Questions Remain in Dropped Collusion Suit

A dispute over a bounced check led Anuj Chopra of Grandville, Mich., to file a lawsuit against the $1.4 billion Consumers Credit Union, two of its employees and a police detective alleging they colluded to bolster sex felony charges against Chopra and his wife.

Chopra’s lawsuit included email exhibits between the two CCU employees that not only indicate collusion occurred, but also showed the employees allegedly made racially derogatory remarks about Chopra’s national origin. The former credit union member is originally from India but has lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years and holds a permanent resident card, according to court documents.

Nearly a week after CU Times contacted all the parties involved in the lawsuit, Chopra, CCU and the city of Grandville, which represented the detective, agreed to dismiss the lawsuit on March 30 with prejudice, meaning the lawsuit can never be filed again. Lawyers for CCU and Chopra would not say why they agreed to dismiss the lawsuit or whether an out-of-court settlement had been reached.

“We have no comment on ongoing or previous litigation,” Danielle Mason Anderson, a Kalamazoo, Mich.-based attorney who represented CCU in this case, said. Most civil cases are settled by mutual agreement among all involved parties, according to the American Bar Association.

In its court documents, CCU repeatedly denied Chopra’s allegations and told a different story about how events unfolded over the NSF check. The credit union also alleged the emails were fabricated and that it could prove they are not genuine. However, in his court filings, Chopra indicated he could prove the emails are genuine.

The lawsuit’s roots began in October 2016 when Chopra joined the Kalamazoo-based CCU. In early January 2017, his wife deposited a $7,500 check at CCU’s Grandville branch. Later that month on Jan. 20, the check, drawn from a Wells Fargo checking account in Illinois, was returned for non-sufficient funds.

Four days later, Chopra’s brother sent a $7,500 check to CCU to cover the NSF account, which the credit union processed and said was settled in a timely manner. But on Feb. 8, CCU filed a formal criminal complaint against Chopra at the Grandville Police Department for insufficient funds, according to Chopra’s lawsuit. On Feb. 10, Chopra’s brother was notified that CCU reversed his check for unknown reasons. CCU did not contact Chopra about the reversed check, but continued to press criminal charges against its member, according to Chopra’s court documents.

The credit union admitted that Chopra deposited a $7,500 check into his account but denied that he received funds after making this deposit, and also denied that he was later informed by the credit union that there were non-sufficient funds to cover the $7,500 deposit, according to the credit union’s court documents that answered Chopra’s allegations.

CCU also denied it received a $7,500 check from Chopra’s brother and that his check had been reversed by the credit union without explanation. However, CCU admitted in its court documents that it filed a formal bad check report with the police.

Soon after CCU filed the bad check report, he and his wife were accused of felony sex charges by the Ottawa County Prosecutor’s office on March 1. County prosecutors argued, in part, that Chopra’s bond should be high because of CCU’s criminal complaint. Later that day, the Grandville police requested nonsufficient funds criminal charges against Chopra and an arrest warrant was issued by the county prosecutor, according to Chopra’s lawsuit.

CCU would neither confirm nor deny these allegations because it did not have information to form a belief to the truth of the allegations.

Because of these pending charges, Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a custody detainer against Chopra, which held Chopra behind bars from March 2017 to January 2018.

Right before these events unfolded, however, emails filed with Chopra’s lawsuit revealed how two CCU employees, an office manager and a collections manager, allegedly colluded with Grandville police to bolster their case against Chopra and made derogatory comments about his national origin. In its court documents, the credit union repeatedly denied these allegations, stating they are not true.

Because this lawsuit will never be heard before a jury to decide whether the preponderance of evidence supports the veracity of Chopra’s allegations, CU Times is not revealing the identities of the individuals who have been accused of improprieties. In any civil lawsuit, the burden of proof rests with the plaintiff, Chopra, and the emails in question would have been key evidence in his case.

