CHARLEVOIX — Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, the Republican nominee for Michigan attorney general, sent an investigator for his office about 230 miles to Charlevoix to investigate possible fraud by a contractor he hired to build him an Up North retirement home, records show, raising questions about Lloyd mixing his public and private roles.
A 2023 visit to the Charlevoix County Sheriff's Office by James Maltby, a contracted investigator for Lloyd's office, prompted the Charlevoix sheriff to pursue a criminal investigation into whether Lloyd and his wife were ripped off by a builder they hired to construct their "dream retirement home" near Boyne City, according to records the Detroit Free Press obtained under Michigan's Freedom of Information
Act.
But the investigation did not result in charges after detectives learned "there was no contract for the project" between the Lloyds and Lansing-area builder Simon Zeineh, and not even a verbal agreement about how Zeineh should be reimbursed for certain expenses, according to sheriff's office records released through FOIA.
The saga over Lloyd's retirement home, which involved extensive civil litigation in two counties that didn't conclude until 2025, raises questions about Lloyd's use of his public office for private purposes. It also raises questions about Lloyd's judgment and situational awareness, as an attorney who oversees Eaton County's economic crimes unit, in commissioning a significant building project without a written contract and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a contractor his own office had previously charged with a financial crime.
Lloyd and his wife Angela, who is also an attorney, said in affidavits filed in Charlevoix County Circuit Court that they hired Simon Zeineh in September 2020 based on their then trust and close friendship with his brother, Lansing attorney Edwar Zeineh, but that neither was aware of Simon Zeineh's background.
Yet, information provided in response to a FOIA request shows that Lloyd's office handled complaints involving Simon Zeineh in 2012, 2016, and again in 2018 — all related to Zeineh allegedly writing bad checks. In the 2018 case, Simon Zeineh was criminally charged in Eaton County, but the case was dismissed after Zeineh successfully completed a diversion program, Eaton County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Anderson said in an Aug. 26 email.
"Mistakes were made, but ... it provides me better empathy for victims and understanding," Lloyd said during a July 24 interview with the Free Press.
But after the Free Press obtained records related to the dispute with Zeineh and asked about the involvement of Maltby — a former Eaton County sheriff's detective — in getting a criminal investigation opened, Lloyd refused, through a campaign spokesman, repeated requests to discuss the issue further.
Instead, Lloyd, who has been Eaton County prosecutor since 2013, provided a Sept. 18 statement in response to written questions the Free Press emailed Sept. 17.
In his written statement, Lloyd said he knew Simon Zeineh held a residential builder's license but was unaware of his previous history in Eaton County. Maltby was a friend who volunteered to deliver a box of records about the construction project to the Charlevoix sheriff, Lloyd said.
But a five-page narrative prepared by a Charlevoix County detective and released by the sheriff's office describes Maltby as an "investigator for the Eaton County Prosecutor's Office" who made two trips to Charlevoix related to Lloyd's home construction project:
The first was on July 3, 2023, when "Maltby requested the meeting in regards to an investigation that he had begun in regards to a Contractor/Building Fraud," the report says. Maltby told the detective that Maltby and his wife were "his employers," records show.
The second meeting with a Charlevoix County detective was about four weeks later, on July 31, when Maltby brought records to the sheriff's office related to the case, records show.
Lloyd said in his written statement that Maltby was never an employee of his office but was hired as an independent contractor on an hourly basis to help clear a case backlog following the COVID-19 epidemic.
Records released in response to a FOIA request show Lloyd's office paid Maltby $37,105 during the 2023 calendar year for work he performed related to various cases — none involving Zeineh. Those payments to Maltby included $13,489 for work performed between April 10 and July 28, when other records show Maltby was working on matters related to Zeineh.
In a Dec. 11, 2023 affidavit in one of the civil lawsuits involving the Lloyds, Maltby said he "assisted" what was then the Ann Arbor law firm representing Lloyd and his wife, McManus and Amadeo, with "the review of documents/records, gathering of information and conducting interviews" related to the construction dispute.
