Matt DePerno's rapid rise in GOP politics mired in controversy, lawsuits

Kalamazoo — After 10 years working for a west Michigan law firm, Matt DePerno was expelled as a shareholder amid accusations of "padded" legal billings and "dishonesty," according to court records.

On Oct. 28, 2005, an internal memo says, two of the firm's leaders escorted DePerno to his office and took away his work cellphone and his office key.

"We told him he could come back on Monday to retrieve his personal property," concluded the memo written by lawyer Steve Hessen, a shareholder in the Kalamazoo County-based firm then named Kreis, Enderle, Callander & Hudgins.

DePerno later sued the law firm, arguing he had "rebutted any reasonable notion of improper conduct," and reached an undisclosed settlement.

Now, 17 years later, DePerno of Kalamazoo is at the forefront of the race to be the Michigan Republican Party's nominee for attorney general, the top law enforcement position in the state — a development that motivates his supporters but troubles his opponents.

His quick rise from legal controversy and political obscurity to the spotlight reveals the upheaval facing the GOP, the influence of former President Donald Trump and the power of one issue: the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

"There’s such a vacuum of people who are willing to do the right thing at the right time," said former state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, a Republican from Canton Township, of DePerno's political ascent.

"That explains it," Colbeck added. "If there were other people doing what they were supposed to be doing, he wouldn’t have risen that quickly. But he stands out because everyone else is sitting on their hands.”

Others in the Michigan GOP see the situation differently. They're concerned about DePerno's past, which they view as marked by controversy and questionable legal decisions.

“His skeletons have skeletons," state Rep. Ryan Berman, a Commerce Township Republican who's also running for attorney general, said of DePerno at a recent debate.

DePerno and Berman are competing with former state House Speaker Tom Leonard of DeWitt for the party's nomination for attorney general. Republican delegates will endorse a candidate during a convention in Grand Rapids on April 23. The winner will take on Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel as she seeks reelection.

Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party, labeled DePerno a "big lie extremist."

"He would use the office of attorney general to further his ultraconservative agenda," Barnes said. "The hard-working families of Michigan need a champion in the AG's office to protect their best interests. DePerno is not that champion. Dana Nessel is."

DePerno has been among the most vocal critics of how Michigan's election was administered in November 2020, advancing unproven claims of fraud. DePerno has argued state lawmakers should have decertified the election, subpoenaed county election records and audited the results.

Despite his claims, Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan's 2020 election by 3 percentage points or 154,000 votes over Trump. The outcome has been upheld by a series of court rulings, more than 200 audits and an investigation by the Republican-controlled state Senate Oversight Committee.

The Senate panel specifically accused DePerno of spreading "demonstrably false" information. Yet Trump endorsed DePerno for attorney general, hosted a fundraiser for him and is coming to Michigan to campaign for him on Saturday.

With Trump's heavy backing, some within the Republican Party believe DePerno is positioned to win the support of GOP delegates.

From tax law to suing government

DePerno, who rose to prominence questioning election results in Michigan, started his legal career focused on tax law.

After studying English at the University of Michigan, he got his law degree at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in 1994. Then, he earned a graduate qualification in the field of law, or a master of laws, at the New York University School of Law.

Beginning in June 1995, he practiced at the firm Kreis, Enderle, Callander & Hudgins. He eventually became a shareholder in the firm and managed its tax practice group, according to DePerno's resume.

However, his relationship with the business crumbled in 2005, a decade after he joined,circuit court records from Van Buren and Kalamazoo counties show.

An internal memo, created by the firm's controller in October 2005 and first reported by Bridge Michigan, claimed DePerno "padded" his billable hours and appeared to be "manipulating the timekeeping/billing system to maintain his quota hours on accounts that may not render payment."

"The plaintiff's conduct as a shareholder in the firm of Kreis, Enderle, Callander & Hudgins, P.C. was unacceptable," the firm's lawyers wrote later of DePerno. "He committed acts of fraud and dishonesty to his partners ..."

The controller tracked 75 hours "entered during the calendar year with no description of time," amounting to $14,950 of billed charges. On Oct. 28, 2005, the firm expelled DePerno as a shareholder and terminated his employment, according to court records.

DePerno later sued the law firm, alleging breach of contract and oppression of a minority shareholder. In his suit, DePerno said he had explained "the background of every issue identified" in the memo and "rebutted any reasonable notion of improper conduct."

In a Sept. 11, 2007, letter DePerno's lawyer, Sam Morgan, wrote that one of the firm's shareholders asserted in a filing with the Unemployment Insurance Agency that DePerno was "terminated because he 'cheated on the time and billing system in order to inflate the number of hours of his time that were billed.'"

Morgan said DePerno contended the claim was a "pretext for retaliation" and he was treated differently for conduct that "paled in comparison" with that of other shareholders.

DePerno and the firm eventually reached a settlement in the case — the terms of which were not available in court documents. But the litigation created four volumes of records at the Kalamazoo County clerk's office.

In a Saturday interview, DePerno declined to discuss what happened with Kreis, Enderle, Callander & Hudgins for this story.

The firm and Hessen declined to comment.

Defending Todd Courser

Working as a tax lawyer, DePerno was frequently involved in ligation against the government. After he launched his own law firm in 2005, he became more focused on constitutional law, an outgrowth of his past experience.

"I can't count the number of lawsuits I filed against the government," DePerno said during a speech in Lansing on Saturday.

In 2015, he got a referral from another attorney, leading to his most well-known client, former state Rep. Todd Courser, a Republican from Lapeer, DePerno said.

Courser, a conservative who, like DePerno, challenged the Michigan Republican Party's establishment, had orchestrated a scheme to cover up an affair with former Rep. Cindy Gamrat. The plot was first reported by The Detroit News.

