| Detroit
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Charged With Perjury
By
The Associated Press
DETROIT,
MI - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star
and Detroit's youngest elected leader, was charged Monday
with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text
messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with
a top aide.
Wayne County Prosecutor
Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old
mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.
Former Chief of
Staff Christine Beatty, 37, who also denied under oath that
she and Kilpatrick had a romantic relationship in 2002 and
2003, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice.
"Some
have suggested that the issues in this case are personal or
private," Worthy said.
"The
justice system has been severely mocked and the public trust
trampled on. ... This case is about as far from being a private
matter as one can get," she said.
The charges
could signal the end of Kilpatrick's six-year career as mayor
of one of America's largest cities.
Perjury
is a felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. But for
Kilpatrick, a conviction also would mean his immediate expulsion
from office. The Detroit City Charter calls for any elected
official convicted of a felony while in office to be removed.
Kilpatrick
has said he would not resign and last week said he expects
to be vindicated when all aspects of the scandal are made
public.
The mayor
was expected to hold a news conference at noon. Worthy said
she expected the mayor and Beatty to turn themselves in by
7 a.m. Tuesday.
Worthy
began her investigation the day after the Free Press published
excerpts of the embarrassing text messages in late January.
The messages called into question testimony Kilpatrick and
Beatty gave in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who
alleged they were fired for investigating claims that the
mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.
In court,
Kilpatrick and Beatty denied having an intimate relationship,
but the text messages reveal that they carried on a flirty,
sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and
how to conceal their trysts.
Kilpatrick
is married with three children. Beatty was married at the
time and has two children.
The city
agreed to pay $8.4 million to the two officers and a third
former officer who filed a separate lawsuit. Documents released
last month showed Kilpatrick agreed to the settlement in an
effort to keep the text messages from becoming public.
The text
messages published by the Free Press revealed a romantic discourse.
"I'm
madly in love with you," Kilpatrick wrote on Oct. 3,
2002.
"I
hope you feel that way for a long time," Beatty replied.
"In case you haven't noticed, I am madly in love with
you, too!"
In all,
Kilpatrick faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice,
obstruction of justice, misconduct in office, perjury in a
court proceeding and two counts of perjury other than in a
court proceeding.
Beatty
is charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction
of justice, two counts of perjury in a court proceeding and
two counts of perjury other than in a court proceeding.
For Beatty,
who attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School with Kilpatrick
and managed his campaigns for Michigan's state House and the
mayor's office, the scandal forced her to resign.
City lawyers
and Kilpatrick's attorneys waged a futile legal battle to
keep documents related to the lawsuit settlement and text
messages from public eyes.
Calls
for his resignation surfaced in late January from some city
union leaders. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox repeated
that call, and the Detroit City Council echoed it last week
with a nonbinding resolution asking Kilpatrick to step down.
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