Michigan State Senator Hansen Clarke, according to his facebook page, is gathering volunteers and gearing up to challenge Michigan Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the mother of scandal plagued former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. It is my contention that Mrs. Kilpatrick is in serious danger of losing her seat in the August Primary.
Mrs. Kilpatrick’s favorable ratings are in the toilet. According to the last poll taken in August, her re-elect number is 27%, which is beyond toxic. The recent headlines surrounding her son’s refusal to pay restitution to the city following the sex-scandal that drove him from office and the imminent joint indictment of her son and ex-husband, cannot possibly have helped matters.
The former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus is facing a formidable challenger. Clarke, 52, a biracial brotha of East Indian and African American descent, is a gifted, low-key politician with a progressive record of achievement in the Michigan Legislature. Clarke sponsored legislation to impose a two-year moratorium on foreclosures that disproportionately plague black and brown communities. Moreover, he introduced a bill to expand hate crimes laws to protect those targeted on the basis of sexual orientation or gender expression. Clarke challenged Kwame for Mayor in 2005 and made a brief run for Governor this year before he ended his candidacy. This is a race he can win. If he goes forward and files, and has the field all to himself, the odds are heavily in his favor.
Yesterday, in a rare act of mental clarity and ideological congruence with the black community, the Congressional Black Caucus elected progressive champion Barbara Lee, 62, as it’s chairwoman. She accepted the gavel of leadership from the galactically corrupt, inept and stupifyingly arrogant Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the worst congressional caucus chairman in all of human history.
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the chief enabler and mother of the felonious a**clown Kwame Kilpatrick, the former “Playa Mayor” of Detroit, should’ve resigned from the chairmanship, the caucus, and the race, and been downright embarrassed to be seen in public, but the plucky doyenne of Detroit ain’t got no shame in her game.
The people of Detroit apparently do have a sense of shame and almost sent her tail back home in last August’s Democratic primary. They sought to punish her for the incredibly tacky, ghetto soap opera of sleeze playing out daily on television and in print.
It was incredibly demoralizing how the caucus and the House Democratic leadership circled the wagons around a corrupt “public servant” who chose to empower her relations rather than her constituents by finding new and sleezy methods of using nepotism and cronyism to fortify the Kilpatrick Dynasty’s political machine.
Moreover, she led the caucus into betraying the economic interests of the black and brown constituents they’ve been elected to serve by heeding Barack Obama’s call to bailout Wall-Street instead of Mainstreet.
Normally progressive members like Barbara Lee followed her lead, listened to the House Leadership and Barack Obama, and jumped off a cliff into the waiting arms of economic catastrophe.
My prayer is that Barabara listens to the still, small voice of her mentor Shirley Chisholm and tunes out the House Leadership and the president elect on matters of progressive principle.
Lt. Michael Kearns signed an affidavit with Birmingham attorney Norman Yatooma in which he says he interviewed Greene, a stripper, at a gas station on Jefferson and Conner in the fall of 2002.
“The woman was very upset and had swelling over her left eye,” Kearns said, adding she and a friend “were dancing at a party at the Manoogian Mansion and that the Mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, threw a fit, hit her and the other dancer, then kicked them out of the house.”
Yatooma filed the disclosures today in U.S. District Court in connection with a lawsuit that accuses the city of thwarting an investigation into Greene’s April 30, 2003, killing.
In his affidavit, Kearns said Greene was also talking with Detroit Police officers and an EMS unit arrived and subsequently transported her to a hospital. The affidavit does not name any of the EMS workers or police officers.
Kearns said the incident occurred on a Friday or Saturday night, but he did not remember the date.
He said he never came forward: “out of fear for my career and my safety.”
Kearns said in his affidavit that he told his story to Lt. John Morrell in the Detroit Police Department homicide section in June of this year. Morrell asked Kearns to submit to an interview with another homicide detective, Mike Carlisle, Kearns said. He said he ran into Carlisle on a police run about two weeks ago, but still has not been interviewed.
Carlisle said today when contacted by the Free Press that Kearns didn’t have enough specific information.
“At the time I spoke with him, he was unable to provide enough information for me to actually conduct any type of interview,” Carlisle said. “I advised him that if he could give me some solid information on dates and times when this occurred that we would set up a time and date to talk. To this day, I have not heard back from him.”
