The truth about Steven Sulja...article from Windsor Star June 2, 2012
Until last year, Sulja had a business registered with the state of Michigan. It was not publicly traded, but it did seek government contracts.
Listing his father-in-law’s Livonia home as his headquarters, Sulja’s International Trading CCT looked into bidding on such state contracts as the storage and distribution of sexual assault evidence collection kits. Sulja wasn’t awarded that contract or any other, said Kurt Weiss, spokesman for the state budget office.
Other business listings show Sulja as the head of a company called International Venture CCT. It lists the address of Overseas Motors, a Livonia car repair shop owned by his wife’s family, as the corporate headquarters.
A woman at the Plymouth Road shop, who identified herself as the aunt of Sulja’s wife, said Sulja has never had a business there. “It’s a mistake,” she insisted.
Sulja is listed as the “leader” of a small Apostolic Christian Church in Detroit, according to the church directory. His father-in law, John Demrovsky, is the minister.
Demrovksy, interviewed after a church service one recent Sunday, refused to say if Sulja handles the church finances.
That Sulja bilked people out of money and has been sanctioned in Ontario for operating a fraudulent investment scheme came as news to Jimmy Hodges, executive director of the Apostolic Christian Church Foundation, Inc.
Contacted in Richmond, Va., Hodges explained that the foundation, which sponsors church camps and international and domestic relief efforts, comprises 50 churches in Canada and the United States. They are “affiliated but independent,” he said.
“I have visited every one except that one,” he said of Sulja’s church on Seven Mile.
Of Sulja, Hodges said, “I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door…I can tell you he does not handle any of the funds for the foundation.”
Sulja’s church is located in one of Detroit’s worst neighbourhoods. Most of the homes in the area have been torched. No one has bothered to bulldoze them, so the smell of their charred remains hangs in the air.
The church entrance is accessible only through the locked lot.
The church boasts only 10 members.
When asked how Sulja supports his family, his father-in-law said “he is working for some paving company.” That, he said, is the reason for Sulja’s recent absence from Sunday services.
On the doorstep of Sulja’s Lyon Township home recently, Sulja’s wife tersely refused to say what her husband does for a living. She insisted he couldn’t come to the door because he was at work.
But people in the neighbourhood say the tall man with receding brown hair is usually at home, his presence noisily proclaimed by the chainsaw and woodchipper he wields in the woodlot behind his house.
Sulja himself has not responded to repeated requests for an interview.
It’s unknown what Sulja’s immigration status is in the United States. His wife is a U.S. citizen, born, according to her aunt, at Saint Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia.
Lubica Sulja, who wears a long skirt and small headscarf in the tradition of her church and speaks with a mild Eastern European accent, said she has lived in Michigan her whole life, “except for when I lived in Windsor.”
Her husband’s troubles with Canadian authorities have nothing to do with the couple living in the United States, she said. “That was, what, five or six years ago?” she said. “It was a long time ago.” When asked then about the outstanding court order against her husband for money still owed, she said, “It has nothing to do with me.”
She straightened her back and stood taller as she said she doesn’t worry about anyone ever coming after her home or other assets.
Sulja’s wife doesn’t appear to work outside the home, say neighbours who see her in her green Nissan Quest dropping off her children at the bus stop in the morning, then return home.
She stays in her car when she returns to the bus stop in the afternoon, not interacting with the other parents or children.
The Suljas moved to Winding Creek two years ago. The road leading into the exclusive development is split by a boulevard planted with ornamental trees, heralding the wealth that lies beyond. A sign at the Pontiac Trail entrance warns against soliciting.
The namesake creek runs alongside Sulja’s 1.25-acre property.
Most of Winding Creek’s residents are original owners, having the custom-built homes erected for them when the development was established in 1997 and 1998. The 35 houses in the development seldom come up for sale.
The previous owners of the Sulja house spent $500,000 having it built. But the Suljas benefited from the crash in the U.S. housing market, picking it up for about $300,000, according to tax records.
Soon after taking possession, the Suljas began upgrading the home, redoing the landscaping and installing granite countertops, according to neighbours who watched the deliveries. Steven Sulja lined the walls of his three-car garage with pricey shelving made of polished metal.
In the backyard, three satellite dishes point skyward.
An Ohio investor who lost his retirement savings buying Sulja stock said he was disheartened to hear the man behind his troubles is living well.
“He took everything,” said the man, who insisted on anonymity. He had been retired for 10 years when he lost close to $100,000 on penny stocks, most of it on the Sulja company stock. His wife, who had cancer, had to keep working through her chemotherapy treatments because they needed the pay cheque.
