Fouts protest held, voice expert weighs in on alleged offensive recordings

WARREN, Mich. (WJBK) - You've heard the recordings. Warren Mayor Jim Fouts demeaning and racist recordings are released, allegedly caught making racist and derogatory comments against blacks, women and the disabled.

Now US and state lawmakers are calling for his resignation. But Fouts says he isn't going anywhere and insists the recordings aren't real.

Protesters gathered outside Warren City Hall on Tuesday calling for his resignation after more disturbing recordings alleged to be him, surfaced one day earlier. All this one month after recordings came out of him allegedly mocking the mentally disabled.

On the recordings a man sounding like Fouts says:

"You know blacks do look like chimpanzees. I was watching this black woman with her daughter and they look like two chimps."

"Think I want to "expletive" date a 60-year-old hag? (Expletive) that (expletive). I'm not interested in any old ugly hag. I think after a certain age they're all dried up, washed up, burned down."

"They're (expletive) when they're young and when they get old they're just mean, hateful, dried up old (expletives)."

All this coming just a month after the recordings allegedly of the mayor disparaging the disabled.

"This man is sick and does not deserve to be in the office of a public servant - period," said activist Pastor Mo Hardwick.

"We've heard enough, it's time for this mayor to resign," said protester Jackie Marvin.

Joe Cochran - worked in Warren's communication department and worked closely with Fouts for years.

"I've heard him say disparaging things about an elderly lady," Cochran said. "(And) that he's got to have the younger woman, those kind of things. He would always say to me 'Are the mics down, we're not being recorded right now.' So this all ties in if you connect the dots. He was always paranoid that it is being recorded."

And then there's an analysis of the audio recordings from Ed Primeau of Primeau Forensics.

"The first set of recordings that were brought to me a little over a month ago had enough content where I could do some biometric measurement on the voice," he said. "And present some science in addition to my opinion that they were indeed, the voice of Mayor Fouts.

"The recordings that surfaced yesterday are too short. But subjectively based on the amount of listening I've done so far, it sure sounds like Mayor Fouts' voice to me."

It's enough to prompt several Macomb County politicians to issue a letter - calling for Fouts to resign.

"We found his comments hateful and we found them racist, the disparaging of women," said US Rep. Sander Levin (D-Michigan's 9th Congressional District). "We felt we should very much ask him to resign and that's what we've done."

FOX 2 asked to speak to the mayor but was told he was in a meeting - a mayor who still has his supporters who say the voice on those recordings isn't his.

"I just met with the mayor, I had an hour long meeting with him," said resident Jerry T. Bell. "It's digitally altered."

Fouts has said that it is not his voice on the recordings and took to Facebook to post that he will not resign.