CongressionalBadBoys.com | home | Collins Barbara-Rose Collins Democrat, Michigan (1991-1996) The Honorable Barbara-Rose Collins had committed 11 violations of law and House rules, said the House Ethics Committee, but then said that it was taking no punitive actions because she was was no longer in office.  The violations ranged from cashing campaign funds for personal use to using House office funds for her campaign.  Collins lost her seat in 1996 to Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.  A grand jury in Detroit investigated her, but she was never charged with a crime.  One of the things that irritated her supporters was that Collins was absent the day the House voted to condemn the burnings of numerous black churches in the South.  Collins was in Gary, Indiana, helping to open up a casino when that vote came.  She also got into trouble with some of her supporters, particularly Detroit ministers, when she held a fund-raising event at a Detroit strip club.  (The male and female dancers remained clothed as they performed a variety show.) But there's more . . . In 2002, Collins, now a Detroit city councilwoman, owed more than $110,000 to the IRS for understating her taxable income and for filing returns late.  Collins blamed her failure to file and dispute with the IRS on depression that she suffered since shortly after leaving Congress in 1996.  "I don't know why they're doing this,"  Collins said of the IRS.  "I haven't been employed for five years." Sources:  "Detroit Councilwoman Understated Income, IRS Says," AP, Jan. 12, 2002;  Robyn Meredith, "Ethical Issues Pose Test to a Detroit Lawmaker," New York Times, Aug. 2, 1996, A10;  Catherine O'Brien, "Legislator May Have Broken House Laws,"  Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 4, 1997, A3.