Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick: “I don’t understand when people say ‘resign.’”
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick insists he will not resign despite the unfolding text-messaging scandal which has already cost the city of Detroit millions of taxpayer dollars.
Embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Thursday he won’t resign because of a text-messaging scandal that has engulfed his administration, but acknowledged the uproar has reduced him to tears.
Kilpatrick, during an appearance on a morning radio show, was asked whether he would step down.
“Absolutely not,” Kilpatrick said on “The Paul W. Smith Show” on WJR-AM. “I don’t understand when people say `resign.’”
The mayor’s comments came a day after the state’s highest court rejected an attempt by Kilpatrick to prevent documents from being made public that detail a city settlement that helped conceal an apparent affair with a top aide.
The Michigan Supreme Court unanimously upheld two lower court rulings ordering the release of documents. They were made public hours after the ruling.
During the radio interview, Kilpatrick described the anguish he has felt over causing hurt for those close to him as well as to the city as a whole. “It’s been a tremendously emotional process for me,” he said. “I haven’t cried this much since I was a baby.”
We doubt the taxpayers of Detroit are drowning in tears, as the mayor’s escapades have cost them millions of dollars. As the Free Press reports, recent released documents reveal the truth.
Samuel McCargo stood alone in a parking lot, legal papers in hand, confronted by his client’s lies.
The lawyer for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had just pored over documents he’d received in a sealed envelope from Mike Stefani, McCargo’s courtroom adversary in a highly charged police whistle-blower case.
The lawyers had spent the morning of Oct. 17 at a Detroit law office with other city attorneys haggling over Stefani’s efforts to collect legal fees after winning the trial. It had been a mundane meeting until now — when McCargo saw what was in the envelope.
It was a court motion from Stefani, rife with excerpts of explicit text messages between the mayor and his chief aide, Christine Beatty. The messages showed, beyond a doubt, the pair had lied at the trial when they denied a sexual affair.
McCargo asked to see Stefani outside the ornate Woodward Avenue law offices of Charfoos & Christensen.
Stefani walked outside and found McCargo. His face, Stefani would recall later, was ashen.
“I had no idea,” McCargo said, according to Stefani’s deposition, which was made public Wednesday.
Then, in a shaky voice: “Have you filed this?”
Not yet, Stefani replied.
McCargo then asked: “Can you stay here awhile while I try to get ahold of the mayor?”
It’s now clear what happened next: The mayor settled the cases of three ex-cops for $8.4 million that very day.
This is the tale behind that deal, one that can now be told in full with the release Wednesday of the last batch of secret settlement records. They show, as never before, how Kilpatrick and lawyers on the city’s defense team embarked on an ill-fated scheme to conceal the damaging text messages from public view.
It was a simple deal, money for documents. And no one was to ever speak of it again.
It’s a story about a sealed envelope, a mayor’s about-face, lies and secret deals. It’s a story that may yet result in the filing of criminal charges, and the end of political careers.
It’s the story behind the text-message scandal.
A sad story of betrayal of public trust. We are inclined to wonder why the mayor insists on remaining in office with a shameful legacy like this.
The Detroit Free Press has also released some audio of “the January deposition of Mike Stefani, the attorney who represented two former police officers in a whistle-blower suit against the city and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.”
Many more stories and updates on The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.
The Kwame Kilpatrick text-messaging scandal was featured recently on ABC News Nightline.
I totally agree. I wonder why he remains in office????