A second EMS supervisor, retired Lt. Walter Godzwon, gave an affidavit saying he saw Mayor Kilpatrick at Detroit Receiving Hospital with his bodyguards one night in the fall of 2002. He did not give a specific date.
He said he learned through conversations that the mayor’s bodyguards brought an injured woman to the hospital.
Reached today, Godzwon told the Free Press he is a city resident and has a pension and “I’m in the middle of this and I’m not a willing participant. This is a stage of my life I would like to forget about.”
Godzwon said he also saw former Detroit emergency medical technician Douglas Bayer at the scene.
Bayer recently filed a whistle-blower’s lawsuit against the city, alleging he was retaliated against for providing the Michigan State Police with information about the rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion.
“I made these statements because they’re the truth,” Godzwon said. “Someone put me at the scene and asked me specific questions. I don’t lie.”
Brown and one of his consultants confirmed today that polling will begin soon to gauge his support for a run at mayor next year or a campaign this year for the 13th District, which spreads from the Grosse Pointes to Downriver.
Brown insists it’s not personal and would only discuss his interest in taking on Cheeks Kilpatrick, 62. But his candidacy could turn what has traditionally been a campaign cakewalk for the six-term congresswoman into a bitter race with a subplot of the decorated deputy police chief against the mother of the man who ended his law enforcement career.
“I certainly don’t blame her for anything he’s done,” Brown said. “It’s really her record I want to run against, not him.”
Brown said he plans to seed the campaign with money from the $3 million share settlement he received last year when a Wayne County jury found that Kilpatrick ousted him for investigating the mayor and his security team.
They each were released on personal bonds of $75,000, and preliminary examinations for each were set for June 9.
Beatty’s attorneys asked Chief Magistrate Steve Lockhart whether she would be allowed to leave the state to visit her two children, who are in Chicago. Lockhart said yes, but she would have to receive advance permission for any other trips. Kilpatrick also will be allowed to leave the state without permission, but he must give advance notice of the time and his whereabouts.
During Beatty’s arraignment, Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Robert Moran raised a question about whether her lawyer, Mayer Morganroth of Southfield, has a conflict of interest because he also represents Kilpatrick and the city in a lawsuit over the death of stripper Tamara Greene, who was rumored to have danced at a rumored wild party at Manoogian mansion. “There is no conflict at this time,” Morganroth replied, adding that he didn’t see any in the future.
Moran also raised the issue that the entire 36th District Court bench might need to be disqualified from conducting the June 9 preliminary examination because one or two judges may be called as witnesses.
Kilpatrick is charged with eight felonies and Beatty with seven. They are: perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.
Worthy said the perjury charges accuse the two of lying during a whistle-blower lawsuit about the firing of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown and about their romantic relationship.
Kilpatrick, 38, serving his seventh year in office, is the first Detroit mayor to face criminal charges while still in office. The perjury charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
“Lying cannot be tolerated, even if a judge and jury can see through it and doesn’t buy the line,” Worthy said at a packed news conference.
“Witnesses must give truthful testimony,” she added. “Oaths mean something.”
Right after Worthy’s announcement, the mayor’s office sent out a news release saying he and his attorney will hold a news conference at noon to respond. But at 12:45 p.m., they still had not appeared.
The mayor is expected to be arraigned at 5 p.m. today in 36th District Court in Detroit. It wasn’t clear when Beatty will turn herself in, but she must do so before 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Worthy declined to say whether she thinks the mayor should step down. Beatty resigned on Feb. 8.
During her news conference, Worthy said city lawyers had tried to erect barriers to her investigation, forcing prosecutors to go to court to try to obtain documents. She said investigators are still trying to obtain documents for the investigation, which will continue.
“At every bend and turn, there have been attempts by the city through one lawyer or another to block aspects of our investigation,” Worthy said. “Some documents have been turned over, but we have been told that others have been destroyed or lost. We don’t know when or by whom.”
She said the investigation wasn’t about sex, but about destroying the lives and careers of three good cops.
“Gary Brown’s, Harold Nelthrope’s and Walter Harris’ lives and careers were forever changed,” Worthy said. “They were ruined financially and their reputations were completely destroyed because they chose to be dutiful police officers.”
