Website lets consumers check status of licensees
LANSING (AP) — People who use the services of a professional or a licensed business in Michigan can visit a state website to check the license status.
The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs is reminding residents to visit the “verify a license” portal at www.michigan.gov/LARA. They can look under the “How Do I” tab.
People can find detailed reports on hundreds of license types and more than 1 million licensees including doctors, nurses, child care and nursing homes, accountants, architects, builders, barbers, cosmetologists and real estate brokers.
LARA Director Shelly Edgerton urges that consumers do their homework before asking for professional services.
Consumers can research the type of license, if the license is active or inactive and the expiration date. Additional information may include disciplinary actions, complaints and inspection report.
Funeral director gets jail time for fraud
MUSKEGON (AP) — A former western Michigan funeral director was sentenced Monday to eight months in jail for fraud.
Thomas Clock III also received two months of probation and fines during the hearing in Muskegon County Circuit Court.
Clock, 61, owned and operated the former Clock Funeral Home of White Lake in Whitehall, northwest of Grand Rapids.
He pleaded no contest in June in separate cases of common-law fraud. One case included an additional count of providing mortuary services without a license.
In January, police found a woman’s body in Clock’s parked funeral van. An empty urn was buried and relatives were misled to believe that the urn contained her cremated remains.
“That family deserved the dignity of celebrating her life,” said Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat. “They had the right to remember her for the person she was. The defendant betrayed them of that trust and ripped them away from that dignity.”
Clock also was charged with fraud after a container intended for the cremated remains of a baby was found empty.
“These people were at their lowest point, the death of their child,” Matt said. “He took what was already an unbearable moment of grief and made it worse.”
Clock was credited with having already served 141 days in jail. He told the judge at the hearing that he thinks he’s been punished enough.
“I spent my time in jail and I’m ready to move on,” he said.
Prosecutors: Blagojevich doesn’t deserve leniency
CHICAGO (AP) — Federal prosecutors say statements by imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich prove he isn’t “deserving of leniency.”
A resentencing hearing is scheduled next month for Blagojevich, who is hoping a federal judge will give him a five-year sentence instead of his original 14 years. Blagojevich has been in a Colorado federal prison since 2012 after jurors convicted him of 18 corruption counts, including attempting to sell the vacant U.S. Senate seat once occupied by President Obama.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that prosecutors argue Blagojevich has shown a “complete lack of acceptance of responsibility.”
Blagojevich’s lawyers say they think prosecutors will change their minds after reading letters of support from Blagojevich’s fellow inmates.
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