On July 16, 2020, at her home in Ann Arbor, former City Councilmember Elizabeth Nelson, D-Ward 4, had an unexpected phone call. On the other end was Heidi Poscher, sustainable technology advisor at a local development company, 4M. City Council had just proposed an ordinance to restrict the number of short-term rental properties permitted in residential areas — a step taken to address Ann Arbor’s worsening housing crisis.
According to Nelson, Poscher said the ordinance proposal would jeopardize 4M’s short-term rental properties in Ward 4. Nelson then alleged Poscher attempted to convince her that 4M’s pre-existing short-term rental properties should be permitted to continue to operate regardless of the new restrictions. As a sitting City Councilmember at the time, Nelson was a key player in that decision.
“She got really desperate,” Nelson said in an interview with The Michigan Daily. “She was just like, ‘If you could help me with this, I would make it up to you. I don’t mean a bribe, but I just really need your help.’”
In December 2020, Elizabeth Nelson published a blog post detailing her account of the phone call with an unnamed developer, which Nelson later confirmed to The Daily was Poscher.
“In my two years on Council, I have had many conversations with people who hope to see me vote in support of something, people who have a lot at stake that depends on my vote,” Nelson wrote. “Until recently, none of those conversations have ever referenced personal benefit or favors to me.”
Nelson’s public allegations drew the attention of the FBI — within weeks, two agents showed up at her door. City Councilmember Kathy Griswold, D-Ward 2, and Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor told The Daily they also spoke with the FBI regarding this blog post.
Upon notification of the FBI’s involvement, The Daily began an in-depth investigation into Poscher’s criminal history. Hundreds of pages of court records reviewed by The Daily show that Poscher has been convicted of three felonies, all of which were related to financial crimes.
Poscher has recently established a political presence as one of the biggest individual campaign donors in the Ann Arbor political landscape, donating thousands of dollars to local elections.
Taylor told The Daily that, upon learning about Poscher’s criminal history, he took the money Poscher donated to his political action committee, Ann Arbor for Everyone, and regifted it to the Jim Toy Community Center.
“After learning her personal history, I chose to make that contribution from the PAC,” Taylor said.
“It is totally irresponsible for the Daily to consider repeating false and baseless claims based on lies and hearsay and not one shred of evidence,” Poscher wrote in an email.
Poscher and Siegal did not respond to The Daily’s questions about whether the FBI had, at any point, contacted Poscher.
The Daily reached out to Poscher for comment and received a response from her and her legal counsel, Arthur Siegal. In Poscher’s response, she wrote that the allegations Nelson made in her blog post are without merit.
The Daily also asked Poscher whether she expected favors from political candidates in return for her individual campaign donations.
“Any attempt to cast these legal contributions as something improper is irresponsible and untrue,” Poscher wrote.
‘You knew that it was for a purpose not allowed under the RUS program?’
Poscher, an Ann Arbor native and alum of the University of Michigan, has operated under at least four different surnames throughout her life according to profiles on MCommunity, LinkedIn and dozens of court documents obtained by The Daily.
Under the surnames Ditchendorf and Laughery, Poscher was convicted of three felonies for federal crimes, according to court records reviewed by The Daily.
In 1987, Poscher (Ditchendorf at the time) was convicted on two felony counts of wire fraud for misappropriating approximately $133,000 from client accounts while working as a representative at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. in San Francisco.
In 1988, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an industry bar against Poscher as a result of her conviction, permanently preventing her from working with all firms dealing with brokerage, investment advising or municipal securities dealings — effectively terminating her career in the securities industry. According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s General Principles Applicable to All Sanction Determinations, out of all punishments instituted by regulatory security groups (the SEC and FINRA), an industry bar is one of the most severe repercussions an individual can face.
Then, in 2001, Poscher (Laughery at the time) began a new business venture, stepping into the roles of president and chief executive officer of Sequelle Communications Alliance Inc., a broadband internet company located in West Virginia.
Eight years later, Poscher was named in a 12-count federal grand jury indictment and was convicted on count eight, conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment came after Poscher was paid through “an improper use” of Rural Utilities Service funds.
The Daily has obtained a copy of the indictment and the transcript from the plea hearing. Judge Robert C. Chambers of the United States District Court in Huntington, West Virginia presided over the case.
The Daily reached out to Chambers for comment. His office responded, saying he does not comment on previous cases.
When asked if she was aware that the federal Rural Utilities Service funds Sequelle Communications Alliances Inc. received were being “misrepresented” in order to pay her, Poscher confirmed.
“And so however they were invoicing this money to draw it down, you knew that it was for a purpose not allowed under the RUS program?” Chambers asked, according to the transcript of the plea hearing.
“That’s absolutely right,” Poscher said.
‘I find it very hard to believe that anyone approached you with a bribe’
Poscher and her wife, Margaret Poscher, began investing in Ann Arbor properties in 2012, and Poscher suggested the pair acquire real estate as a retirement investment, according to an article by the Ann Arbor Observer.
At the same time the Poschers were accumulating short-term rental properties — they currently advertise more than 25 rental options on their website — City Council was seeking to limit them. The city had been grappling with how to keep real estate a profitable venture in Ann Arbor while also rectifying the increasingly severe Ann Arbor housing crisis; limiting the number of short-term rentals helped achieve this goal.
The Daily spoke with Peter Eckstein, longtime Ann Arbor resident and career public policy expert, who shared his concerns about the impact that the rapid development of short-term rentals has on students.
“A college student wants to come and rent an apartment or a room for a school year or the whole calendar year,” Eckstein said. “And if instead that facility, that apartment, is being rented out on a weekly basis, daily basis … It’s taking away a unit that could be used for student housing.”
On July 20, 2020, City Council held the first reading of the proposed ordinance which sought to limit the number of short-term rentals permitted in residential areas and to require owners of short-term rentals to obtain a license to operate.
Nelson said when Poscher called her four days before the City Council meeting, Poscher explained how the proposed ordinance would negatively impact her short-term rental properties. That’s when Nelson alleges that Poscher attempted to influence her to create a loophole for Poscher’s Henry Street properties.
In an interview with The Daily, Elizabeth Nelson’s husband, Peter Nelson, said he and his wife spoke directly after she hung up the phone.
“I do remember this phone call,” Peter Nelson said. “I do remember we even texted about it too, joking about it, because it was so astonishing, right?”
Nelson said she spoke with at least four former City Councilmembers who told her they felt the conversation with Poscher did not constitute a bribe. Jack Eaton, retired attorney and former Councilmember, D-Ward 4, corroborated this account.
“I did advise Elizabeth not to bother reporting it,” Eaton wrote to The Daily. “Elizabeth said that Heide (sic) almost immediately retracted the offer and took no further actions that were improper. Further, I was of the opinion that it was a he said, she said incident that couldn’t be proved.”
Nelson told The Daily that, based on these conversations, she did not report the conversation to any authorities.
Though City Council passed the July ordinance in September 2020, just three months later, the issue of short-term rentals was once again on the City Council docket. On Dec. 21, 2020, City Council passed DC-1, a resolution sponsored by Taylor that would exempt some pre-existing short-term rentals from complying with the new short-term rental ordinance. Among these rentals were Poscher’s pre-existing properties.
In an interview with The Daily, Taylor explained he sponsored the December ordinance because he believed that it was the appropriate legal course of action.
“The December action recognized the fact that the city, for years, had authorized these STRs, and that STR owners had acted in reasonable reliance upon that,” Taylor said. “I believe the (original short-term rental ordinance) action put the city at material risk to losing litigation.”
Nelson’s blog post was published six days after the Dec. 21 resolution was approved. In addition to recounting her July phone call with Poscher, Nelson wrote that the approval of the new resolution should have sparked community discussion about the influence of property investors and the broader housing crisis.
“I was shocked by how readily my new Council colleagues repeated some of these talking points from STR advocates and rationalized their own support for DC-1,” Nelson wrote. “I had expected much more reluctance and hesitation, given how housing issues have been discussed in the past, both at the Council table and in political campaigns.”
Two hours after Nelson’s blog went live, Poscher sent Nelson an email about the allegations made in the post. Concurrently, Poscher and other property investors were preparing to file a lawsuit against City Council over the restrictive short-term rental ordinance.
Poscher CC’d Taylor, Councilmember Jen Eyer’s, D-Ward 4, personal email address and two other short-term rental investors in this email.
“Based on my interaction with the STR group I find it very hard to believe that anyone approached you with a bribe,” Poscher wrote. “I can’t think of anyone who would waste their time or trust you with that kind of offer.”
The Daily asked Taylor why he believed he was CC’d on the email from Poscher, given that, in an email to The Daily, he said he had “no relationship” with her.
“People CC the mayor on things,” Taylor said. “People CC the mayor on things all the time.”
When asked if he reported Poscher’s email mentioning this alleged attempt to influence Nelson’s decision to any office that requires disclosure or investigates attempted bribes, Taylor told The Daily that he forwarded Nelson’s blog posts to Michael Cox, former Ann Arbor chief of police, former City Attorney Stephen Postema and former City Administrator Tom Crawford.
The Daily reached out to Cox, Postema and Crawford for comment but did not receive any responses.
The Daily also requested comment from all current City Councilmembers, asking if they were ever approached by Poscher or any other developers with an attempt to influence their policy decisions. In emailed responses to The Daily, current City Councilmembers Chris Watson, D-Ward 2, John Mallek, D-Ward 2, Travis Radina, D-Ward 3, Dharma Akmon, D-Ward 4, Jen Eyer, D-Ward 4, Lisa Disch, D-Ward 4, and Erica Briggs, D-Ward 5 all reported not having been approached by Poscher.
Within a month after Nelson’s blog post was published, she got a knock at her door from the FBI.
“I was so ready,” Nelson said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m ready to tell you everything.’”
Ring camera footage obtained by The Daily shows the FBI approaching Nelson’s home Jan. 21, 2021.
The FBI also allegedly met with Griswold and Taylor. Because Griswold and Taylor reported having no documentation of speaking with the FBI in person, The Daily could not confirm those accounts.
Nelson, Griswold and Mayor Taylor corroborated that they discussed Nelson’s blog post with the FBI, they told The Daily.
“They asked me a number of questions, and I am sure both of those topics came up, … asking about Elizabeth Nelson’s blog post and about Poscher,” Griswold said.
Nelson told The Daily that during her conversation with the FBI, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the story.
“(The FBI said) ‘Look, you’re not the one we’re after here,’” Nelson said. “Coming away from (the interview), I’ve had my suspicions that there’s something going on here. At that point, I still didn’t know anything more about (Poscher) other than the fact that she was just sort of sleazy, just sort of willing to cut corners with the truth and trying to cut deals.”
‘I didn’t say money doesn’t matter’
In the four years since several former City Councilmembers and the Mayor were approached by the FBI, Poscher has played an increasingly active role in City Council campaign finances.
The bulk of Poscher’s donations have gone to three current councilmembers: Councilmembers Akmon, Eyer and Taylor. Both Eyer and Taylor were CC’d on the email where Poscher denied approaching Nelson.
In the 2022 election cycle, Poscher was Akmon’s sixth largest non-family campaign donor, contributing $500. Poscher (using the surname Mitchell) was Eyer’s third-largest individual campaign donor, putting $1,000 behind her in the 2024 race.
Poscher also donated $2,000 to Taylor’s 2022 mayoral campaign. Leading up to the 2024 election cycle, she single-handedly supplied almost a quarter of the funding for his PAC, Ann Arbor for Everyone, donating $5,000.