She added: “Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people’s lives were ruined, the justice system severely mocked and the public trust trampled on.”
Worthy said she had discussed the investigation with U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy, but declined to say what they discussed. Murphy declined today to comment on Worthy’s statement. The FBI is monitoring the investigation, according to people familiar with the case.
She said her staff had reviewed more than 40,000 pages of documents and interviewed many witnesses. She said her investigation had led to other possible defendants whom she didn’t identify. Worthy said her team of prosecutors on the case includes Lisa Lindsey, Robert Moran, Athina Siringas, Robert Spada and Timothy Baughman.
Worthy’s investigation began after the Free Press uncovered text messages that showed a romantic relationship between Kilpatrick and Beatty — a relationship both had denied under oath during a police whistle-blower lawsuit last summer. The pair also gave misleading testimony about the firing of Brown, the messages show.
Kilpatrick authorized a settlement in that case to pay the former officers $8.4 million.
Despite the false testimony, a Wayne County Circuit Court jury last September awarded Brown and Nelthrope $6.5 million in damages. Kilpatrick vowed to appeal, but on Oct. 17, abruptly decided to settle the case and a second police whistle-blower suit involving former mayoral bodyguard Walt Harris for $8.4 million – $9 million with legal costs.
Kilpatrick settled after the cops’ lawyer, Mike Stefani, informed the mayor’s lawyer that he had the incriminating text messages and would reveal them in court papers he planned to file to justify his request for legal fees in the whistle-blower case.
Although Kilpatrick apologized for his conduct in a televised appearance with his wife, Carlita, in late January, he has blamed the media for his troubles and rejected calls from the City Council, Attorney General Mike Cox and city union locals to resign.
Settlement documents the Free Press obtained last month through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the city show that – contrary to Kilpatrick’s claim that he decided to settle based on advice from friends, advisers and ordinary citizens – he made peace with the cops after discovering that Stefani had the text messages.
Although Kilpatrick’s lawyers settled the suit with one agreement on Oct. 17, they decided to split it into public and private settlements after the Free Press requested a copy.
The public agreement showed how much the former cops would be paid. The secret agreement, signed by Kilpatrick and Beatty, swore Brown, Nelthrope and Stefani to secrecy about the text messages under threat of forfeiting their settlement proceeds and legal fees.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr. released the secret agreement last month after the Kilpatrick administration repeatedly denied its existence. Colombo released the agreement and other secret settlement records after the administration appealed unsuccessfully to the Michigan Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court, which rejected Kilpatrick’s claim that the documents weren’t public documents.
The City Council, which was kept in the dark about Kilpatrick’s reasons for settling the lawsuit and never saw the confidential side agreement, voted 7-1 last week to pass an advisory resolution calling for the mayor to resign. It also ordered an investigation of the episode and directed its auditor general to look into spending by the mayor’s office and the city Law Department.
Kilpatrick went on television with his wife in late January and apologized for his conduct, he insists there was no cover-up and has blamed the news media for most of his problems. He accused the Free Press of illegally obtaining the text messages – which the newspaper denies– and accusing the media of conducting a public lynching. He said the text messages and the settlement agreement that concealed them should never have been made public.
He also said the text messages were private even though he signed a policy directive in June 2000 advising city employees that all electronic communications should be considered public.
So far, Kilpatrick has refused to step down, saying he is on a divinely-inspired mission to help rebuild the city. But conviction of a felony would force him to resign.
In honor of this momentous occasion, I give you Atlantic Starr singing that old 80’s jam, Secret Lovers.
A staunch defender and promoter of her son’s political aspirations and his two campaigns for mayor of Detroit, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, has some explaining to do now that Mama’s Baby has been revealed to be a liar, philanderer, and unquestionably corrupt.Kwame, a scion of political family, was elected based on the credibility of his mother and that of his father, a former chief of staff to the Wayne County Executive and Mrs. Kilpatrick’s ex-husband.
A lawyer and state representative, Mama’s Baby rose to become the Democratic Leader of the Michigan House of Representatives before he announced his candidacy for mayor at the age of 32, an effort backed by both of his parents.
