crime “bizarre” and not something that normally happens in the county, one of Michigan’s top tourist destinations.

Cooke told WDIV that he feels safe “because Dale Fisher ... had the strength and fortitude of character to go to the police about it and to come to me about it.”

Gomery is being held on $5 million bond.

Gomery, who was found guilty of fraud and malpractice and was ordered to pay $314,000 in sanctions, attorney fees and other fees related to the lawsuit, reportedly filed for bankruptcy protection in April.

Besides serving as Leelanau County prosecutor from 1997-2000, Gomery also was an assistant Grand Traverse County prosecutor from 1991-1993, and also worked for the U.S. Attorney General for a time after graduating from Michigan State University, WBPN-TV reports.



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