DETROIT -- Federal agents subpoenaed the UAW in July for visitor logs and security camera footage in the days following a fire at the union’s Solidary House headquarters in Detroit, and the union turned over the requested information shortly after, a UAW spokesman confirmed.
The Detroit News first reported late Wednesday that a team of agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department had requested the information days after the blaze amid a federal corruption probe. The UAW responded by Aug. 1, The News reported.
Ted Copley, lieutenant and investigator for the Detroit Fire Department, told Automotive News in July that arson was ruled out, but the fire’s cause was still undetermined.
The status of the federal investigation into the fire remains unclear, The News reported.
"The cause is still undetermined, and there is still an open investigation," Deputy Fire Commissioner Dave Fornell told The News on Tuesday.
The Detroit Fire Department has not responded to repeated requests by Automotive News, both by phone and in writing, to obtain copies of written reports about the fire, which took place on the afternoon of Saturday, July 13.
"The UAW has complied with the governments requests for records as we have throughout the process," a UAW spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. "As the fire marshal has previously stated publicly after those records were requested, the fire was from an equipment failure and no arson was involved."
Following the fire, investigators were awaiting results from lab testing on computers, batteries and wiring from the scene to determine the cause, Patrick McNulty, chief of fire investigation for the Detroit Fire Department, said at the time. The News reported Wednesday the investigation was still open.