This sad turn of events is troubling on many levels.First, it ends the trust and promise a younger generation of leadership. Moreover, it seriously undermines the older generation that spawned and nurtured it.I have no doubt that Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty will be prosecuted for perjury and convicted by a jury of their peers.It’s time for all to acknowledge this reality before the city is undermined any further. It is my contention that Congresswoman Kilpatrick and her colleague John Conyers, the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, if they haven’t already, must step forward as Detroit’s senior leaders and address this situation as the statespersons they claim to be.
If you’re wondering why I also am calling for John Conyers to lead, it’s because his wife, political partner and eventual successor, Monica, sits on the City Council. If Kwame resigns, Mrs. Conyers will again become President of the City Council. John Conyers, a leader of the impeachment effort against Bush and Cheney, might need to look a little closer to home and help lead the effort against Kwame Kilpatrick-not because of his wife but because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s time for Mama’s Baby to resign and they have a moral obligation to make that happen.If nothing happens it will confirm for me that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and that her exalted position in the corridors of Washington power is illegitimate.
Full text of Kilpatrick’s speech (Revised by Skeptical Brotha)
January 30, 2008
MR. KILPATRICK: Good evening, Detroit. I want to start tonight by offering an obligatory, disingenuous Clintonian apology, I’m sorry. To all of you stupid enough to have believed in what we’ve been doing here since 2002, to all of you stupid enough to have believed in me, in my leadership, to all of you stupid enough to have stuck with me through very difficult times, to all of you who prayed for me not to get caught screwing around on my wife, I’m sorry.
For the embarrassment and the disappointment, the events of the past few days have caused you, for what you as my supporters, many of you, have had to hear as you traveled around our city to beauty shops and barbershops, what you had to hear when you were in Church this past Sunday from people who know that you have supported me. For those of you who have not always been Kwame Kilpatrick supporters, but who lift up our city, who live in our city, who support this town in various ways, Again, I offer a disingenuous apology to each and every one of you individually and to the whole city.
Most of all tonight, again, I want to make a disingenuous public apology to my entire family, and specifically to the four people I should love the most in this world.
First, I want to apologize to my sons, Jelani, Jalil and Jonas. For the first time in my life I had to have an adult conversation with my 12 year old twin sons about not using public cell phones to text message your mistress. It was without a doubt the hardest conversation that I’ve ever had in my entire life.Finally, and most importantly, I want to make a public apology to my wife Carlita, whose big booty and thighs I fell in love with when I was 19 years old.
Our marriage has not been perfect, the sex certainly hasn’t been lately-obviously, but overall it has been great. Now, I put her in a typical B.S. ghetto situation which many couples deal with in the privacy of their own homes, but in our case, I F’ed up and put our damn business in the street. I apologize to you, baby.At some point, perhaps we’ll have some great make-up nookie and put this tawdry spectacle behind us.
As many of you know, I’m a self-absorbed womanizer incapable of not whoring around and disrespecting God, my wife or my children, but I have to tell you I’ve felt more emotion in the last week than I have in the past 20 years. I’ve been truly hurting, I’ve been hurting because I know that many of you are hurting cause some of y’all still ain’t found a job since I laid you off. And most of all, I’ve been hurting because I know that my days of carousing America’s strip clubs on the city dime are numbered.
Over the past few years there’s been some speculation about who is in charge of the city. Make no mistake about it, since 2002 I have been in charge of mismanaging the city. There have been ups and downs, there have been hills and mountains and valleys, but through it all I remained in charge of the mismanaging the ship. I believe we built a team here that covers for my lack of focus and obvious deficiencies.
They’ve done a yeoman’s job pretending to care about the mission, focus and commitment that we must have to serve our citizens. We’ve done some amazing things, like concealing my $210,000 city credit card bill, the $25,000 lease the city paid for Carlita’s Navigator, and the hypocritical mass layoffs of city employees while I live like a King in Manoogian Mansion, but we have a lot of work left to do. Over the past few days there has also been a lot of speculation about me resigning from office.
Let me be clear tonight, Y’all will hafta send a swat team to get me outta Manoogian Mansion. We’ve got a lot of work to do and with your silent Negro acquiescence; I’m going to continue to mismanage this city into bankruptcy. I am truly blessed and grateful that my wife is beside me tonight, and she has some politically expedient remarks of her own to make.
