A Detroit airport boss convicted of bribery killed himself one day after he was scheduled to begin serving a 10-year prison sentence, officials said.
Federal marshals found the body of James Warner, former Detroit Metropolitan Airport supervisor, in the garage at his home in Commerce Township Friday, according to reports. They issued an emergency arrest warrant for him after he failed to show up to prison on Thursday morning.
Warner, 55, was seated next to a car and a can of compressed nitrogen, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.
He is believed to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning, the outlet said. An autopsy is scheduled for today.
Warner had been convicted on several bribery and money laundering charges in June 2019. According to prosecutors, Warner had steered $43.7 million worth of airport contracts to three co-conspirators in exchange for a $6 million bribe.
“There are no words that I can articulate how I feel about this,” Warner’s lawyer Harold Gurewitz told the Detroit Free Press.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request to review Warner’s corruption case, the largest in the city’s history.