Detroit mayor pleads guilty

Published: 6:26PM Friday September 05, 2008 Source: Reuters

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Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a plea agreement that forces him from office and caps a scandal that had threatened to spill over into the US presidential campaign in a key battleground state.
   
The guilty plea to two felony charges stems from Kilpatrick's role in the city's $8.4-million ($NZ12.5 million) settlement of a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by two fired police officers.
   
Prosecutors alleged he lied in the lawsuit proceedings and to Detroit's city council, which approved the settlement, to conceal text messages that revealed an affair with his former chief of staff.
   
Under the deal, Kilpatrick will resign from office, spend four months in jail, pay $1 million in restitution to the city, surrender his law license and serve a five-year probation during which he will be barred from running for office.
   
Kilpatrick, 38 and once a rising star in the Democratic Party, had faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted of felony perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct charges.
   
He had faced mounting pressure from his own party and civic leaders to step down as his growing legal problems deadlocked city administration and threatened to put the blot of corruption on Democrats in the hotly contested state as the presidential race goes into its final laps.
   
Dubbed the hip-hop mayor when he took office in 2002, Kilpatrick had remained defiant in the face of his mounting legal troubles, claiming the charges against him were racially motivated.
   
When asked by Judge David Groner of the Wayne County Circuit Court if he understood that he would be giving up his right to be presumed innocent by agreeing to the plea deal, Kilpatrick said, "I think I gave that up a long time ago."
   
Kilpatrick, who appeared in court in a brown suit, also read a statement admitting he had lied when testifying in the suit brought by a former deputy police chief who had been investigating the mayor and his bodyguards when he was fired.
   
"I lied under oath," Kilpatrick said. "I did so with the intent to mislead the court and the jury and to impede and obstruct the fair administration of justice."
   
Long nightmare over
   
In a speech Thursday night, Kilpatrick said the decision to step down as mayor was the most difficult of his life.
   
"I take full responsibility for my actions, for the poor judgment that they reflected," Kilpatrick said. "I wish with all my heart that we could turn back the hands of time and tell that young man to make better choices, but I can't."
   
In a separate deal, Kilpatrick also pleaded no contest to a charge of felony assault stemming from a July incident in which a police officer trying to serve a subpoena in the perjury case said Kilpatrick pushed him and screamed obscenities.
   
Kilpatrick's resignation, effective in two weeks, will make Detroit City Council president Kenneth Cockrel, a former journalist and community activist, mayor of the 11th-largest US city.
   
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who spearheaded the case against Kilpatrick, said she had sought a tougher six-month jail term at one point, but agreed to a shorter sentence to allow the city to put the scandal behind it.
   
"We cannot tolerate corruption in any form in this town," she told reporters. "Perjury is an important charge and it's not one that we give people a slap on the hand for."
   
Detroit is a Democratic stronghold in a state considered key by both parties to the November 4 presidential election.
   
An early backer of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Kilpatrick has been shunned by the Obama campaign, which this week called for his resignation.
   
Both Kilpatrick's foes and former backers said they hoped the plea deal would help the city begin to address its problems and a tarnished image that has made it a national punch line.
   
"Detroit's long political nightmare is finally drawing to a close," said L Brooks Patterson, executive of suburban Oakland County and an early critic of Kilpatrick.
   
Detroit has been in a downward spiral in recent years, ravaged by a declining population, high unemployment, failing schools, and a housing market saddled with thousands of abandoned homes and stores and a high rate of crime.
   
It ranked as the poorest big city in the United States, according to 2007 census data, with 34% of its population living below the poverty level.

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