( DETROIT) Posted Sept. 4, 2005 – Kwame Kilpatrick, the ex-Florida A&M football player-turned charismatic politician, will no longer wear the title of Detroit mayor.
Kilpatrick, 38, will resign from office, serve four months in jail and pay $1 million in restitution after pleading guilty this morning to two felony obstruction of justice charges. Kilpatrick will also do five years of probation and has agreed to transfer to the City of Detroit Treasury all proceeds from the Michigan pension he previously earned as a state representative.
Immediately following his guilty plea, Kilpatrick pleaded no contest in a separate assault case involving a July confrontation with Wayne County sheriff’s deputies. As part of the plea process, Kilpatrick answered several questions about the crime to which he admitted, including whether he willingly gave up his right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. “I think I gave that up a long time ago your honor, yes,” he answered.
Sex-text messages proved an affair.
Kilpatrick’s perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office charges stemmed from his discipline of cops whose investigation into police overtime threatened to expose the mayor’s personal life. Dozens of text messages sent between Kilpatrick and his ex-chief of staff, Christine Beatty, show an extra-marital affair between them in 2003. The former officers were blocked from probing alleged overtime abuse by Kilpatrick’s security squad whose members reportedly served duty during the mayor’s sexual encounters.
Kilpatrick and Beatty, who’s now divorced, denied their affair while under oath at a 2007 civil trial where the investigating cops sued the mayor and the city. The cops won their lawsuit, and the mayor later settled on the city’s behalf for $8.4 million – apparently after learning about the text messages. Beatty has since divorced her husband and also faces multiple felonies.
“I lied under oath….”
On Thursday morning, Kilpatrick admitted to lying on three separate occasions, including at the 2007 trial, saying: “I lied under oath in the case of Gary Brown and Harold Nelthrope … with the intent to impede … justice.”
The separate felony assault case against the mayor resulted from a July incident when he allegedly shoved a sheriff’s deputy at the home of Kilpatrick’s sister. Investigators went to the house to serve a subpoena on a third party, but the mayor reportedly flew into a rage, believing his sister was being harassed.
He’ll be sentenced on Oct. 28 – if a judge accepts his pleas. The agreement arrives on what would’ve been day two of hearings by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to decide if Kilpatrick would be removed from office. The non-criminal proceedings would’ve let Granholm dismiss Kilpatrick as mayor based on a finding of public misconduct. Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. becomes acting mayor, with Kilpatrick’s resignation.
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