By Corey Williams
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT (AP) — Kwame Kilpatrick was swept into a Detroit suburb for fingerprinting and mug shots on perjury and other charges before being driven away in his customary black sport utility vehicle.
Hours earlier, his former chief of staff went through the same process at a Wayne County sheriff's patrol office in Westland, the first step in criminal arraignments Tuesday afternoon in Detroit.
Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty were charged with multiple counts of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct in a text-messaging sex scandal that is threatening to prematurely end his second, rocky term as Detroit mayor.
But, despite calls from the City Council and Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to step down, Kilpatrick adamantly said he will not resign at a press conference at City Hall Tuesday flanked by high-profile attorney Dan Webb.
Kilpatrick said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's actions were disappointing, but not unexpected.
“This has been a very flawed process from the very beginning,” Kilpatrick said. “However, at the same time, I recognize that this is merely a first step in a process that I believe in, that's grounded in a presumption of innocence that is guaranteed to each and every American.”
The Free Press is also calling for Kilpatrick's resignation in an editorial posted Monday night on the paper's Web site.
“Our call for him to resign has nothing to do with the ultimate verdict in court, whether innocent or guilty,” Free Press vice president and editor Paul Anger said. “The reason we are calling for the mayor to resign is to spare Detroit the distraction and pain of weeks, months and possibly years of turmoil with a mayor who won't be able to focus on his job and a lingering, hurtful spectacle in front of the country.”
Worthy announced the charges Monday morning following a 56-day investigation into whether Kilpatrick and Beatty lied under oath last summer during a whistle-blowers' trial.
Both denied on the stand that they shared a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003. But their testimony was contradicted by excerpts of intimate and sexually explicit text messages left on Beatty's city-issued pager and first published by the Detroit Free Press in January.
Worthy launched her investigation soon after the text messages were published, but said the probe was not “focused on lying about sex.”
“The public trust was violated,” she said. “This investigation is about whether public dollars were used unlawfully, and more.”
The 37-year-old “Hip-Hop Mayor” who brought youth and vitality to the job in this struggling city of 900,000, and Beatty, could get up to 15 years in prison for perjury alone.
Kilpatrick would be automatically expelled from office if convicted. Beatty resigned last month.
“Some have suggested that the issues in this case are personal or private,” said Worthy, a Democrat like the mayor. “Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people's lives were ruined, the justice system severely mocked and the public trust trampled on.”
In announcing the charges, Worthy delivered a 14-minute lecture on the oath that all witnesses take before testifying in court.
“Even children understand that lying is wrong,” she said. “If a witness lies, innocent people can go to jail or prison, people can literally get away with murder, civil litigants who deserve money may not get it or may get money they don't deserve.
“And lying cannot be tolerated even if a judge or jury sees through it.”
Mayer Morganroth, Beatty's attorney, called Worthy's comments full of “assertions and conjecture.”
“I was sort of stunned by the prosecutor laying out the charges in the way that she did,” he said, noting Beatty's right to a fair an unbiased trial. “It sounded more like a closing argument to a jury.''
Morganroth and Webb both said Monday that Kilpatrick and Beatty eventually would be exonerated.
Webb is a former federal prosecutor who was the chief defense attorney in the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who now is in prison. He said his plans are to attack the text messages and ask a judge to prevent them from being admitted as evidence.
“I am as certain as I stand here that the initial production of those text messages in fact were illegal under the law,” Webb said.
The Free Press published excerpts from 14,000 text messages that were sent or received in 2002-03 from Beatty's city-issued pager.
They were referenced in a confidential agreement, signed by Kilpatrick, that paid three former police officers $8.4 million in two separate whistle-blowers' lawsuits.
Some of the charges brought against the mayor on Monday accuse him of agreeing to the settlement in an effort to keep the text messages from becoming public.
All of the charges against Kilpatrick are felonies. Under the city charter, a felony conviction would mean the mayor's immediate expulsion.