State Embezzlement Case Against Michigan Graduate Union President Hiab Teshome Dismissed — Federal Grand Jury Subpoena to Her Union Signed the Same Day

Opening

Nobody here has been convicted of anything, and the state charges against Hiab Teshome were dismissed. On August 6, 2026, a Washtenaw County judge dismissed both felony counts against Teshome — president of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), AFT Local 3550, the University of Michigan’s graduate-worker union — in State of Michigan v. Teshome, Case No. 2026-26F5-5599-FY (15th District Court, Ann Arbor). Per GEO’s own account and a Michigan Daily report independent of that release, a federal grand jury subpoena to GEO itself was signed that same day by DOJ attorney Margaret (“Maggie”) Smith and FBI Detroit agent Kara Phipps — the same AUSA who has prosecuted the “Michigan 8” indictment, 2026-06-10–ypsilanti-raid-eight-defendant-federal-indictment-unsealed, continuously since its unsealing. The subpoena was not served until August 26, 2026, and demands GEO’s full membership rolls, meeting minutes, bylaws, and financial records back to January 2023.

Tier 1 — from the court record, written as fact

The dismissal, per the 15th District Court’s own register of actions (retrieved directly from MiCOURT case search, not from any party’s or outlet’s characterization):

• Case ID: 2026-26F5-5599-FY, State of Michigan v Teshome, 15th District Court — Ann Arbor
• Judge of Record: Miriam A. Perry
• Filed: June 12, 2026. Arraigned: June 26, 2026 (Hearing Officer: Odetalla, Odetalla Mohammed; personal bond set at $5,000)
• Defense counsel: Stacie Greskowiak McNulty
• Referring officer/agency: Cavanaugh/Ryan — Univ. of Michigan (University of Michigan Police Department Detective Sergeant Ryan Cavanaugh)
• Charges (both felony, both alleging conduct from offense date June 1, 2023):
  1. Embezzlement — Agent or Trustee, $1,000–$20,000 (MCL 750.174, enhanced tier)
  2. False Pretenses, $1,000.00–$19,999.99 (MCL 750.218, enhanced tier)
• Disposition, both counts: Dismissed 08/06/2026 — the register codes this “DISMISSED BY PARTY” and, in the same event block, “DISMISSED ON MOTION OF DEFENDANT.” The dismissal followed a pre-examination hearing held that day before Hearing Officer J. Cedric Simpson (the case had been calendared for a “Probable Cause Conference” on 08/06/2026 after an earlier 07/30/2026 date was removed from the calendar). An “Order of Acquittal/Dismissal or Remand” was generated the same day, all counts. The LEIN removal was GENERATED on 08/06 and SENT TO the police department on 08/07 — two dated steps of one action, not an 08/07 order. That two-step split is the most likely origin of Drop Site’s August 7 date: 08/07 is the only date in the register that a reader skimming the event list could mistake for the disposition.
• Pre-filing chronology, from the register (independently confirmed 2026-09-17): complaint authorized 06/04/2026, complaint issued 06/11/2026, warrant signed and issued 06/12/2026 (Judge Nancy M. Wang). So roughly a week separates authorization from warrant. The register also records “CO-DEFENDANT NAMED IN COMPLAINT” — confirming from the court record what had only been reported: a second person was charged in the same complaint. That co-defendant is not named here; no source names them and this corpus does not restore a name the record and the reporting both withhold.
• Bond: personal, $5,000, set 06/26/2026. Teshome stood mute at arraignment (the court enters a not-guilty plea), waived the 14-day rule, and appeared in custody represented by retained counsel. Age given in the register as 27.
• This register does not state the dismissal’s substantive legal grounds — “dismissed by party” / “on motion of defendant” describes the procedural posture (the case ended on a defense motion the court granted, not a jury verdict or a motion by the prosecution), not the reasoning. Drop Site’s framing that “a judge… thrown out” the case is consistent with the record showing a judicial dismissal order was in fact entered, but the reason is not established here — see Research Gaps.

