Tony Saunders helped Wayne County avoid bankruptcy. Now he's trying to avoid jail. (2024)

Tony Saunders was once considered a financial wiz who helped Wayne County avoid bankruptcy. Now he's trying to avoid jail after he was charged for a second time this year with beating his wife.

The Tony Saunders saga just keeps getting worse, with his latest criminal charge yielding new revelations about the former Wayne County CFO's problems with women.

Your first clue things are headed in the wrong direction for Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' former right-hand man was my use of the phrase "latest criminal charge" in the first paragraph.

Saunders, whose lucrative contract with Wayne County was terminated shortly after I reported in February that he had been charged with beating his wife, was back in court Wednesday on a new charge of beating his soon-to-be ex-wife in June. The charging documents contained the revelation that Saunders was convicted of domestic violence about 20 years ago.

A little digging revealed Saunders' now-estranged wife filed for divorce in May, and in late June obtained a personal protection order against Saunders. In her application for the protective order, she accused Saunders of hitting her so hard last October that she needed stitches. Her application included shocking new details about the assault Saunders allegedly waged on her in January that led to the criminal case I exposed in February. It also provided gory details about an incident last month in Troy that prompted police to arrest Saunders on charges of domestic violence for the second time in six months.

The details were both awful and absurd. Saunders' wife, who I am not identifying because the Free Press generally does not name people who may be victims of domestic violence, wrote that on June 23 Saunders threatened to kill her and, when he failed to find a knife in the kitchen to do the deed, stalked off with a pair of metal tongs and threatened to kill himself before declaring "I just need my shoes."

I don't mention these items to make light of domestic violence. There is nothing funny about abuse of any kind, especially when the victim fears for their life. But the allegations, if true, suggest that Saunders is unhinged and a potential danger to himself and others.

It's important to remember the charges against Saunders are just allegations at this point, and a judge or jury will determine whether he is guilty. Still, Saunders' failure to steer clear of his estranged wife after a judge ordered him to stay away calls his judgment into question. And if half of what his soon-to-be ex has accused him of is true, she and her young daughter have reason to be afraid.

Court records, along with photos included in the files, suggest the Tony Saunders who Wayne County paid hundreds of thousands of your tax dollars as a contractor after he left his county job has demons he kept hidden while doing deals with Dan Gilbert and others after helping the county avoid bankruptcy while serving as its chief financial officer from 2015 to 2017.

A timeline of terror

On March 30, 2004, Saunders either committed domestic violence or was convicted of committing domestic violence.

It's hard to say exactly what happened because a check of court and police records in Michigan don't mention the case. I only know of it because an Oakland County prosecutor referenced the matter while charging Saunders with assaulting his wife on June 23. The charging document says that because Saunders was previously convicted he will be "subject to an enhanced sentence" if convicted of the most recent domestic violence charges.

Because Saunders was 18 at the time, it's possible information about the case was suppressed under the terms of the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, which allows young people convicted of a crime to keep the matter off their record if they stay out of trouble. Saunders' attorney, Todd Perkins, declined to discuss the case or comment on Saunders' latest legal problems.

Michigan State Police records available online show no criminal charges against Saunders until 2024.

His estranged wife alleges her problems with Saunders began after they married in November 2022. She wrote in a June 24 application for a personal protection order (PPO) that on Oct. 18, 2023, around 4 p.m., she and Saunders began arguing while she drove him to get his car where he had left it after going drinking the night before. She wrote that after he refused to give her his phone, "he then punched/slapped me in the face, my eyeglasses went flying, and my eyeglasses lacerated my forehead and side of my nose."

She said he asked her to call their marriage counselors, who met them at their house later that day.

"The counselors said the cut on my forehead looked really bad, and that I needed to go to the hospital," she wrote. "The next morning, I went to Beaumont Grosse Pointe Emergency Room, and they gave me five stitches on my forehead."

Her PPO application includes grisly photos that appear to show the aftermath of that encounter.

The next alleged assault is the one I wrote about in February. It occurred on Jan. 10, when Saunders' wife said she was cooking dinner when he came home and they argued over one of her previous relationships. While her young daughter slept elsewhere in the house, she said Saunders punched her repeatedly, slammed her head on the ground, choked her and spat on her.

She wrote: "During this altercation, my daughter started knocking on the door. Tony then yelled at me not to get up, he went to the door, and told my daughter that I would be right out. Tony came back towards me, and I begged him if my daughter and I could please leave. He said no, I am going to kill you, me" and her daughter.

Detroit police arrested Saunders, who pleaded not guilty to the charges. A district court judge in Detroit ordered Saunders to avoid contact with his wife "directly or indirectly."

Saunders' wife filed for divorce on May 7. And other than some legal jockeying over whether he fully disclosed all of his assets before they signed their prenup, things seemed to have cooled down by late June, when Saunders' wife let him borrow her car while she was away on a religious retreat.

If what she said happened next is true, that was a big mistake.

A new case in a new court

According to the PPO application Saunders' wife filed, Saunders could not find her car. So he picked her up in an Uber on June 23.

"I could tell by his mannerisms he was under the influence of alcohol," she wrote. "He fell asleep on the couch, and I went through his phone. Then I accused him of cheating, consuming alcohol and not taking his mental health medication."

She said Saunders "became enraged" and attacked her, punching and choking her. As they fought in her bedroom, knocking over furniture, she tried to stop him by grabbing him in a very tender area. The fight moved into the living room, then back to the bedroom. She wrote that he banged her head into a wall in a hallway, leaving a hole in the drywall. The hallway is where she told Saunders to call his attorney because she was going to call 911.

"Then he said, 'Okay, I am going to kill you,'" she wrote, adding that he went to the kitchen in search of a knife.

"I had to fight him to prevent him from opening the knife drawers," she wrote. "Because he could not grab the knives, he grabbed a pair of metal tongs to kill himself. He had the tongs in his hands and said, 'I just need my shoes.' "

After forcing Saunders out of the house, his wife called police. Perhaps the only reason Saunders didn't end up in the pokey for violating the "no contact" order is because his wife willingly interacted with him by lending him her car. He ended up with a tether on his ankle and, as of Tuesday, a new domestic violence charge in a new jurisdiction.

Troy District Court Magistrate Elizabeth Chiappelli entered a not guilty plea on Saunders' behalf and set a personal recognizance bond of $5,000, which means Saunders didn't have to put any money down to avoid time in stir, but if he lams he'll owe the court five grand.

When I first wrote about Saunders' plight, I mentioned that domestic violence cases sometimes fall apart because the alleged victim decides not to cooperate with police and prosecutors.

I have no idea what's going to happen next in this crazy case of a former high-ranking public official and high-flying business leader who seems to be wrestling with demons, as well as his wife.

This much I'm sure of now: Saunders' wife, and the charges against him, aren't going away.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of theML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him atmlelrick@freepress.comor follow him on X at@elrick,Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick.