On Oct. 9, 34th District Court Judge Brian A. Oakley ordered Stephen Latroy Ford, 49, of Van Buren Township bound over to circuit court for an Oct. 23 arraignment on the information on five charges.
Ford is charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon (felonious assault), weapons felony firearm, brandishing a firearm in public, and a fifth charge, felony firearm, added after his preliminary exam was over.
Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Mark Bernardi called William Waugh as his first witness. Waugh said on Sept. 21 he got an order to repossess a 2017 Hundai from Labrenda Ford in the 14700 block of Brookside Drive in Van Buren Township.
Waugh testified he worked for BSR (Body Standard Reproduction) towing and he repossessed cars in a white Ford F-350 tow truck with cameras and usually his wife Amanda is with him and she was in the front passenger seat that day.
Waugh said he was wearing the same repossession shirt, clearly marked, that he wore in the courtroom to testify.
He said he located the car in a driveway, verified the paper plate and backed up to the Hundai to repossess it, but Labrenda Ford ran out of the garage and climbed into the car after Waugh had already started to lift it from the ground.
He testified that’s when Stephen Ford came out the front door of the house. Waugh said he identified himself and said he was repossessing Labrenda’s car and didn’t have any problem with the man yelling at him from the door.
Waugh testified Stephen Ford called out, “Honey, get my gun,” to a female in the yard and when she didn’t move, he ran inside the house, and came back outside with a pistol, which he aimed at Waugh and his wife. Waugh testified that Ford yelled that Waugh had three seconds to put the car down or he would shoot them.
“I heard a bullet go into the chamber,” he said, noting he dropped the car three-quarters of the way down, when Labrenda drove the car into the garage.
“I was flooring it out of there with 911 on the line,” Waugh said. He said three officers were dispatched to his location and arrived in about seven minutes.
When retained defense attorney Horace Cotton asked if he would take the car with Labrenda in it, he said she got in after he lifted the car up and there was no chance to ask her to exit because all the yelling started from Stephen. He said there were two other gentlemen with Stephen and two other cars in the subdivision driveway.
“We’re stealing cars,” Waugh told Cotton. “That’s what we do.”
He said while often people threaten to get a gun, he doesn’t do anything until he sees a gun. “I take 20 cars a week and work from Detroit and never had this problem,” Waugh said.
He testified that he called out three times that he was a “repo man” for Labrenda Ford.
Stephen Ford was bound over by Judge Oakley. He is free on $5,000/personal recognition bond.
William Bryan Snyder
William Bryan Snyder, 29, of Chelsea waived his preliminary exam on a charge of receiving and concealing a stolen vehicle on Sept. 17 in Van Buren Township. He is due at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice on Oct. 23 for an arraignment on the information.
Snyder is free on $10,000/personal recognizance bond.
Terry Dean Gallardo
Charges were dismissed against Terry Dean Gallardo, 34, after Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Larry King announced that two witnesses for the prosecution did not appear to testify in court. Charges could be reinstated in the future.
Gallardo had been charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and domestic violence on Sept. 22 in Van Buren Township. Defense attorney Curtis Davenport filled in for the court-appointed attorney who was not present.
Amanda Elizabeth Malmsten
Amanda Elizabeth Malmsten, 44, was found guilty of domestic violence after a bench trial before Judge Oakley. She was accused of assaulting her husband Jason Allen Malmsten at their home in the 49000 block of Bemis Road in Van Buren Township.
Judge Oakley sentenced her to 12 months of non-reporting probation, a fine of $345, and no contact with the victim. She was given credit for the two days she spent in jail.
Jason Malmsten said the two are divorcing and she just got served with the papers. They no longer live together.
Jason’s 15-year-old son testified to seeing his stepmother kick his father in the lower back and Jason testified she also punched his father in the back during that incident on Aug. 13. Jason testified that he had a bad back. A Van Buren Police officer testified to what he found when he responded to the boy’s call that morning.
Defense attorney Gary Janadia played several recordings his client had made of her husband yelling at her and Janadia also called Amanda to the witness stand to testify to the terrible relationship the two had. She denied hitting him. She was so talkative on the stand, speaking over the judge, that Judge Oakley, at one point after telling her many times not to speak while the judge was speaking, told her to “shut up” or he would hold her in contempt of court.
The teenage son, who lives with his mother in Taylor, told Judge Oakley he didn’t know why his father and stepmother didn’t get along, but he asked each of them to forgive each other for whatever it was because his father really loved her.
Judge Oakley said he found the boy to be an incredible witness.
Prosecutor King said the son witnessed the domestic violence and testified to it and, “This is not a happy marriage.”