It was a cool afternoon on Tuesday, Sept. 23, when I found myself standing outside the side entrance of the federal courthouse in downtown Bay City. It wasn’t uncomfortable waiting there. The air was crisp enough that I’d shed my sport coat, but not so sharp as to make the hour-long vigil feel like penance. My phone, camera app open, was my ticket into a story that had already been building for months.

I was waiting for Michael “Mike” Bacigalupo.

For years, Bacigalupo was Bay City’s impresario. His name and the State Theatre’s name were, to many, synonymous. The theater, perched diagonally across the street from the courthouse where he was now answering to a federal magistrate—was a community pillar. If there was a cultural event happening in Bay City, odds were Bacigalupo had his hand i

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