Bill Laitner

Detroit Free Press

A Wyandotte-based charity called Firefighters Support Services and its telemarketing contractor in Southfield used “misleading, deceptive or false statements” to raise $4.2 million from donors, of which only small amounts went to worthy causes, state investigators said Wednesday.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced that his office issued a cease and desist order, effectively shutting down the charity and blocking its telemarketer, Associated Community Services, from making more calls on its behalf.

Firefighters Support Services had contracted with the call center to make thousands of phone calls nationwide, in which the phone operators claimed that donations would “help firefighters get better equipment” as well as aid “families that have been burned out of their homes,” according to Schuette's office.

Not only did the charity give little to worthy causes, "but some telemarketers, such as Associated Community Services in the present case, keep 85% or more of each donation," Schuette said in a news release.

The release said donors should give directly to charities rather than through telemarketers and that donors should know about the charities they are helping by doing online research.

2 bogus cancer charities to dissolve in FTC settlement

Archive: Telemarketing firm takes chunk out of charity donations

The charity could identify only three grants totaling $5,586 “to individuals — not families — for the purpose of fire loss relief,” according to a news release from Schuette’s office. “These grants represent 1/10th of 1% of the $4.2 million raised during this period.” Firefighters Support Services “is another example of a sympathetic cause — firefighters and those losing their homes from fire — being exploited by scammers,” Schuette said in a statement.

And the charity admitted to state investigators that the only "equipment" that it provided to firehouses were blankets, which the charity valued at nearly $21 apiece. Yet, the blankets had been purchased by American taxpayers through a federal program to aid the homeless at $4.97 per blanket, according to the cease and desist order.

Firefighters Support Services has offices inside a former Wyandotte fire station at 2011 Oak St. The state’s legal order lists the charity’s resident agent as Matthew Cahillane, 58, of Riverview, who is shown as founder and president of a firm in Southgate called Expedient Medstaff that provides nurses to hospitals nationwide. An employee at the firm Wednesday said Cahillane was not available to comment about Firefighters Support Services.

The telemarketer in Southfield, Associated Community Services, described as one of the largest telemarketers in the country in a March investigation of charity soliciting by the Federal Trade Commission, provided this statement Wednesday in response to Free Press inquiries:

"Associated Community Services (ACS) is aware of the Michigan Attorney General's allegations against Firefighters Support Services and is cooperating fully with the current investigation. ACS is strongly committed to compliance and ethical standards while also taking very seriously its responsibility to assist nonprofits in their respective missions of helping others. As this is a pending legal matter, we are not able to comment on the specifics of the claims made by the Attorney General at this time."

The state's legal action is not a criminal proceeding, but it alleges violations of state laws governing charities in virtually every one of more than 2 million calls by the charity's contractor. The order says that the Attorney General's Office plans to file a civil lawsuit seeking refunds for donors and civil fines of up to $10,000 "per violation for every one of Firefighters Support Services' more than two million violations," the news release from Schuette's office said.

As for the Wyandotte fire station, the city sold the old fire hall to a developer, who leases it as office space, and "I think it's just a coincidence that you have that charity in there," Wyandotte City Admininistrator Todd Drysdale said Wednesday.

"Our fire department has their own charitable organization, and we have no affiliation whatsoever" with Firefighters Support Services, Drysdale said.

Contact Bill Laitner: 313-223-04485 or blaitner@freepress.com Staff Writer Zlati Meyer contributed to this report.