The highly publicized Michigan State Police investigation into an alleged extortion attempt against Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has been closed without action, according to documents obtained by the Free Press.

Days after local businessman Robert Carmack publicly aired surveillance footage which appeared to show Duggan’s movements away from the office, the mayor responded with a public showing of his own — he called a news conference to request a State Police investigation into what he considered to be threats from Carmack.

State Police immediately launched an investigation into Duggan’s extortion complaint, but have since closed the matter, according to a police report obtained through the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.

Duggan called for the investigation after hearing that Carmack would leak embarrassing information — beyond the surveillance footage — about him if the city didn’t settle two lawsuits.

The police report details interviews with city officials, including Duggan's chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, who shared with police text messages she sent and received regarding Carmack.

The police report does not say why the investigation was closed. A State Police spokeswoman would not provide a reason beyond saying it is closed pending any new developments.

Carmack, who was charged in December with four felonies in an unrelated fraud case, maintains he did not extort Duggan and said he plans to file a complaint against the mayor for filing a false police report.

“It’s a fabricated story that they put together,” Carmack said on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Duggan said the mayor is appreciative of the investigators’ time and effort.

“The mayor was highly impressed with the professionalism displayed by the Michigan State Police investigators handling this case,” Duggan spokesman John Roach said in an email.

Read more:

Meet Robert Carmack, the guy agitating Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan

Mike Duggan secretly followed. Then video aired at city hall

Carmack’s animosity toward Duggan goes back years and stems from the Duggan administration’s unwillingness to sell him property at the Revere Copper and Brass site on the city’s west riverfront.

In November, Carmack made headlines for launching an operation he said he funded for about $20,000, that included surveillance video of Duggan broadcast on two giant video monitors affixed to the back of a truck parked outside city hall during evening rush hour.

The truck drove around the government office center, exposing the video to city employees and downtown visitors. The 15-minute video identified a woman who was seen on several occasions arriving at the same locations as the mayor and implied Carmack's allegations of an extramarital affair, although nothing in the video provided documentation of those allegations.

Carmack aired the surveillance footage in an attempt to pressure Duggan to appear for a deposition in a lawsuit the city filed to evict Carmack from his collision shop in southwest Detroit. The footage appeared to show Duggan visiting a woman’s house after hours.

State Police investigators talked to Duggan about the surveillance video and Carmack.

Carmack is embroiled in a handful of lawsuits involving the city and is the government's key witness in the federal bribery case against Detroit City Councilman Gabe Leland.

Duggan told police that the city’s top attorney, Lawrence Garcia, reached out to him in early November about something Carmack told Garcia while discussing a property dispute. “You better make me happy or I’m going to drop a bomb,” Garcia recalled Carmack saying, according to the police report.

Garcia didn’t know what Carmack was talking about until the surveillance footage of Duggan was aired.

Garcia told police it was apparent that Carmack intended to rattle the mayor but he “didn’t know if it was necessarily extortion.”

Carmack denies making the comment. “I never said I’d drop a bomb of any sort on this guy,” he said.

The Duggan surveillance footage prompted Wiley to reach out to a mutual friend she shares with Carmack. The friend’s name is redacted from the police report.

Wiley showed police her text messages with the friend. In the messages, Wiley asked whether Carmack had more tape to release. The mutual friend’s exact response to Wiley is unclear because a portion of the reply was redacted under an exemption to the state’s public records law that shields information that would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

“He says he has much more,” the friend texted Wiley. “I’m trying to stop him but he says he is releasing the (redacted) next Wednesday. I haven’t seen it, don’t know if it’s real.”

Wiley responded, according to the report, “Tell him to do what he needs to do.”

Carmack held his own news conference at his collision shop two days after Duggan called for the State Police investigation. Anticipation was high that Carmack would disclose more information he collected about the mayor. But Carmack’s presentation instead focused on his failed riverfront development efforts.

Joe Guillen is a reporter on the Free Press Investigations Team. He has been covering city governance and development issues for the newspaper since 2013. Contact him at 313-222-6678 or jguillen@freepress.com.

To read more about Carmack go to www.freep.com/news/investigations/