Jurij Fedorak has retired from the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office after 33 years but first will serve a several-month gig as a special prosecutor in Bay County.

Fedorak’s last day in the downtown Mount Clemens office was Friday, and Monday he was set to begin working in Bay County to resolve about 150 criminal cases because the newly elected prosecutor, Michael P. Kanuszewski, and his top assistant, Christopher Johnson, both previously worked in the local public defender office, creating a conflict of interest on their prior pending cases.

The state Attorney General’s Office took on a few dozen of the cases but didn’t have the resources to prosecute all of them, Fedorak said. Bay County contacted him, and since the timing worked out, a deal was reached in conjunction with the AG Office and state Prosecuting Attorneys Coordinating Council, he said.

He said the arrangement is an ideal way to transition as he will be able to work remotely for many of the hearings from his Sterling Heights home and a cottage near Traverse City owned by he and his wife, Vera Fedorak, a retired agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Fedorak will be paid $100,000. Bay County also is hiring a legal assistant to work part-time to handle the caseload.

Fedorak said he expects the cases should be resolved by the end of the year.

Fedorak, 59, reflected on his career as he handled many high profile murder cases and one of the biggest state drug cases in Southeast Michigan history.

He was hired in 1993 immediately after passing the bar exam by former prosecutor Carl Marlinga, but before that served two years, 1990 and 1991, as a Wayne State Law School intern, learning under the former top homicide attorney, assistant prosecutor William Dardy.

During that time, he assisted Marlinga and Dardy in prosecuting one of the most notorious murder cases in Macomb County history in which Jaime Rodriquez, now 56, and Agustin Pena, now 50, were convicted of first-degree murder and mutilation of a body for the stabbing death and dismemberment of 15-year-old Stephanie Dubay in 1990 in Warren, as part of a devil worship ritual. The girl’s severed head was found in a basement freezer of Pena’s mother’s home. Rodriquez is serving life without parole while Pena was released in 2022 after serving 30 years as his life-without-parole term was vacated due to the landmark 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama on the juvenile lifer law.

“It was an amazing introduction into what it takes to be a trial attorney,” he said.

In the mid-1990s, he honed his craft by serving in circuit court of “permanent visiting” Judge Frank Jeanette, who, following his retirement, was only presiding over felony trials as overflow from other circuit judges, Fedorak said. He tried 54 cases in those two years.

“We tried case after case after case,” he said. “It was a great experience.”

His biggest murder case was the conviction of three people for the 2017 shooting death of Julii Johnson, 34, of Hazel Park, as she was about to enter her vehicle outside the Warren condo of her boyfriend, a killing instigated by the boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, Marcie Griffin, now 54, of Eastpointe, in jealousy. Also convicted was George Rider, now 66, of St. Clair Shores, who served as the middleman between Griffin and the shooter, Eric Gibson, now 31, of Detroit. All three were convicted of first-degree murder in 2019 and are serving life without parole.

Fedorak said at first only Gibson was going to be charged but he and a trio of Warren detectives successfully lobbied Fedorak’s bosses at the time to charge Griffin and Rider. The case was highly circumstantial, albeit strong, bolstered by mobile phone and text message evidence that was key in implicating the pair.

Another rewarding case, he said, was the conviction of Jamal Rogers, now 35, and Antonio Mathis, both of Warren, of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for a 2012 attack on Roger’s pregnant ex-girlfriend, who was bound, set on fire and shot because Rogers didn’t want another child. Bowman gave birth to a boy days after the attack. They each are serving sentences of life, with a chance for parole, for the conspiracy, and Mathis is also serving 50 years and Rogers 29 years for attempted murder.

He said he deplored the brutality of the incident.

Fedorak spent 10 years, from 1998 to 2008, with a dual designation as a federal prosecutor, working with Drug Enforcement Administration’s Mobile Enforcement Team to prosecute narcotics cases in the area as the situation could not be addressed by the small Mount Clemens Police Department at the time before the Sheriff’s Office took over policing duties.

“Based on the level of street level drug trafficking they had, we were able to take advantage of the MET program,” he said. “We were able to tap into federal resources and extra funding.”

Fedorak also served about 10 years as head of the drug unit during which he prosecuted three of four men accused of attempting to help a Mexican drug cartel to forge a new market in metro Detroit.

Rigoberto Cardenas-Borbon, now 54, Antonio Perez-Chica, now 49, both from Mexico, and Hugo Moran-Dopico, now 68, an Arizona resident with Detroit connections, were convicted by a jury of delivery of more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine. Moran-Dopico was sentenced to 25 to 60 years, Cardenas-Borbon was sentenced to 16 to 40 years and Perez-Chica was sentenced to 15 to 30 years. Perez-Chica was released on parole in 2013 that he will serve until 2035 while Cardenas-Borbon was released in 2021 and will be on parole for life, in effect, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. Moran-Dopico’s earliest release date from prison is in 2030.

The seizure of 10 kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of $2 million to $3 million, on Interstate 94 in Roseville in April 2005 halted a test-run by a Mexican cartel of the Detroit drug market, officials said. The cartel provided drugs to the Chicago and New York areas in the past, Fedorak said.

It remains the largest drug conviction on state

charges in the county’s history.

Fedorak may be most proud of his daughter, Alexandra “Lesia” Fedorak, who has been an assistant prosecutor in the office for the past six years after graduating from University of Michigan Law School.

While he has served as a mentor for her, “I learned from her as well,” he said.

He also has a son, Bo, who works for a defense contractor and is pursuing a master’s degree.

Fedorak semi-retried in 2021 after participating in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan for five years and returned part-time, mentoring young assistant prosecutors in capital cases.

He will continue teaching at the Macomb Police Academy and the Schoolcraft College Academy Training Center, providing the legal guidance for cadets. He taught about 4,000 cadets over 20 years, he said.

“I love teaching,” he said.

In retirement, he plans to vacation and continue his hobbies of hunting, fishing, boating and playing golf.