An internal House investigation found evidence of Courser and Gamrat misusing taxpayer dollars by engaging in deception and dishonesty to maintain and cover up their affair. And there was a push in Lansing to remove the lawmakers.

"I got interested in that case because the Constitution says basically the requirements to be a House member are only two things: age and citizenship," DePerno recalled.

He said he didn't believe the House could remove a person based on "morality issues."

"If we allow the House to decide what suits their morality, that can only lead to a bad thing," DePerno said. "When do we start judging people on race, sexuality, all of those things?”

Courser eventually resigned from the House as Republican leadership pushed to expel him. The situation led to criminal charges against Courser and years of litigation with DePerno working on the former lawmaker's behalf.

Courser was sentenced to 12 months of probation and 90 hours of community service after pleading no contest in Lapeer County in 2019 to a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty by a public officer.

Courser launched a federal lawsuit against the Michigan House and several lawmakers. It was dismissed by a federal judge and the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The appeals panel said Courser's side spent "more time enumerating claims than developing arguments."

Likewise, Courser and DePerno agreed to pay The Detroit News $20,000 in a settlement deal that concluded a nearly three-year defamation lawsuit they launched against the publication for its reporting on the former lawmaker's actions.

Antrim County controversy

A referral also pushed DePerno center stage in the fight over the integrity of the November 2020 election, which eventually helped launched his campaign for attorney general.

After the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential vote, DePerno said he received a call from William Bailey, a resident of Antrim County, a Republican stronghold in northern Michigan. Bailey eventually became the plaintiff in a high-profile lawsuit to challenge the results there. 

DePerno said he believed it was Colbeck, the former state senator, who referred Bailey to him, but Colbeck said conservative radio host "Trucker" Randy Bishop helped make the connection. Bishop declined to explain how he knew DePerno.

The initial tallies in the Republican stronghold of Antrim County had Biden winning by 3,260 votes with 62% of the overall total to Trump's 36%.

After realizing there were problems with the numbers, Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy's office canvassed the election results and reported official numbers. Guy's office sent the official numbers to the Bureau of Elections at 6:35 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2020. Trump had actually won the county by 3,788 votes, 61%-37%, a 7,048-vote swing from the unofficial results.

The problematic initial numbers were caused by human errors: Election workers' failure to update equipment after additions to the ballot. The numbers became jumbled during the communication of the unofficial results to the county's election management system.

The changing tallies led to a wave of concerns and conspiracy theories about what had happened.

DePerno and his supporters have claimed, without evidence, the problems were because of the technology itself. They've suggested fraud and hacking. They've raised concerns about Dominion Voting Systems, the equipment used in Antrim County. The business' equipment is used in 28 states.

In one court filing, DePerno wrote there was a "strong presumption of ballot stuffing." And he's claimed that what happened in Antrim County was a sign of larger problems across the nation.

Experts discovered the Dominion machines were created "purposely and intentionally to generate errors," DePerno said in one interview.

"And those errors lead to voting fraud," he claimed.

Trump and his backers highlighted DePerno's work in Antrim County as they sought to undermine their loss in the 2020 election, and DePerno became a star in conservative media circles.

"Super lawyer Matthew DePerno is running for attorney general in the great state of Michigan," Trump said when he endorsed DePerno for attorney general in September. "He has defended the Constitution for 20 years, and has been on the front lines pursuing fair and accurate elections, as he relentlessly fights to reveal the truth about the Nov. 3rd presidential election scam."

In May 2021, a local judge blocked DePerno's push for an "independent and nonpartisan forensic audit" in Antrim County. And the GOP-controlled Michigan Senate Oversight Committee accused him of spreading "misleading information and illogical conclusions."

DePerno's insinuations about tabulators being hacked because the machines in Antrim County had modems or wireless chips installed were "indisputably false," the committee found.

"Antrim County did not utilize modems or any internet or wireless network to transmit voting results ever," said the Senate committee report, which mentioned DePerno eight times. "This incredibly conclusive fact, along with the hand recount of the ballots, serve as the irrefutable bulwarks against all allegations."

DePerno countered that the Senate committee's report was an effort to "cover up" election fraud.

What comes next

When the Senate Oversight Committee released its report on June 23, the panel recommended that Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel investigate individuals who've pushed false claims about the 2020 election to raise money or publicity for themselves.

The report didn't specifically name DePerno or anyone else as those who should be investigated. But as he worked on the 2020 election, his law office's website linked to a fundraising page that brought in nearly $400,000.

One of DePerno's convention opponents, Leonard, has called on him to detail what happened with the money.

DePerno previously accused the Senate Republicans of "using the mantle of government to proactively intimidate anyone from speaking out about election fraud."

Nessel agreed to investigate in July with media reports confirming the probe on July 8. Seven days later, DePerno launched his bid to challenge Nessel in 2022. During an interview with WDET, Nessel said DePerno was trying to create "what he perceives to be, I think, a conflict of interest to try to get us to stop an investigation."

But last Saturday, DePerno maintained that was not the case.

His experience unsuccessfully attempting to get GOP lawmakers to do something about what he says happened in Antrim County spurred his campaign, he said.

“I figured if I wasn’t going to effectuate change that way, I’d run for office," DePerno said.

DePerno last ran for office about two decades ago when he unsuccessfully sought a position on the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners.

But Trump's endorsement and his record of taking on controversial cases have helped boost his campaign for attorney general, said Jon Smith, secretary of the Hillsdale County Republican Party.

"I trust the process," Smith said. "Any candidate who is Trump endorsed, I’m good with."

On March 14, Meshawn Maddock, co-chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, also endorsed DePerno. She said the GOP needs a "fighter" to take on Nessel this fall.

cmauger@detroitnews.com

Staff Writer Beth LeBlanc contributed.