Witness: Police, prosecutor ‘coached me’

Chad Povish, the paid informant who says police and Wayne County’s top drug prosecutor told him to lie in court, testified Monday that he was ready to sue when he wasn’t fully paid after helping engineer a 47-kilo cocaine bust.

Povish said he met with former federal prosecutor-turned-high-profile defense lawyer Richard Convertino when he didn’t get his expected 10-20% cut of the value of dope and property seized in the 2005 arrest of Alexander Aceval in the scandal-tainted drug case.

Instead of his “guess-timation” of a $100,000-plus payday, Povish said he got just $4,500 in cash and a rejection for the witness protection program.

Even though Convertino isn’t returning his calls anymore, Povish said he still hopes for “at least some protection, if not no money.”

Convertino could not be reached for comment Monday.

Povish is the key witness in the perjury and conspiracy case against former prosecutor Karen Plants and former Inkster cops Robert McArthur and Scott Rechtzigel, who authorities say told Povish to lie under oath about his role as an informant. They face life sentences.

Retired Wayne County Circuit Judge Mary Waterstone is charged with official misconduct — a 5-year felony — for approving the perjury.

“I was following the instructions of Karen Plants and Bob McArthur,” Povish told Detroit 36th District Judge David Robinson Jr. “They coached me.”

He also testified that Plants told him that she’d “spoke with the judge and it was OK to say I didn’t know the officers” before the March 2005 bust.

Waterstone has said she was trying to hide Povish’s informant role to protect his life.

However, Aceval’s defense lawyer, James Feinberg, testified he identified Povish as the likely informant in filings before the 2005 trial.

Feinberg also testified that he later put in the court record his belief there had been false testimony, as well as prosecutorial and police misconduct.

Aceval’s first trial ended in a hung jury. His new lawyer, David Moffit, uncovered apparent perjury and Waterstone’s approval of it as he prepared for the retrial. Aceval is serving a 10-15 year sentence, and his appeal is pending before the state Supreme Court.

Waterstone and Plants were taken off the case, and wide-ranging investigations were launched. The Attorney General’s Office took the case after prosecutors in Wayne and several other counties declined because of conflicts of interest, or the size of the task.

Charges — alleging key players in the justice system were willing to lie and use secret deals