TRAVERSE CITY -- A Grand Traverse County judge used nearly $70,000 in public money to settle a threatened lawsuit that could have exposed his personal relationship with a woman who worked for him.
Probate Judge David L. Stowe last year spent court funds he controlled to head off a possible whistleblower suit by Michael Stein, former top administrator for the 13th Circuit Court's Family Division.
Stowe fired Stein in March 2007 after learning the State Court Administrator's Office closed a probe of alleged impropriety between the judge and Cynthia Marie Curry, a former family court employee who worked under Stowe from 2002 to 2005.
The state's investigation was based on a complaint Stein filed with Grand Traverse County officials in January 2007, when he alleged irregularities in thousands of dollars worth of financial contracts between Stowe's court and Curry and her new employer.
County officials forwarded Stein's complaint to the State Court Administrator's Office, an agency that investigates alleged wrongdoing in court operations.
When the state ended its review, Stowe fired Stein, a lawyer and former assistant prosecutor in Grand Traverse County. Stein responded by threatening a lawsuit under the Whistleblower Protection Act, a federal law that prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who expose alleged wrongdoing.
In June 2007, the county averted a lawsuit and paid Stein $68,833. He also was provided a positive recommendation, according to county documents obtained by the Record-Eagle under the state Freedom of Information Act and through the circuit court.
Terms of the agreement show both Stein and Stowe agreed not to allege either party acted "inappropriately" prior to June 6, 2007. Stein said a confidentiality clause prevented him from commenting on the settlement.
Relationship alleged
A Record-Eagle investigation into the Stowe-Stein settlement uncovered an intimate relationship between Stowe, 56, and Curry, 46, that allegedly began late in 2002.
Stowe won election to the Probate Court in November 2000 in an uncontested race. He met Cynthia Curry in 2001, when Stowe presided over her divorce from Ronald Curry. The divorce was finalized in early 2002.
By April 2002, Cynthia Curry had a job working as a juvenile probation officer in Stowe's court.
Stowe continued to supervise child custody matters stemming from Cynthia Curry's divorce after she took the probation officer position, even after they began their personal relationship, according to court documents and interviews.
Stowe refused repeated requests from the Record-Eagle to discuss his relationship with Curry, including when it began.
"If you just speak to knowledgeable people in the community you could easily be dissuaded from disparaging our court," he said in his lone on-the-record statement to the Record-Eagle.
Public exposure of Stowe's alleged relationship with Curry while she worked for him could prove troubling for the judge, a legal expert said.
"If the judge made any rulings on the divorce case after the relationship began, that could lead to a challenge to those rulings and perhaps even an investigation by the Judicial Tenure Commission if a complaint is filed," said Peter J. Henning, professor of law at Wayne State University.
Henning said Stowe also might have been required to disqualify himself from some, but not necessarily all, cases in which Curry was involved as a juvenile probation officer, depending on the case.
Judge Thomas Power, who served as chief judge of the 13th Circuit Court when Stein made his complaint, took over the Curry child custody file in February 2006, shortly after Stowe recused himself from the case without explanation.
Power said he did not know why Stowe disqualified himself from the case, nor why Stowe didn't disqualify himself earlier, when he hired Cynthia Curry.
"If it's someone the judge works with routinely, we've had that come up before and we've disqualified ourselves," Power said. "It doesn't look right."
Power declined to comment on Stowe's alleged relationship with Curry because, "I personally don't have any direct knowledge of the facts."
Power reviewed the Curry divorce file and said Stowe's decisions after 2002 all were pro forma decisions. Some of the signatures were stamps, and others were his signature on an order made by a referee.
"There are hundreds of these standing orders that come through every month," Power said. "It is credible he might have signed these without knowing it was Cindy Curry's case. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt."
Friendly terms
Cynthia Curry's ex-husband, Ronald Curry, contends he knows why Stowe suddenly recused himself from their custody case.
Curry said he informed county Friend of the Court caseworker Alan Crocker of a relationship between his ex-wife and Stowe in late 2005. Crocker said he is not allowed to comment about individual cases.
Ronald Curry said he remained on friendly terms with his ex-wife and he occasionally did household repairs for her after the divorce. He said he and Cynthia were watching television at her home on one occasion in mid-2002 when Stowe called and asked how she was getting along.
