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8 - Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Kilpatrick charged with perjury, eight felonies
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If convicted on all
counts, Detroit mayor
would face up to 80
years in prison
By MONICA DAVEY
and NICK BUNKLEY
The New York Times
DETROIT - For the past two
months, as scandal swirled on
and on, residents here knew that
their mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick,
was under criminal investigation.
Still, when a county prosecutor
announced charges against him on
Monday, Detroit was left reeling at
the scope and seriousness of them.
Kilpatrick, 37, was charged with
eight felony counts, including perju-
ry, obstruction ofjustice, conspiracy
to obstruct justice and misconduct
in office. He turned himself in to the
authorities just after 5 p.m., and was
released on his own recognizance.
He has vowed not to resign.
"I'm just sick to my stomach,"
said Karen Monroe, who watched
the announcement broadcast live
on television from the Checker Bar
and Grill, which she owns along
with her sister.
The prosecutor, Kym L. Worthy,*
painted a portrait of a mayor who
lied under oath, fired a police offi-
cial and agreed to pay $8.4 million
in taxpayer funds to settle alawsuit
-- all to prevent the public from
learning of his personal entangle-
ments, including a romantic rela-
tionship he had with his former
chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
Stressing that her investigation
of Kilpatrick, who is married and
has three sons, was not a private
question of "lying about sex," Wor-
thy said: "Public dollars were used,
peoples' lives were ruined, the jus-
tice system was severely mocked,
and the public trust trampled on.
This case is about as far from being
a private matter as one can get."
If convicted on all eight counts,
Kilpatrick would face a maximum
sentence of 80 years in prison,
though a far shorter sentence
wouldbe possible. Worthydeclared
it a "very sad day" for the city, but
said that central tenets of life had
been breached. "Even children
understand that lying is wrong,"
she said.
From his 11th floor office at city
hall, Kilpatrick, a dynamic speaker
who once was regarded by Demo-
cratic Party leaders as a young politi-
cian to watch, was quieter and more
reserved than usual. He told report-
ers he intended to "remain focused on
moving this city forward" and looked
"forward to complete exoneration."
He left questions to his lawyer,
Dan K. Webb, a prominent former
federal prosecutor from Chicago,
who raised pointed criticism about
the charges, the notion that a perjury
charge would stem from a civil case,
and what he described as "selective
prosecution" by Worthy, the pros-
ecuting attorney for Wayne County.
Kilpatrick, in his second term as
mayor, has vowed in recent weeks
that he will not quit. On Monday,
Webb said he has urged Kilpatrick
not to resign his office. Still, some
residents here were already specu-
lating that resignation might come
soon; to many, the prospect of a sit-
ting mayor on trial was unseemly.
If convicted of a felony, the city's
charter would bar Kilpatrick from
staying on as mayor.
In 2001, Kilpatrick, who comes
from deeply political roots (his
mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick,
is a congresswoman and his father,
Bernard Kilpatrick, was a county
commissioner), beat an opponent
twice his age for mayor.
Historians here said Kilpatrick,
once among the youngest mayors
ever elected to run a major Ameri-
can city, is the first sitting mayor of
Detroit to be charged with a crime.
(Several others were charged after
leaving office, they said.)
Beatty, who resigned as chief of
staff days after the scandal began
unfoldinghere in January, was also
charged on Monday with seven
felony counts. Mayer Morganroth,
her lawyer, called the charges
"overkill" and said that she is inno-
cent of them.
Around Detroit, residents --
even those who said they had been
expecting charges against the
mayor -- seemed shaken.
"I voted for Kilpatrick because I
though it would be less cronyism,"
Rachel Lutz, another resident, said.
"He was charismatic and enthusi-
astic. I feel betrayed that he squan-
dered that."
The scandal was particularly
the former deputy chief, had not
been fired. But a text message from
Beatty to Kilpatrick referred to their
decision "to fire Gary Brown." Kil-
patrick's text response, according to
the Free Press, seemed to acknowl-
edge the firing. "It had to happen
though. I'm all the way with that!"
Kilpatrick, who had long pledged
to fight the officers' lawsuit, agreed
to settle the cases for $8.4 million
in taxpayers' funds hours after
learning that the officers' lawyer
had copies of the text messages and
could make them public.
Even with Monday's charges, the
scandal here was widening. Worthy
said her investigation was continuing
and noted that other "potential defen-
dants"have emerged duringher study
of 40,000 pages of documents and
interviews with scores of witnesses.
"At every bend and turn there have
been attempts by the city through one
lawyer or another to block aspects of 4
our investigation,"she said.
The prospect of more turmoil
ahead left many weary. "This is a
city that desperately needs strong
visionary leadership and instead
it gets tangled up in this type of a
fight," said Kevin Boyle, a history
professor at Ohio State University
who has written extensively about
his native Detroit.
Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, thought to have a bright future in the Democratic Party, was charged with eight felonies yesterday.
troubling to some here who recent-
ly had new hopes for their city: For
years, Detroit has struggled with
a reputation for vacant lots and an
emptying downtown and some said
they believed Kilpatrick had begun
to turn that around. They pointed
to his ability as a young black
mayor (who had been dubbed
by some the "Hip Hop Mayor"
for his diamond stud and stylish
suits) to persuade older, white
businessmen to invest again in
this city.
"This is a Detroit political
tragedy," Charles K. Hyde, a his-
torian at Wayne State Univer-
sity, said. "He had the potential
of being a very effective mayor
over many, many years and he
has wrecked any future political
career over a sexual dalliance."
The charges stem from a
scandal that has roiled Kil-
patrick's administration since
January, when The Detroit Free
Press published text messages
between Kilpatrick and Beatty, a
friend since high school.
The messages from Beatty's
city-issued pager were laced, at
times, with sexual banter, con-
tradicting the testimony Kilpat-
rick and Beatty had provided
under oath last year that they
had never had a romantic rela-
tionship.
The two were questioned about
their relationship during a civil
trial in which several former police
officers accused Kilpatrick of forc-
ing them out ofjobs, in part because
their investigations might have
uncovered his romances.
The text messages also contra-
dicted testimony the two had pro-
vided about the departure of Gary
Brown, one of the officers who filed
the lawsuit.
Kilpatrick testified that Brown,
--p
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