CARLITA KILPATRICK: It is very difficult for me to talk to you at this moment, but I want to trick you fools into believing that what I am about to say is the heartfelt statement from a sympathetic and wronged woman.
Like all marriages, ours is not perfect. Like all men, he ain’t perfect, but through this shameless and cynical appeal to stupid God fearing Negroes, my husband and I will get through this. Yes, I’m pissed the fool got caught, I am hurt, and I will cut that heifer if she ever steps to my man again. But there is no question that I love living in Manoogian Mansion. With the help of our pastor and others, we have been going through the motions to look like we’re working through our mess.
Most sistahs who have problems in their marriage are able to throw a pot of hot grits on the Negro privately. Unfortunately, that option is not available to me-we can’t both be in jail. Our family has endured the most painful and intrusive week of our lives. Our most intimate issues have been laid out for all to see, for all to comment on, for all to dissect and analyze. This is the part where I pretend that this private matter is between me, my husband, and God. And pretend to be deeply committed to working through these issues together as a family.
As his wife, I know how feckless my husband is and his lack of commitment to better the City of Detroit. I don’t really care.However, I know full well that the bulk of you are as stupid as a box of rocks and that’s why I am asking the citizens of this city to be committed to him, and our family, and to the continued lavish subsidization of our lifestyle.
Allow our family the space and the privacy that is essential to anyone frontin’ as hard as we are. Lastly, I would like to thank each and every one of you for all of your fruitless prayers and your uplifting words. Thank you.
MR. KILPATRICK:In an obvious play for sympathy I don’t deserve and shouldn’t get, I would ask from this point forward that if you have to attack someone, attack me. I would ask that you don’t follow my wife; you don’t film my kids going to school. I ask you not to have helicopters flying around our home. I ask that you leave them alone. I am the mayor, I made the mistake, and I am accountable.
Because I could get could get locked up for what I’ve done, I am unable to discuss any of those issues at this time. But I do have one last piece of B.S I want to share with you tonight. Over the past week our marriage has been opened up for public view. This has been a situation where, yes, it’s been embarrassing, yes, it’s been painful, but through all of that, through the grace of God and a good PR expert, we’ve concocted this obviously self-serving public statement to bamboozle you.
We have committed to my political career, to making it better and stronger. Last week was the first weekend since I took office in January 2002 that I just put everything aside and focused on the growing firestorm unfolding on the pages of every newspaper in Michigan. I know people have been wanting to hang me from my toenails, but I needed some space to confer with public relations experts first and then claim that we’d had some much needed family time.
I want to thank the people of Detroit for their stupidity in allowing us time to come up with some slick, face-saving crap. We as a family needed to do that. I told my sons this past weekend to keep up with their women.If you get caught, you get up, you dust yourself off, and throw yourself on the mercy of gullible God fearing Negroes to keep your damn arse outta jail.
Detroit, I am determined to avoid conviction. I am determined to continue to cling to power as Mayor of this city.
Together we have managed to do great things. We have laid off more Negroes, we have charged more for garbage pickup than ever. We have balanced our budget on the backs of the most vulnerable and wiped out ahuge deficit.
I’ve been to strip clubs in 20 states on the city dime, and I am not stopping now.
Detroit, please continue to pray for our family, for our city and for our continued progress. God bless you, Detroit. I love you, and hopefully I won’t be indicted tomorrow.
Beatty resigned five days after the Free Press reported in an exclusive investigation that she and the mayor had lied under oath in a whistleblower’s suit against the city. Text messages exchanged by the two and obtained by the Free Press contradict what they said on the witness stand about their relationship and about their decision to fire a police officer who was investigating possible wrongdoing by the mayor’s staff.
In her letter of resignation, submitted to the city this morning, Beatty said, “I’ve served the administration and Detroit citizens with diligence, strength and perseverence and I hope that my efforts will one day show through above all else.
“In spite of this, however, I believe that it is clear I can no longer effectively carry out the duties of chief of staff. Therefore, this letter serves as my resignation effective February 8, 2008, to allow for an orderly transition of my duties with the new chief of staff.
