Kwame Kilpatrick Corruption Trail Ends, but the Fight Isn’t Over

All about the evidencekilpatrick

The jury — a diverse panel of eight women and four men — agreed to meet with reporters to discuss their verdict, but kept their identities secret.

The jury included five African Americans, one Hispanic female and six white people.

Nearly all who spoke said it came down to the evidence.

“We looked at the evidence as a whole — no one piece sealed the deal,” said juror No. 9, an African-American male who knew very little about Kilpatrick’s legal troubles before the trial started.

The jurors said they came up with a tentative decision Friday, but told the judge they wanted to sleep on it over the weekend.

One juror, an African-American woman who voted twice for Kilpatrick, said she was disappointed by what she learned at trial.

“I saw a lot that really, really turned my stomach,” the woman said. “There was never any anger. Disappointment is all that I feel.”

In an overflow room in the federal courthouse, where about 70 people watched the verdict via close-circuit television, the mood was jovial as spectators joked with courthouse staffers.

As the first count of guilty was read, several people said “yes.” Frustration grew as the not-guilty verdicts were read against Bernard Kilpatrick. When his guilty verdict on the tax charge was read, someone shouted “finally.”

‘That’s justice’

Witnesses during the trial told of Kwame Kilpatrick’s lavish lifestyle — complete with luxury vacations, custom-made suits and golf outings — despite being at the helm of a city so broke it’s now on the verge of a state-appointed emergency financial manager to right its finances.

In some cases, longtime friends testified they handed cash to Kilpatrick in envelopes.

Witness Chris Boettcher, president of Detroit-based Airtec, said he was pleased with Monday’s verdict.

Boettcher testified Ferguson’s nonprofit submitted fake invoices to the state purporting to be from his company, which did door, hinge and lockset work for Ferguson’s office. “I’m very relieved that it’s finished and everyone came to the appropriate conclusions,” he said.

Boettcher’s company completed the work on Ferguson’s office in 2001. About a decade later, he said, the U.S. Justice Department showed up at his office “showing me invoices that we never produced.”

“They were using state grant money to facilitate paying for his new offices,” Boettcher said. The state grant was supposed to help displaced seniors or runaway youths.

Tonya Wells, 50, of Detroit came to the detention hearing. She said she wanted to see for herself that Kilpatrick would be locked up.

“That’s justice. He doesn’t deserve to go home. He took money from the citizens of Detroit under false pretenses for his own profit,” she said as she left the courthouse.

“I’m disgusted.”

Contact Tresa Baldas: 313-222-4296 or tbaldas@freepress.com. Contact Jim Schaefer: 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com. Staff writers Elisha Anderson, Jennifer Dixon, Megha Satyanarayana, Zlati Meyer, David Jesse, Gina Damron, John Wisely, Tammy Stables Battaglia, Patricia Montemurri and Lori Higgins contributed to this report.

Article Appeared @ http://www.freep.com/article/20130312/NEWS0102/303120164/

 

 

 

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