One such example of emails filed in the complaint was a Feb. 2, 2017 email message from the CCU office manager to the CCU collections manager, in which the office manager wrote that she spoke with the detective investigating Chopra’s case:

“I spoke with detective regarding the following member (Anuj Chopra). He made me aware that the following person is being charged with a human trafficking charge and will be going away for a long time. We at the bank will help Ottawa County make their case stronger.”

The office manager’s email also indicated the detective was working with another detective, and someone from the Ottawa County prosecutor’s office in “coordinating everything” regarding Chopra.

The office manager’s email continued: “I was also informed he (Chopra) will have a detainer from I.C.E. and will be in jail till his case will be heard. I know we received a payment for Anuj to settle his account. Will ask detective if he wants us to return the check back to the brother. That will show Anuj did not meet the deadline. Please wait for me to let you know the next steps regarding this member. He will be going to prison and we will get rid of one foreigner from our beautiful country.”

In a Feb. 3 email to the office manager, the collections manager wrote: “Got your email. I have reversed the check for $7,500 that came to the office on 1/27/2017. Erased his phone numbers and email from his profile. No one will be able to get a hold of him. He has too much going on with his other case. This is just the cherry on top of the sundae. Also, his wife (is) involved. What a sick couple. Let’s communicate via telephone, no emails or texts discussing this matter per Grandville police department. This will hit the news in the next couple of weeks. I hope they give us a shout out at the credit union … detective will keep us updated but he will be at Anuj’s court date March 1, 2017. That guy will not be coming out of that court room. Go straight to jail. Do not collect 200 rupees.”

Rupees are the official currency of India.

Although the emails, as they appear as exhibits with Chopra’s court documents, look authentic as they include CCU employee email addresses, the credit union’s IP address and other detailed information, CCU repeatedly said in its court filings that the emails are fabricated. The credit union argued that since the emails are fabricated, what was allegedly written in those emails by the two employees was not true. CCU also indicated in court documents that it would call an expert witness to prove that the emails were fabricated had the lawsuit reached a jury.

However, Chopra also indicated in court documents that he had an expert witness to prove the emails are authentic.

On May 11, 2018, the Ottawa County Prosecutors Office dismissed the human trafficking charge against Chopra because the allegations were proven to be baseless. Felony sex charges also had been dropped against Chopra’s wife, Leslie Chopra, after their attorney, Damian Nunzio, uncovered text messages that showed teenage witnesses felt pressured by police and did not think the couple did anything wrong. Nunzio secured a court’s permission to access 85,000 texts and used those messages to prove his clients’ innocence.

Nunzio also represented Chopra in the civil suit against CCU and the City of Grandville.

Because CCU’s NSF charge against Chopra had not been dismissed, he contacted Google to obtain information that may be helpful to defend against the NSF charges, even though his Google Gmail account was closed and not accessible.

On April 1, 2019, Google recovered the two employee emails, which were blind copied to Chopra’s Gmail. There was no explanation in court documents as to why the CCU employees would have blind copied Chopra’s Gmail, though they may have not realized it at the time of the email exchanges, according to court documents.

In early February 2017 when the emails were generated by the two CCU employees, Chopra was experiencing trouble with his Gmail and was unable to access it. Because of that, he did not see the CCU emails on Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 when they were allegedly written by the two employees.

Interestingly enough, however, Google also informed Chopra that his Gmail had been shut down because eight unauthorized devices attempted to gain access to his Gmail account, according to Chopra’s lawsuit.

One device was a Windows phone from a location where one of the CCU employees worked, while another device, an Apple iPhone, attempted to sign into Chopra’s email account from another location where the other CCU employee worked. These two attempts to access Chopra’s email occurred on Feb. 4, 2017.

In its court documents, CCU repeatedly denied Chopra’s claims that he had been blind copied on the emails from the CCU employees because the emails do not exist, which made his allegations untrue.

Nonetheless, CCU admitted that the two employees worked at the locations from where someone allegedly attempted to access Chopra’s email. But the credit union would neither admit nor deny that it was their employees who used their devices to access Chopra’s email.

Before Chopra became aware of the CCU emails, the county prosecutor dismissed the NSF charge against him.