DETROIT — Federal agents subpoenaed the UAW in July for visitor logs and security camera footage in the days following a fire at the union’s Solidary House headquarters in Detroit, and the union turned over the requested information shortly after, a UAW spokesman confirmed.
The Detroit News first reported late Wednesday that a team of agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department had requested the information days after the blaze amid a federal corruption probe. The UAW responded by Aug. 1, The News reported.
Ted Copley, lieutenant and investigator for the Detroit Fire Department, told Automotive News in July that arson was ruled out, but the fire’s cause was still undetermined.
The status of the federal investigation into the fire remains unclear, The News reported.
“The cause is still undetermined, and there is still an open investigation,” Deputy Fire Commissioner Dave Fornell told The News on Tuesday.
The Detroit Fire Department has not responded to repeated requests by Automotive News, both by phone and in writing, to obtain copies of written reports about the fire, which took place on the afternoon of Saturday, July 13.
Following the fire, investigators were awaiting results from lab testing on computers, batteries and wiring from the scene to determine the cause, Patrick McNulty, chief of fire investigation for the Detroit Fire Department, said at the time. The News reported Wednesday the investigation was still open.
Copley said the rest of the investigation would be left up to private investigators for insurance purposes.
Two firefighters were injured at the scene of the fire, one with a broken wrist and the other suffering from smoke inhalation. Both were treated in the hospital and released, Fornell told Automotive News at the time.
The union’s staff has since been relocated to a building in Southfield, Mich.
The blaze received added attention after the feds in October charged former UAW official Edward Robinson in the corruption probe. According to the charging documents, “UAW Official A,” who The News first identified as former UAW President Gary Jones, told an aide earlier this year he wished they “burned the records” related to the alleged scheme to embezzle union dues.
The fire occurred three months later.