"Your client indicated that it intended to build hotels on the property, not to sell it to someone else, who in turn sold it to the Detroit Public Schools for more money than what the state would have sold it to them if it knew the school district was interested," says assistant attorney general Matthew Rick in a letter to Nederlander's attorney, Leonard Hyman. "In fact, your client indicated during negotiations that the property was not worth the $6.1 million ultimately agreed upon by the parties."

Nederlander was to purchase the land for $6.1 million as part of his lease of the state fairgrounds at Woodward Avenue and Eight Mile Road. He said he sold it to a real estate investment trust, headed by a former business partner, for $10.5 million after local residents and four cities, including Detroit, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge and Huntington Woods, filed a lawsuit to prevent the construction of a Grand Prix racetrack at thefairgrounds. The suit is still in the discovery process.

The trust has offered to sell the property to the Detroit school district, which would build a new high school, for $17 million. The district would use 24 acres, and sell the rest to Home Depot Inc. for $9.5 million for a new store.