Maltby's affidavit describes work he did to assist the law firm in April, May and July of 2023. The affidavit identifies at least one more trip Up North by Maltby, who said he conducted an April 29 site visit to a Simon Zeineh subcontractor located in Ellsworth, a village in Antrim County.
Records show Maltby billed the prosecutor's office for four hours work on a 2018 case on Dec. 11, 2023 — the same day he swore the affidavit.
But in the affidavit, Maltby makes no mention of working as a contractor for the prosecutor's office. The Charlevoix police report makes no mention of him saying he was assisting a law firm. Neither document makes reference to Maltby acting as a friend and volunteer.
Attorney Matthew McManus, who represented the Lloyds in the civil litigation and has since started his own law firm in Milford, said in a Sept. 21 email that his former firm paid Maltby for general litigation and trial support work related to the lawsuits.
Maltby described himself as "a retired detective" in the affidavit, but records the Free Press obtained through FOIA show Maltby resigned from the Eaton County Sheriff's Office in 2019 after he was moved from detective back to uniformed road patrol, which records show is considered a lateral move at a reduced pay grade.
Maltby could not be reached for comment and Eaton County Sheriff Tom Reich did not respond to a Sept. 18 email asking him to elaborate on the circumstances around Maltby's departure.
The county initially claimed Maltby's personnel records no longer exist under the county's records retention schedule. Only after the Free Press appealed the denial and pointed to state law requiring law enforcement records to be preserved, were the records released.
The lawsuits in Eaton and Charlevoix counties, which were ultimately dismissed with no judgments or costs awarded to any of the parties, involved a raft of claims and counterclaims involving the Lloyds; Simon Zeineh; Simon Zeineh's company, Zynco Investments, LLC; Edwar Zeineh; and Edwar Zeineh's company, Unit 2530 LLC, which purchased an East Jordan condo from the Lloyds in April 2022 with a provision that he couldn't take possession until the Lloyds got an occupancy permit for the new home near Boyne City.
The Lloyds' allegations against the builder included lack of progress, substandard workmanship, construction defects, lack of communication and fraud.
After the couple ordered Simon Zeineh off their property in October 2022, Doug Lloyd said in a May 15, 2023 affidavit they had spent more than $1.4 million on the project, with about $678,000 paid directly to Simon Zeineh, and they were continuing to spend more to complete the work with other contractors.
Simon Zeineh denies any fraudulent conduct and said in court filings and in a Sept. 14 interview that soil conditions on the site complicated the construction and increased the cost. The COVID-19 pandemic roughly doubled the cost of materials and delayed deliveries, and the Lloyds requested higher-end materials and construction features than he initially thought were required, he said.
Simon Zeineh, an Eaton County resident, said the complaints about bad checks referenced by the prosecutor's office related to one or more of his businesses and not to checks he wrote personally.
"I tell you I won't not have a contract ever again," Simon Zeineh told the Free Press. He alleges he lost more than $500,000 on the job, which included demolishing the existing building on the site.
Lloyd "built up quite a balance with me and then, didn't want to pay the rest," he said.
Simon Zeineh said it was a conflict of interest for an investigator with Lloyds' office to visit the Charlevoix sheriff about the case.
"How can someone who did that be attorney general?" Simon Zeineh asked. The project and the ensuing litigation "wasted so much of my time," he said. "I lost a lot of money on that job with him. The anger is buried, but it's there."
In his written statement, Lloyd did not directly answer whether he thought his handling of the dispute raised questions about conflict of interest and his judgment.
Lloyd said in the July interview that a decision on whether to criminally charge Simon Zeineh has been sitting in the Michigan Attorney General's Office for more than two years.
Danny Wimmer, a spokesman for Attorney General Dana Nessel, said in a Sept. 21 email a complaint from Lloyd was referred to the Michigan State Police and "remains under review."
In his statement, Lloyd said his and his wife's "lives have changed because of this frustrating ordeal," and "if it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone."
Lloyd said: "I am going to fight to protect consumers in Michigan so no family has to go through what mine has gone through."
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Doug Lloyd used Eaton investigator in fight over his $1M Up North home
