Man charged in alleged insurance-fraud scheme seeks to withdraw guilty plea, files lawsuit

A local man's sentencing for allegedly helping his jailed brother try to commit insurance fraud was canceled after he sought to withdraw his guilty plea.

Lawrence Rider-El was scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 6 by U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain in Detroit after Rider pleaded guilty last April to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a plot involving his brother, who was in the Macomb County Jail for a Warren murder.

But Rider-El in November filed a legal motion on his own to withdraw his plea, telling Gershwin he "does not believe he is guilty of mail fraud, and would be lying to the court if he pled guilty to the same in open court."

Rider-El alleges the "plea agreement is VOID on its face" because it lists an attorney as his lawyer although she was merely "Standby Counsel." Rider-El is representing himself.

Rider-El, who is legally blind, also accuses the attorney of colluding with federal prosecutors in getting him to plea, and changes in the plea deal that he requested were rejected by the government and never added to it. The plea deal was read to him, and he provided feedback, he says.

The attorney's Jan. 6 verbal motion to withdraw from the case was granted by Drain.

Rider-El filed a federal civil complaint Dec. 14 against the attorney, Judge Drain, another defense attorney, an assistant U.S. Attorney and an agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on allegations of violation of his Constitutional due-process rights and the American With Disabilities Act and malicious prosecution against him and his brother, George, who also was charged in the case.

George Rider, 64, is serving life in prison after he was convicted of first-degree murder in June 2019 by a Macomb County jury for the January 2017 shooting death of Julii Johnson, 34, of Hazel Park, outside her boyfriend's home near 12 Mile and Mound roads in Warren. Also convicted were co-defendants Marcie Griffin of Eastpointe and Eric Gibson of Detroit. Rider, who had lived in Macomb and Oakland counties, was the middle-man between Gibson, who fired the shots, and Griffin, the victim's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend and mother of his children.

While George Rider was housed in the county Jail awaiting and during his 2019 trial, he, Lawrence Rider-El and Robert Reed White allegedly conspired to conduct an arson-insurance scam to collect more than $100,000 from a home arson in Washington Township, according to federal authorities. The plot also was engineered by a fellow jail inmate who was working with the feds.

The trio was indicted in August 2019, although charges against George Rider were dropped following his murder conviction. White pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced in April 2021 to three years probation.

In the plea deal, Rider-El says he acknowledged his culpability.

George Rider's murder conviction will be the subject of Jan. 31 hearing in front of Macomb Circuit Judge Joseph Toia after the appeals court ordered a circuit-court to determine if Rider would have been acquitted if evidence from an improperly seized cell phone was excluded from his trial. The court ruled Rider's trial attorney was ineffective because she failed to object to the warrantless seizure of the phone.