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Kilpatrick Says Case Is Now Prosecutor's 'Personal Vendetta'

Prosecutor Filed Amended Charges

POSTED: Tuesday, July 22, 2008
UPDATED: 12:45 pm EDT July 23, 2008

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick called Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy's move to amend two criminal charges against him a "perversion of justice."

"This prosecutor now is on a personal vendetta and I think everyone can see that," said Kilpatrick Tuesday at Campus Martius while promoting late-summer events in the city. Kilpatrick said upcoming summer events and the city's plan for Labor Day weekend, including the Jazz Fair, Grand Prix and State Fair, will be great for the city.

As Kilpatrick continued about his mayoral duties, Worthy was busy working on rewording amended charges against him, including allegations of additional affairs and further misconduct in office.

A magistrate did not sign the amended complaint Monday, forcing prosecutors to rework the document and refile it on Tuesday. The amended charges were accepted by 36th District Court in Wayne County.

Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty were charged with perjury, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice for their testimony in a police whistle-blowers trial last year.

"She (Worthy) has moved away from justice and fairness and all those tenets she talked about in her grand announcement," said Kilpatrick.

Both denied allegations of an affair and firing Detroit police officers for investigating them. Later, text messages released to the public revealed an affair.

Prosecutors amended two of the 12 criminal counts against Kilpatrick to strengthen their case.

Count 6, which is a perjury charge, claims Kilpatrick lied under oath at the whistle-blower trial when he testified that he did not have an extramarital affair with Beatty. The charge was amended to include that Kilpatrick further perjured himself during a three-second question-and-answer period when prosecutors asked him, "You said you don't whore around on your wife?" Kilpatrick's response: "Yes."

Prosecutors told Local 4 they now have evidence that Kilpatrick was having an affair with two women at the same time he was dating Beatty.

Count 4, which is misconduct in office, alleges Kilpatrick settled the whistle-blower case for $8.4 million with the intention of keeping text messages between him and Beatty private. The amended charge says Kilpatrick was trying to keep the affair and "other information" secret.

Prosecutors will not comment on what they believe the "other information" includes. However, they said they are confident the new information will bolster their case against him.

"She has no case and the city is tired of it," said Kilpatrick. "What it is now, let's attack his family, let's attack him, let's do whatever we can to keep the eye off the fact that she has no case."

Kilpatrick also accused the prosecutors office of spending too much time and resource on his case.

Worthy responded Tuesday evening by saying, "We continue to aggressively pursue all warrants and cases brought to this office by the 90 police agencies we deal with on a regular basis. This case is but one of the many that we prosecute on a daily basis."

Kilpatrick nodded to the idea that his lawyers would like to meet with the prosecutors to possibly work out a deal.

The mayor said Tuesday, "At some point, I am hopeful the prosecutor and my lawyers can come together to settle this legal nonsense."

The prosecutor's office said they are open to the idea of speaking with Kilpatrick's lawyers, especially since the criminal case against Kilpatrick and Beatty has already cost them almost $99,000 and they project that by the end of the year, they will have spent over $200,000.

Attorneys for both sides will be in court Friday for a hearing where a judge may release hundreds of embarrassing text messages.

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