GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Fired police Lt. Matthew Janiskee appeared to coach police at the scene of a crash to avoid having to arrest former Kent County prosecutor Josh Kuiper for drunken driving, records show.

Transcripts of five calls between Janiskee and an officer and former sergeant show concerns about Kuiper being intoxicated, and how police could avoid trouble by letting him off.

"Let's pass him if we can," Janiskee, the shift commander, told an officer. "I'd like to pass him on sobriety just because."

Officer Adam Ickes responded: "All right. I'll do what I can."

MLive/The Grand Rapids Press sought five recordings of phone calls between Janiskee and Officer Adam Ickes and then-Sgt. Thomas Warwick while they investigated Kuiper's wrong-way crash.

He drove his pickup truck into a parked car, injuring a man who was retrieving a coat.

Ickes called Janiskee at the Watch Commander's desk and reported that Kuiper was "hammered."

Janiskee told him to stop talking, and to call back on a phone line designated "non-recorded."

Ickes: "His -his - his -his - he got through the alphabet, hand dexterities were okay. He said he couldn't do the one foot stand because his knees were not great. So, I skipped that one and then we did a walk and turn which wasn't awful at all. I've got two that were passable. One that wasn't good."

Janiskee: "Okay, um, how much has everybody seen there?"

Warwick:"We got him home. He's f--- up. He's f--- - he was f--- up. But (Adam) did a good job."

Warwick: "Oh. Perfect. Okay. All right, thanks. Um, so yeah, he - he's gonna get a ticket for driving the wrong way on a one way.

Janiskee: "Okay."

Warwick: "Ah, and then that's it."

Janiskee: "Had been drinking on the UD10."

Warwick: "Okay. Yep."

Janiskee: "You know, we can't lie about that."

Warwick: "No."

Ultimately, Kuiper was cited for the Nov. 19 crash but - after he underwent dexterity tests - was not asked to take a breath test for alcohol.

During one of the calls, Janiskee asked Ickes about potential witnesses.

Janiskee: "Okay, um, how much has everybody seen there?"

Ickes: "They're - they're way down tending to this other guy."

Janiskee: "Okay. Talk to - did - did - did the people say anything about yeah, he's drunk, look at him, or anything like that?

Ickes: "I - I haven't - I haven't got a chance to talk to them. Once they recognized who he was, I kind of pulled him off to the side that (unintelligible).

So, I'll go down there and kinda test those waters a little bit, too. (Tom) just pulled up, so I'll talk to him and we'll go from there."



Warwick said in another call: "So, I told (Adam), um, you know, whatever and he's like, 'Yeah, I don't smell it either. He did pretty good.' He didn't do the, ah, he just - I think he - well I don't know. All that was on the body cam so, um, and then I actually dropped him off at that house over on College and he was in the back seat with my thing down and I didn't smell it so, um, but..."

In an apparent reference to his wife, Monica Janiskee, Kent County's chief deputy prosecutor, Matthew Janiskee says he would tell her not to dig deeper when the crash report is filed and it says Kuiper had been drinking.

"I'll take care of that part," he said, according to the transcript. "She will be smart enough not to dig into it."

Police investigators later determined that the five phone calls between the officers at the scene and Janiskee were actually recorded, inadvertently.

MLive/The Grand Rapids Press sought recordings of the calls under the Freedom of Information Act but the city rejected the request because it had filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to declare that release of the recordings did not violate state or federal wiretapping laws.

Kent County Circuit Judge Joseph Rossi sided with the city during a recent hearing but was overruled by the state Court of Appeals in a decision issued Tuesday, Sept. 12. Following the appellate court, Rossi ordered the release today of the five recordings.