A former Fiat Chrysler Automotive sales associate who is fighting the federal allegation against him that he misused employee discount numbers is demanding the company provide some records it has refused to turn over and accuses the company of bribing dealerships.

Apollon Nimo, who says he was the No. 1 salesperson in the country, was indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in May 2022 on allegations he schemed to fraudulently misuse and sell FCA US “employee purchase control numbers” for buyers or leasors of FCA automobiles to gain a 5% discount off the “factory invoice price” from 2014 through 2021 while he worked at Parkway Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM in Clinton Township. His alleged co-conspirator is Farrah Bottris Bahoo, whose case is also pending.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The case had been scheduled for a trial Tuesday but it has been removed from court records.

FCA recently filed a motion to “quash” parts of Nimo’s subpoena that sought more than a dozen categories of records and documents that Nimo says will help in his defense against the allegations.

FCA has agreed to provide some of the materials but not others.

Nimo’s attorney, Patrick Hurford, contends all of the materials sought are essential to his client’s defense.

“This is not a case about money,” Hurford wrote. “This is a case about a man’s life and freedom. Nimo has Constitutional rights to confront his accusers and compel the attendance of witnesses and evidence material to his defense at his criminal trial. Nimo will not be able to present an effective defense absent this evidence.”

Nimo says in documents FCA  has refused to provide:

• “invoice amounts associated with Nimo’s vehicle sales (‘which should also include new vehicles ordered by Nimo’),
  FCA’s quarterly vehicle inventory,
  Volume Growth Program sales quotas for the FCA dealerships in the Great Lakes Region, and
  evidence concerning FCA’s bribery of sales dealerships to manipulate unit sales numbers” from Jan. 13, 2014 to April 30, 2021.

“The outstanding subpoena requests are relevant, admissible, and specific,” Hurford  says. “FCA is in possession of evidence material and essential to Apollon Nimo’s defense at his criminal trial. This evidence is not speculative.”

Hurford says some of the material scan be used to impeach government witnesses who could testify against Nimo at trial.

But attorney John Streelman, representing FCA, calls the defense’s requests to “build a defense … disingenuous, at best.”

“He cannot show that any of the materials sought in the outstanding requests, including, for instance, FCA US’s year-end inventory, VGP quota numbers, and documents relating to a wholly unrelated investigation, bears any relation to the charges for conspiracy to commit wire fraud,” Streelman says.

He adds the material is irrelevant because the defendant’s argument is “erroneously contending that (FCA) has some control or authority in approving or rejecting individual sales (‘it has none’).

“Nothing in the Indictment or in Nimo’s Response supports the baseless claim that FCA US approved or decided whether to forego any sale at a dealership. … The requested materials have no relevance to elements of the crime charged, including materiality. The allegations in the Indictment reflect that the use of an EPCN affects the price at which a vehicle is offered to the customer and in turn, who pays for the employee discount.”

Streelman says federal courts have ruled that this type of subpoena “should not be used to obtain impeachment materials.”

“Even if it were proper (‘it is not’), Nimo’s plan to use such evidence for impeachment purposes is merely a veiled attempt to victim blame though such tactics are regularly condoned and prohibited,” Streelman says. “Defendant’s anticipated ‘victim blaming’ tactics employed through his relentless efforts to saddle FCA US with expansive, broad and unduly burdensome requests must be rejected as other courts both in this Circuit and others uniformly do.”

Streelman calls the requests “a fishing expedition.”

“These requests are nothing more than a fishing expedition hoping to find impeachment materials for potential cross examination on issues wholly unrelated to the charges brought against either Defendant Nimo or Bahoo, if the government calls a representative of FCA US to testify at trial,” he wrote.

FCA also notes its “well-articulated burden, expense, and length of time that it would take to comply with these outstanding requests as written.”

On his client’s behalf, Hurford details his client’s version of events.

He says Nimo became the company’s No. 1 salesperson in the country amid the its “high inventory and decreased sales performance.”

“FCA went so far as to bribe sales dealerships to manipulate their unit sales numbers to alleviate these issues and defraud investors in the process,” Hurford says, point to a 2019 announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission that FCA agreed to pay $40 million for misleading investors about the number of new vehicles sold each month to customers in the United States.

Hurford says FCA started the sales volume growth program to “prioritize unit sales over per unit profit” to secure economic incentives.

“Nimo witnessed FCA salespersons steal customers’ employee numbers and give or sell them to ineligible customers without any ramification from FCA. (Nimo was not involved and there is no allegation or evidence Nimo ever stole an FCA employee number.),” Hurford says.

He adds the feds are attempting to “prove misrepresentations concerning eligibility for employee discounts were capable of influencing FCA’s decision to approve the sales at issue.”

Nimo, who started at Parkway in 2009, sold about 10,000 vehicles for FCA from 2014 to 2021, according to Hurford. Nimo generated “hundreds of millions of dollars for FCA,” and “FCA never complained about Nimo’s performance,” he says.