“I painfully regret the devastation that the recent reports have caused to the citizens of Detroit, to my coworkers, to the mayor’s family and to my family and friends.”
Kilpatrick’s spokesman James Canning said the mayor’s office “had no further comment at this time” on the resignation.
Beatty’s departure brings an end to more than a decade of working with and for Kilpatrick, her former Cass Tech High School classmate.
Their work together started when Kilpatrick ran for the state House in 1996 after his mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, decided to give up her seat to run for Congress.
When Kilpatrick gave his farewell speech to the House in December 2001 as he prepared to take office as mayor, he credited Beatty.
“I ran for this position at 25 years old, in 1996. I was just a young guy out there who couldn’t get any support. Nobody would support us. Everyone told us to pay our dues, that we’re not old enough, come back when you learn a little more and you have a little more money,” he said in that speech.
“I say us, because, I had a meeting and I asked for everyone that wanted to support me and endorse me to come to that meeting and two people showed up. Those two people were Christine Beatty and Derrick Miller. We ran a three person campaign with ten thousand dollars. We walked and knocked on every single door in our district and we worked as hard as we could. We didn’t get any of the endorsements, none of those big Democratic endorsements that you want. None from labor and none from the Congressional districts. We just knocked on doors and we ran a real grass-roots and focused campaign and by God, we won!”
After serving as a legislative aide to Kilpatrick, Beatty ran the day-to-day operations of his 2001 mayoral campaign. After Kilpatrick won, he named her chief of staff and she had an almost omnipresent role in the administration.
Until Kilpatrick named his first deputy mayor, Anthony Adams, in 2004, Beatty unofficially filled that role, stepping in to run the city when Kilpatrick left town.
Beatty had direct oversight of the departments of Human Resources, Labor Relations, Human Services, Health & Wellness Promotion and Senior Citizens and of the Mayor’s Office, Neighborhood City Halls, 311 Call Center and communications. She had a major role in Kilpatrick’s Next Detroit Neighborhood Initiative.
But Beatty also ran into trouble. She was accused of pulling rank when Detroit police pulled her over on a traffic violation, resulting in a lawsuit that is still pending.
Before Beatty’s resignation was announced, Canning said this morning that the mayor was not scheduled to issue a statement today. He has “nothing on his public calendar,” he said.
“When he has something to say, we’ll let you know.”
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, lied about their relationship last summer during a police whistle-blower trial that has cost the cash-strapped city more than $9 million, according to records obtained by the Free Press.
The false testimony potentially exposes them to perjury charges.
Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty denied in August testimony that they had a sexual relationship. But a series of text messages shows they engaged in romantic banter as well as planned and recounted sexual liaisons.
The text messages are also at odds with the pair’s testimony that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, who later sued, in 2003. Texts show Christine Beatty recalling the “decision we made to fire Gary Brown.”
The Kilpatrick-Christine Beatty relationship and Gary Brown’s dismissal are central to the whistle-blower suit filed by Brown and Harold Nelthrope.
The two former police officers accuse Kwame Kilpatrick of retaliating against them because of their roles in an internal investigation of the mayor’s security team — a probe that potentially could have exposed his affair with Beatty.
The newspaper examined nearly 14,000 text messages on Christine Beatty’s city-issued phone. The exchanges cover two months each in 2002-2003.
The text messages cover a range of issues, from the daily minutiae of city business to political gossip to the latest doings on American Idol. Kilpatrick, who is married, and Beatty, both 37, exchanged personal messages almost daily, including romantic notes like this one from October 3, 2002 …
Kilpatrick: “I’m madly in love with you.” Beatty: “I hope you feel that way for a long time. In case you haven’t noticed, I am madly in love with you, too!”
Other texts contain sexual content, like this April 8, 2003, exchange:
Beatty: “And, did you miss me, sexually?” Kilpatrick: “Hell yeah! You couldn’t tell. I want some more.”
The city has tried since 2004 to keep the text messages under wraps. It fought in court to keep them from being provided to the legal team for the former cops and went to court this month in an effort to kill a subpeona issued in a Free Press suit to learn more about the settlement.
If Kilpatrick and Beatty are found to have committed perjury, they could face up to 15 years in prison under state law.
Skeptical Brotha 