Resolving the reported date conflict. The task that produced this entry flagged three inconsistent dates across secondary reporting: Drop Site’s article body text said August 7; GEO’s own release and a second Drop Site passage said August 6; Mondoweiss described the subpoena as signed “the same day,” August 6. The court’s own register of actions gives 08/06/2026 as both the disposition date on each count and the case’s closed date. August 6 is correct; Drop Site’s August 7 reference is a reporting error — and the register shows exactly what it is: the LEIN-removal transmittal to the police department, the only 08/07 event on the docket.

Independently re-read 2026-09-17 by a second reader directly from MiCOURT (the register is JavaScript-rendered and not reachable by a plain fetch). Every field above was confirmed against the record: case ID, closed date 08/06/2026, Judge of Record Perry, Miriam A., both counts EMBEZZLEMENT-AGENT OR TRUSTEE-$1000-20,000 (7501744A) and FALSE PRETENSES-$1000.00-$19,999.99 (7502184A), both FELONY, both showing officer/agency CAVANAUGH/RYAN - UNIV. OF MICHIGAN, both disposed DISMISSED BY PARTY on 08/06/2026, offense date 06/01/2023 on each. The dismissal and the subpoena signature are dated the same calendar day in the primary court record and in Mondoweiss’s account of the subpoena; this is a real same-day finding, not an artifact of loose reporting, and it no longer rests on three outlets citing one GEO press release — the court docket is an independent, primary confirmation.

Tier 1/2 — the subpoena

GEO’s own account, corroborated independently by The Michigan Daily’s September 1, 2026 news brief (student-paper reporting, not a GEO-release recirculation):

• A federal grand jury subpoena to GEO Local 3550 was issued/signed by DOJ attorney Margaret (“Maggie”) Smith and FBI Detroit agent Kara Phipps, dated August 6, 2026 per Mondoweiss.
• First delivery attempt: FedEx, received by GEO August 11, 2026 — a method GEO’s retained counsel argued did not meet formal service requirements.
• Formal service: hand-delivered August 26, 2026.
• Demands, back to January 1, 2023: collective bargaining agreements; the union’s constitution and bylaws; “all disbursement records and receipts journals pertaining to union officials”; personnel and payroll records; membership agreements; a listing of all active and former union members; a listing of officers; and all minutes of membership and Executive Board meetings.
• GEO retained attorneys and filed a motion to quash on August 20, 2026, challenging the subpoena’s scope, the multi-year lookback period, and the initial FedEx service method. No ruling on that motion is reported in any source reviewed, and it was not located on CourtListener/RECAP (see Research Gaps — this is very likely a sealed grand jury matter, not a tooling failure).
• No grand jury number, issuing miscellaneous-docket number, or E.D. Mich. case number for the subpoena itself appears in any source reviewed. The Eastern District of Michigan is the presumed issuing district (both named officials are Detroit-based and tied to the Michigan 8 case), but this is an inference, not a document-confirmed fact.

The prosecutor connection — confirmed, precisely scoped

Margaret (“Maggie”) Smith is not merely “connected to” the Michigan 8 case — she is its continuously active lead prosecutor. Per the docket for United States v. Hakim et al., 5:26-cr-20306 (E.D. Mich.), AUSA Margaret Smith appears as counsel of record at the June 10, 2026 initial appearances, the June 12, 2026 arraignments and detention hearings for all eight defendants, and in substantive motion practice running continuously through at least September 9, 2026 — the week this entry was researched. Mondoweiss’s description of her as “one of the Justice Department’s attorneys on the Michigan 8 case” understates her role as documented on the docket; she is the prosecutor appearing at nearly every hearing.

