{"product_id":"9781479717439","title":"A Fight For Honor: The Charles Kerkman Story","description":"It was – and remains - the largest public\/private contract ever entered into in Michigan. More than $35 million in taxpayer’s money was awarded to UPSCO, a company developed to build innovative tug-barge vessels as part of a unique “rails-to-sails” transportation system that promised to revolutionize and transform the U.S.\/Michigan trucking and shipping industry in the early 1980s. Within seven years, however, two top company officials would be sentenced to prison; the company - and the hundreds of jobs it provided - lay in ruins; political careers were destroyed; and Michigan residents saw millions of their tax dollars disappear in an instant. But now, more than two-and-a-half decades later, federal court records, company documents, secret FBI\/U.S. Postal Service Investigation reports and U.S. Attorney records reveal a reality that is hard to believe:  • Michigan’s largest financial investment flop in history never had to happen;  • one of the nation’s most farsighted and talented entrepreneurs never had to see the inside of a prison cell; • and the level of FBI, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, sparked by overreaching federal investigative agencies and greedy union and private shipbuilding company owners, rose to a level that is still hard to believe even in these cynical times.    “A Fight For Honor: The Charles Kerkman Story” is an inside look at one of the nation’s most outrageous and egregious political and law-enforcement cases told through the life and experiences of Charles Kerkman, the man who lived the governmental nightmare that haunts him to this day.","brand":"Xlibris Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47107780378864,"sku":"9781479717439","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781479717439_p0.jpg?v=1763617166","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781479717439","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}