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Jurij Fedorak (left) on his last day shakes hands with Prosecutor Pete Lucido
After 33 years at the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office, Jurij Fedorak, who put scores of murderers and drug dealers behind bars, has stepped down. His final day was last Friday.
“Jurij’s decades of dedication to public service in the field of law are truly outstanding, and he will be greatly missed,” Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said in a Facebook post. “He has left an indelible mark on the pursuit of justice in the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office.”
A 1992 graduate of Wayne State University Law School, Fedorak was hired the following year by then-Prosecutor Carl Marlinga after passing the bar exam. From 1990–91, while attending law school, he served as an intern in the office under top homicide prosecutor William Dardy.
In 2021, after working full time for five years under the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, he semi-retired and worked half-time in the office as a contractor, mentoring young assistant prosecutors, mostly in homicide cases.
Not one to sit idle, Fedorak, 59, has already taken on a new task. He started this week as a special assistant Michigan Attorney General, helping clear about 150 criminal cases in Bay County. The newly elected Bay County prosecutor and his top assistant there had conflicts of interest in handling those matters because they had previously worked for the other side as public defenders. He also will continue teaching at the Macomb Community College Police Academy and the Schoolcraft College's Police Academy Training Center.
Fedorak says he’ll be able to do some of the Bay County work remotely from his home in Sterling Heights or from the vacation cottage near Traverse City that he shares with his wife, Vera Fedorak, a retired agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who was also a media spokesperson for the Detroit office.
One of his major cases in Macomb came in 2006 when he successfully prosecuted five suspected members of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, who were found guilty of delivering more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine after a two-week trial. It was considered one of the largest drug dealer convictions on state charges in Macomb County history.
As part of that case, investigators in 2005 seized 15 kilograms of cocaine from the Mexican cartel on I-94 in Roseville.
Fedorak said he worked with OMIT, the Oakland-Macomb Interdiction Team, which included officers from both counties. They helped spin the case into other convictions, including one in Pennsylvania involving the brother of a prominent cartel member.
“It was extremely gratifying,” he said of the case.
In 2013, Fedorak successfully prosecuted a high-profile attempted murder case involving two Warren residents, Jamal Rogers and Antonio Mathis, who were convicted of shooting and setting afire Latonya Bowman, a pregnant Detroit woman. Rogers, Bowman’s ex-boyfriend, didn’t want another child, according CBS News. She survived, and the men received life sentences.
According to reports, Bowman went to a Friday night drive-in movie with Rogers, then drove him home to Warren. Once in Rogers’ garage, Mathis pointed a gun at Bowman. Rogers went into his house and Mathis then, according to CBS, wrapped her in duct tape, forced her into the back seat, and drove her to a vacant field in Detroit, where he doused her with lighter fluid and set her on fire. She was also shot in the shoulder. She survived by rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames and playing dead. She gave birth to a boy days after the attack.
Fedorak praised the detectives on the case, especially lead investigator John Barnes of the Warren Police Department, for swift and effective work.
“It was extremely satisfying to be able to help the victim,” he said. “I still talk to her to this day. She calls every once in a while and we touch base. It’s great — and her son is doing very well.”
Former Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga, who hired Fedorak, is glad he did.
“He was unambiguously energetic and idealistic,” Marlinga said, recalling why he hired him. “The guy was just so good in terms of his reason for wanting to get into public service. He exuded warmth, confidence, and a desire to serve the public. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that diminish."
"He is so well-prepared I could send him into any case of any type, and I knew he would earn instant respect from the judge and the opposing counsel. In front of a jury, that same magnetism, warmth, and sincerity came through. He never disappointed.”
At one stretch of his career, from 1998 to 2008, while at the Prosecutor’s Office, he was also designated a federal prosecutor to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Mobile Enforcement Team to go after bigger cases in the county.
Fedorak had the respect of the law enforcement community, including Sgt. David Auwen of the Macomb County Sheriff’s Department, who posted on Facebook:
"I don't think there are many cops working in Macomb County who didn't learn criminal law from Jurij — an absolute consummate professional."
Jurij Fedorak and his daughter Alexandra Fedorak
Besides being admired by colleagues and courthouse regulars, his daughter, Alexandra Fedorak, beams with pride over her dad.
“Over six years ago, when I was a baby lawyer, I was constantly asked if I’m Jurij’s daughter. I’d always proudly confirm that I am,” Alexandra, also an assistant Macomb County prosecutor, wrote on Facebook.
She went on to write that people praised her father, with some saying: “Jurij has more integrity than any other prosecutor I’ve been up against,” and "I've learned many lessons from him," and “he’s the real deal, through and through.”
"I know I have big shoes to fill, but I cannot be more proud to follow in my dad's footsteps."