What this confirms and what it does not. The same AUSA who is prosecuting eight individuals for an alleged conspiracy tied to University of Michigan protest activity signed a subpoena, the same day a separate state case against the union’s president was dismissed, demanding that union’s entire membership roster and internal records. That the same prosecutor is behind both actions is documented. That the subpoena issues from the identical grand jury panel that returned the Michigan 8 indictment is not established by any source reviewed — no source specifies a grand jury number, and a single AUSA can present matters to more than one grand jury or to a continuing grand jury under a broader investigation umbrella. The distinction matters: “same prosecutor, same apparent investigative thread” is the confirmed claim; “same specific grand jury panel” is not, and should not be asserted without the subpoena document itself or a filing that states it.

The scope of the demand, characterized precisely

A financial-crimes theory does not obviously reach a membership roster, meeting minutes, or bylaws. Separating the subpoena’s own listed categories by plausible relevance to an embezzlement investigation:

• Plausibly responsive to a financial-crimes theory: disbursement records and receipts journals for union officials; financial records generally; personnel/payroll records (insofar as they touch compensation of the officials under investigation).
• Not plausibly responsive to a financial-crimes theory, on its face: the complete list of active and former members back to January 2023; membership and executive-board meeting minutes; the union’s constitution and bylaws; collective bargaining agreements.

This separation — not a “politically motivated” characterization, which is GEO’s and the defense’s framing, not this entry’s finding — is what the subpoena’s own listed categories support. A demand for a labor union’s complete membership list and internal deliberative records, issued the day a related state prosecution against that union’s president collapsed, by the same prosecutor running a separate federal indictment naming University of Michigan-affiliated protest activity, is a documentable pattern regardless of what any party’s stated motive was.

Ryan Cavanaugh — the referring officer, and the two federal suits naming him

UMPD Detective Sergeant Ryan Cavanaugh is named as the referring officer/agency on both counts in the Teshome docket. He is also the officer who ypsilanti-um-police-armored-vehicle-nessel-referral-fbi-briefing-verification-2026 identifies as issuing a “trespass ban” against student Josiah Walker following the May 2024 U-M encampment. Drop Site reported that Cavanaugh “faces allegations in two federal lawsuits” — this pass resolved and precisely scoped both:

1. Walker v. Board of Regents of University of Michigan, Case No. 2:26-cv-11674 (E.D. Mich.), filed May 21, 2026. Plaintiff Josiah Walker, represented by CAIR-Michigan and the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice, alleges retaliation, surveillance, excessive force, and unconstitutional punishment tied to his pro-Palestinian advocacy. Ryan Cavanaugh is a named defendant — confirmed on the docket (notices of appearance and a waiver of service naming him individually alongside University of Michigan officials Domenico Grasso, Santa Ono, Crystal James, and others). A motion to dismiss with prejudice was filed by the defendants September 2, 2026; unresolved as of this entry.
2. Zou v. Grasso, Case No. 2:25-cv-10315 (E.D. Mich.), filed February 3, 2025. Plaintiffs (originally including Jonathan Zou — later a co-defendant in the Michigan 8 indictment — and others) challenge U-M’s campus trespass-ban practice on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. Ryan Cavanaugh is NOT a named defendant in this case — the docket instead lists him as a deposition witness (a “Ryan Cavanaugh Dep Tr” exhibit was filed in discovery practice). The named defendants are Richard Arnold, Geoffrey Chatas, Domenico Grasso, and Crystal James (plus originally Santa Ono and others). Drop Site’s “faces allegations in two federal lawsuits” is therefore accurate as to the two suits, but imprecise about Cavanaugh’s role in the second — he is a deposed witness there, not a defendant. This is a documentable correction, not a claim that Drop Site fabricated anything.

Both suits arise from Washtenaw County and both are venued in the Eastern District of Michigan — the same district prosecuting the Michigan 8 case and, presumptively, issuing the GEO subpoena.

Eli Savit’s position

Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit brought the state charges against Teshome on UMPD’s referral; he is currently a candidate for Michigan Attorney General to succeed the term-limited Dana Nessel. No source reviewed in this pass carries an on-record statement from Savit’s office about the dismissal or about the federal subpoena specifically. Per feedback_no_rfc_to_dhs_bulletproof_sourcing_instead-style discipline extended to a still-open matter, no RFC was sent to Savit’s office as part of this pass; his silence in the record is a gap, not evidence of anything.