In an interview with The Daily, Taylor shared that he learned about Poscher’s criminal financial history in the summer of 2024. On July 12, 2024, Taylor regifted the $5,000 Poscher donated to his PAC to the Jim Toy Community Center, a local LBGTQ+ center.
“Having received that $5,000 months earlier, I felt most comfortable using it for a non-political but socially beneficial purpose,” Taylor said.
In October 2024, Taylor posted to Facebook expressing opposition to Propositions C and D. Proposal D, if passed, would have created a city-led “Fair Elections Fund” which would match donations up to $50 for mayoral and City Council campaigns from city residents and taxpayers at a rate of nine to one. After multiple residents posted comments discussing the influence of money in local city elections where they specifically named Poscher, she responded by defending the integrity of her political donations.
“You can call it whatever you want. I didn’t say money doesn’t matter – I said my basis for making donations is the message and approach of the candidate,” Poscher wrote. “People will interpret that as they will.”
Griswold also spoke with The Daily about her concerns regarding Poscher’s relationship with city staff, specifically with Taylor.
“I believe Ann Arbor is a pay-to-play community, and there are certain people who have more privilege to sort of have a leg up in the development realm,” Griswold said. “That doesn’t make them bad people, necessarily, but the mayor, since I have known him, has always valued loyalty over competence.”
‘I think they put too much credence in someone who lacks credibility’
Poscher’s history of financial crimes, campaign donations and relationships with members of City Staff have created conversations both within City Council and in the general Ann Arbor community.
While state and national elections are characterized by larger campaign donations, local elections are a different playing field. In an interview with The Daily, Neil Thanedar, executive director of Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said that individual campaign donations that exceed $100 or more in local elections are infrequent and can capture the attention of the running candidate.
“I think any donations coming from specific individuals, even $100 plus, $1,000 plus, are going to get the attention of local City Council and mayoral candidates,” Thanedar said. “I think the biggest impact and influence comes from the political candidates paying attention to the donor.”
The Daily asked Thanedar whether Poscher’s $8,800 in donations was sizable in the context of a local election.
“(Large individual donors) happen in state and national elections more frequently,” he said. “In a local election, that’s more rare.”
Poscher’s financial contributions have sparked apprehension from community members about the influence of money in local elections. Eckstein spoke to the relationship between Poscher and City Council in light of her thousands of dollars in campaign donations.
“(City Councilmembers) all praise her to the hilt and think she’s wonderful,” Eckstein said. “The City Council is almost as monolithic as the Russian Duma.”
On July 15, 2024, City Council approved a rezoning ordinance that would allow 4M to develop a $100 million housing development dubbed “Southtown”.
The vote to approve this ordinance occurred three days after Taylor donated to the Jim Toy Community Center. In a message to The Daily, Taylor confirmed he was aware of Poscher’s criminal record at the time of the approval.
“I was aware of Ms. Poscher’s history at that time,” he wrote. “When a property owner asks us to rezone, we consider the issue on the merits, without discrimination or consideration of the person’s political affiliations, for or against, or their history, laudatory or otherwise. It is a question of land use and nothing else.”
Southtown, slated to be developed in 2025, would replace a neighborhood of apartments and houses on the east side of State Street. The development was approved to have 30% of its 216 units dedicated to short-term rentals, roughly 64 units. Eckstein points out that this takes away from long-term housing.
“I think the developers just have bamboozled the council by saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to build new housing and relieve the housing shortage,’” Eckstein said. “(Developers) go to short-term rentals for rich alums to come and watch football games. … That doesn’t do a thing to increase the housing stock.”
Eckstein expressed further concern about City Council’s continued approval of 4M and Poscher’s developments.
“I think they put too much credence in someone who lacks credibility,” Eckstein said.
Focal Point co-managing editor Sophia Lehrbaum can be reached at lehrbaum@umich.edu. Focal Point senior editors Anna McLean and Daniel Johnson can be reached at agmclean@umich.edu and dbjohn@umich.edu. Focal Point reporter Sasha Kalvert can be reached at skalvert@umich.edu.
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