Tuesday, May 25, 2010

“Judge Says Enough, Orders Former Detroit Mayor Back to Prison”

“Judge Says Enough, Orders Former Detroit Mayor Back to Prison”

Judge Says Enough, Orders Former Detroit Mayor Back to Prison

Posted: 25 May 2010 08:44 PM PDT

He said he was a changed man, but the judge didn't buy it.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is going back to prison for up to five years for hiding his assets and pursuing a lavish lifestyle at the same time he owed the city $1 million for his role in a text-messaging scandal.

In a ruling on Tuesday that drew gasps in the courtroom, Wayne County, Mich., Circuit Court Judge David Groner ordered Kilpatrick to serve 18 months to five years in prison for violating the terms of his probation by dodging his obligation to pay restitution, concluding that Kilpatrick was beyond rehabilitation and showed no signs of remorse or humility.

"Probation is no longer an option," Groner told Kilpatrick. "That ship has sailed."

Groner lambasted Kilpatrick for engaging in "contemptible behavior," telling him that, as a former lawyer, state legislator and mayor of a major American city, he should have known better than to engage in a pattern of lies and deceit that started with lying under oath about an affair. Groner also scolded Kilpatrick for his financial choices.

"The broader context of this issue is that your family living expenses -- including living in a million-dollar home, driving a brand-new Escalade and purchasing elective surgery for your wife -- have made it perfectly clear that it's more important to pacify your wife than comply with my orders," Groner said.

Kilpatrick has paid about $140,000 of his restitution so far. Prosecutors spent months trying to convince the court that he had violated the terms of his probation by hiding information about his finances. Kilpatrick argued that he could afford only $6 a month in payments.

Kilpatrick, who was led away in handcuffs on Tuesday, will get 120 days credit for time he has already spent in jail. He served 99 days and resigned from his job in 2008 after text messages revealed that he had lied on the stand about an affair with a top aide and about his role in the firing of a police officer. Kilpatrick ultimately cost Detroit $8.4 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit in which two police officers alleged that he had retaliated against them for investigating his inner circle.

At Monday's sentencing hearing, Kilpatrick pleaded for leniency, telling the judge, "I am a new man."

"I cheated on my wife, your Honor," he said. "I accept responsibility for what I did. I spent a whole year feeling an enormous amount of guilt for what I did to my wife, my children and this city. And I still feel it."

He concluded, "I respectfully, humbly ask you, with everything that's in me, to be free."

While his impassioned plea didn't work, Kilpatrick is appealing.

Kilpatrick's lawyer, Michael Alan Schwartz of Schwartz, Kelly & Oltarz-Schwartz in Farmington Hills, Mich., spoke to reporters after the hearing. With Kilpatrick in jail, Schwartz asked, "Where does the judge think he's going to get the money" to pay restitution?

"For the judge to say, 'Well, you still have to pay the city,' that's a fairy tale," Schwartz said.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Athina Siringas, who had requested a two-to-five-year prison term, said Kilpatrick gave the judge no choice but to issue a harsh sentence.

"He left him no options," Siringas said. "It's his behavior that caused him to receive the sentence that he received."

Kilpatrick's employer, Compuware Corp. subsidiary Covisint, announced Tuesday afternoon that he had been fired from his job as a computer software salesman.

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