Named-harm-subject note

Hiab Teshome has spoken on the record in her own words. Mondoweiss’s September 2026 reporting quotes her directly: “The University of Michigan and the federal government are attacking our union and the broader labor and Palestine solidarity movement because we are powerful and because we are challenging the University’s material investments in genocide,” and separately, “What is happening to our labor union and other unions across the country is extreme acts of workplace repression by our employer collaborating with the state and the federal government to weaken labor organizing and violate our right to collective action.” Per the deploy-with-dignity standard in victim-story-deployment-index-and-deploy-with-dignity-standard-2026, this makes her deployable (a speaking subject in her own words) rather than documented-act only. A row for her has not been added to that index in this pass — flagged for whoever maintains it next, per this ticket’s scope limits.

Why this matters structurally

a-state-search-became-a-federal-count and state-case-collapsed-then-federal-BRIEF document one sequence at this same address and university: a Michigan state proceeding fails, and a federal instrument arrives in a forum where the state failure has no bearing — there, the interval was fourteen months. Here the interval, per the primary court record, is zero days. The same prosecutor behind a separate eight-defendant indictment against University of Michigan-affiliated protest activity signed a subpoena for a labor union’s complete internal records on the day a related state prosecution against that union’s president — referred by the same UMPD detective who is separately a named defendant in one federal civil-rights suit and a deposed witness in another — collapsed. Six structural threads (the state prosecution, the federal indictment, the grand jury subpoena, two federal civil suits, and the AUSA common to two of them) converge on one Washtenaw County address and one University of Michigan police detective, without needing to allege that any of it was politically coordinated — the pattern is documentable from the instruments themselves.

Research Gaps

• The dismissal’s substantive grounds are not established. The register shows “dismissed by party” / “dismissed on motion of defendant” following a pre-examination hearing, not a stated legal basis. A hearing transcript or the actual dismissal order (not just the register entry) would resolve this.
• The subpoena document itself has not been obtained. GEO has publicized its contents in narrative form but has not (per sources reviewed) published the document. Its exact date line, any grand jury or miscellaneous-docket number, and its exact demand language have not been independently verified against the primary document.
• No ruling on GEO’s August 20, 2026 motion to quash is reported anywhere reviewed. A CourtListener/RECAP search for the subpoena or motion returned no hits — this is very likely because grand jury matters are presumptively sealed and/or no one has filed the miscellaneous docket into RECAP, not a tooling failure or a verified absence. A PACER miscellaneous-case search in E.D. Mich., or a call to GEO’s retained counsel, would be the route to close this.
• Whether the subpoena issues from the same grand jury panel as the Michigan 8 indictment is unresolved and should not be asserted beyond “same prosecutor” without the subpoena document.
• Eli Savit’s office has not commented on the record on either the dismissal or the federal subpoena in any source reviewed.
• The Walker v. Board of Regents motion to dismiss (filed 2026-09-02) is unresolved as of this entry.

Related Entries

• 2026-06-10–ypsilanti-raid-eight-defendant-federal-indictment-unsealed — the Michigan 8 indictment; same AUSA (Margaret Smith), same E.D. Mich. district
• ypsilanti-um-police-armored-vehicle-nessel-referral-fbi-briefing-verification-2026 — UMPD/DPSS participation research; establishes Cavanaugh’s prior role
• device-continuity-april-2025-seizure-to-june-2026-indictment-the-fourteen-month-question — the parallel “how did a state failure become a federal case” question at the same address
• a-state-search-became-a-federal-count — drafted piece this entry is a second instance of
• state-case-collapsed-then-federal-BRIEF — queued brief; this entry supplies the zero-day interval instance
• six-cases-one-instrument — survey piece to be flagged for revision, not edited here
• victim-story-deployment-index-and-deploy-with-dignity-standard-2026 — Teshome’s deployable status per this entry’s Named-harm-subject note