Ronald Curry contends his ex-wife and Stowe began dating by late 2002. He says he never saw the two together, but Cynthia Curry acknowledged seeing Stowe, Curry said.
Early in 2003, Ronald Curry was called before the court for failure to pay child support to Friend of the Court. However, court documents show Ronald Curry's employer withheld child support from his check but failed to forward the money to the court. The employer was fined $100 and ordered to pay restitution.
That year, Cynthia asked Ronald Curry to waive child visitation to her two children from a previous marriage whom he'd adopted. In exchange, he wouldn't have to make child support payments.
"She told me that she wanted David Stowe to be the father figure in their lives," Ronald Curry said.
In June 2003, Stowe filed for divorce from his wife of 19 years.
Curry changes jobs
Curry resigned her job in Stowe's office in February 2005 to become director of a new day treatment program for juveniles in the court system called STRIDES, run by Holy Cross Children's Services.
Doug Turrill, division manager for Holy Cross in Traverse City, said he'd discussed a day treatment program with the county as far back as 2000, and it was approved late in 2004.
Turrill said Curry was not involved in discussions about starting the day treatment program. However, Stein, then Stowe's administrator, recommended he consider hiring her to run it.
Holy Cross provides secure and non-secure detention services to the court and conducted $112,174 in business with the county in 2004.
The following year, with Curry running the STRIDES program, Holy Cross' revenues from Grand Traverse County's court system jumped to $251,837, more than double the previous year.
But STRIDES ran out of gas after a year. Stein said in his complaint to the county that although he helped Curry get the job, the program began to "fall apart" under her direction.
"It was apparent to all probation officers, counselors, and others associated with the program Cindy (Curry) was unable to run the program, especially in a counseling manner," Stein wrote.
Two of the people named by Stein as complaining about the program did not return calls seeking comment. Two others confirmed they expressed some concerns about the day treatment program. They were not contacted by the state Court Administrator's Office during its probe.
Turrill said the program ended after about a year due to lack of referred children and program funding.
"It was a good program, it might go again," he said. "Did we make everybody happy? No."
At the same time Cindy Curry ran the STRIDES program, Stowe entered into a separate contract with Life Lines, a company she ran. That contract paid her $60 a week to run a weight-lifting and nutrition program for girls on probation.
Esther Cooper, the Probate Court's office manager, said Curry ran the program for girls while she was a probation officer. When she left, no one was available to supervise it, so the court contracted with Curry. She was paid a total of $3,070.
Stein alleged in his complaint that Curry took a $3,000 pay cut when she moved from the county to Holy Cross. He also alleged that probation officers reported that Curry didn't show up for most of the weight-lifting appointments at a local health club.
Stein said Stowe told Cooper to "just pay her (Curry)."
Cooper said it wasn't her role to monitor the contract.
'No basis for ... further action'
On Feb. 28, 2007, James Covault of the State Court Administrator's Office in Gaylord wrote to Stein that his office had completed an investigation of Stein's "non-employment related allegations."
"This office has determined there is no basis for taking any further action," Covault wrote. "Accordingly, the file in this matter has been closed."
Covault refused to speak with the Record-Eagle.
State Supreme Court spokeswoman Marcia McBrien said the regional office did a complete investigation, but didn't look into employment-based allegations included in Stein's complaint.
"Apparently, there was a complaint about relationships between the judge and staff," McBrien said.
Cynthia Curry told the Record-Eagle in a brief conversation that she was not informed of a state investigation into her relationship with Stowe. She then declined further comment and did not respond to repeated attempts by the Record-Eagle to contact her about this story.
County documents obtained by the Record-Eagle through FOIA show Stowe told Stein he was "raked over the coals" by the State Court Administrator's Office during its investigation. But other than Stowe, no one listed as witnesses in Stein's complaint said they were contacted by the SCAO.
Stein also said in his complaint that anyone who confronted either Curry or Stowe about Curry's work didn't last long at the court.
"Dave (Stowe) and I used to be friends before all of this happened with Cindy (Curry)," he said in his complaint.
Two months later he was fired.
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