MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. – Weeks after audio recordings allegedly caught Warren Mayor Jim Fouts insulting people with special needs, more recordings have been leaked that allegedly reveal Fouts saying terrible things about black people and women.
Multiple audio experts have said it was Fouts' voice in the recordings about people with special needs, but Fouts denies that either recording is of his voice.
Local 4's Mara MacDonald has learned that the source of Monday's leaked audio recordings is not the same person who leaked the first recordings. Local 4 knows of three former employees who said they taped Fouts, but the unknown source that has surfaced is the fourth.
The second round of trouble hit just as Fouts was in public at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Warren. The audio recordings were leaked on MotorCityMuckraker.com, and caused chaos at the event.
Duggan on Fouts: 'If it's him on the tape, he's got to go'
On the recording, a voice that sounds like Fouts' uses the N-word and compares black people to chimpanzees. The voice also savages older women in degrading terms, such as using the C-word.
In a Facebook rant, Fouts said the voice isn't his. An audio expert told Local 4 it's inconclusive because the samples aren't large and aren't the original recordings.
Sources said the person who recorded the audio is a former employee, and that the recordings are excerpts of conversations recorded over a period of time.
Warren residents are left shaking their heads.
"Unfortunately, it was another one. It was just, like, imagine that he shouldn't keep his mouth shut," Michelle Vaughn said.
Pastor Mo Hardwick had a one-on-one conversation with Fouts when the first audio recording was leaked. Hardwick said he's absolutely furious after the release of the second recording.
"This man not only needs to be out of office, he needs to be locked in a cage," Hardwick said, referencing a comment in the first recording, in which Fouts allegedly said people with special needs should be put in cages. "There is something wrong with the mayor."
"If the sound bites are really his voice, yeah, he's in trouble," a man leaving the Warren Community Center who didn't want to give his name said.
Fouts said on Facebook that the recordings are all being done at the behest of Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel.
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