Mayoral candidate twice charged with embezzlement

Brian Sweebe, co-owner of the Retro Room downtown and candidate for mayor in Wayland, has pleaded guilty to two separate past misdemeanor embezzlement charges.

Karen Turko-Ebright, in a story published by the Penasee Globe, reported that Michigan State Police conducted a background check that indicated Sweebe, 49,  pleaded guilty in 2011 to a misdemeanor embezzlement count of stealing funds from the bank account of the Cherry-T Ball Drop, a Traverse City New Year’s party he helped organize for two years.

Sweebe also was arrested in 1999 by Traverse City Police on one count of felony embezzlement and pleaded guilty Sept. 22, 1999, in 86th District Court in Traverse City to misdemeanor embezzlement of $200 or more but less than $1,000.

Sweebe, who is challenging incumbent Mayor Tim Bala in the Nov. 6 general election, has been a member of the Wayland Downtown Development Authority for three years, and has been chairman of the Wayland Economic Restructuring Committee for two years.

The Globe article reported he originally was charged him with a felony count of embezzlement of more than $1,000 but less than $20,000 after he told Traverse City police he made unauthorized withdrawals from the event’s bank account for his personal benefit. He later repaid $4,100 in restitution and pleaded guilty to the lower misdemeanor charge.

Sweebe told the Globe, “It (a Traverse City Record-Eagle article in 2011) said that I embezzled $10,000 from charity. It was not $10,000 and it was not a charity. This was an event that I put together with a couple of people for the goodness of the whole community,” Sweebe said. “It raised over millions of dollars in revenue to the city and also brought in tens of thousands of pounds of food for the community, which was the intent.”

Sweebe said the felony embezzlement charges were dropped and the money he used was from sponsorships to help put toward the expense of putting the show on — such as portable toilets, the crane used to drop the ball, the band that was hired, and generators.

“I did pay it back,” he said. “It was less than $200. The committee didn’t press the charges, the state did because they thought it was a charity. We were not a 501c yet at that time.

“I wouldn’t put my neck out there to run for mayor if I was concerned about my past being brought back up. If I thought my past was going to jeopardize my running to make great things happen as mayor of Wayland, I wouldn’t have done this.”