By ED WHITE and COREY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
Detroit mayor’s lawyers seek to free him from jail
Caption: The jail cell where former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will be incarcerated at the Wayne County Andrew C. Baird Detention Facility is shown in Detroit, Monday, Oct. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
DETROIT — Kwame Kilpatrick, whose promising career as Detroit mayor was derailed in part by a torrid affair with an ex-top aide, was unable to kiss goodbye the one woman who stood beside him throughout a sex-and-text scandal: his wife.
As Kilpatrick was being led off by courtroom deputies to begin serving the first of 120 days in jail, he was stopped just short of embracing Carlita Kilpatrick.
“I can hand her keys, but I can’t kiss her?” Kilpatrick asked.
The two spoke briefly before he was ushered through a rear courtroom door following Tuesday’s sentencing in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Only minutes earlier Judge David Groner called Kilpatrick “arrogant and defiant” and questioned the sincerity of a guilty plea that ended his career at City Hall.
Kilpatrick declined to speak in court, instead relying on lawyers to urge the judge to look at his entire career, not just the crimes that threw local government into disarray for months.
The punishment was part of a plea agreement worked out last month by prosecutors and the defense. Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner followed that deal but said Kilpatrick would not get time off for good behavior, typically 20 days in this case.
“When someone gets 120 days in jail, they should get 120 days in jail,” Groner said.
Kilpatrick was taken across the street to the county jail. He traded his custom suit for green clothes and was placed in a private cell where he will spend 23 hours a day.
As he was being taken from the courtroom, Kilpatrick yelled out to supporters: “You all take it easy.”
They responded: “Be strong, mayor. We love you, mayor. We got your back, mayor.”
Kilpatrick, a Democrat, admitted lying while testifying last year in a civil lawsuit filed by former police officers who had accused him of illegally demoting or firing them.
He and chief of staff Christine Beatty, both 38, denied having an affair, but text messages obtained by a lawyer in the case — and later the Detroit Free Press — clearly contradicted them.
They used their city pagers to arrange trysts and share sexually explicit desires. A fresh batch of messages was released by the prosecutor last week, revealing that Kilpatrick, married with three children, likely had other lovers.
The sentencing was Kilpatrick’s first public forum since a speech to supporters after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice on Sept. 4. In that address, he lashed out at Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was holding hearings to remove him from office, and told Detroit, “you done set me up for a comeback.”
The judge said he was “shocked” by the comments.
“That night the community expected to hear a message of humility, remorse and apology,” Groner said. “Instead, we heard an arrogant and defiant man who accused the governor, among others, for his downfall.”
Indeed, assistant prosecutor Robert Moran said Kilpatrick agreed to plead guilty and leave office only when “facing the barrel of a loaded gun” — Granholm’s power to eject him from City Hall.
Groner told Kilpatrick that he misled the City Council into settling the police officers’ lawsuits for $8.4 million, “all in an attempt to protect your political career” by keeping a lid on steamy text messages.
“At a time when this city needed transparency, accountability and responsibility, you exhibited hubris and privilege at the expense of the city,” the judge said.
Kilpatrick also was given a 120-day concurrent sentence for assaulting a sheriff’s officer who was trying to deliver a subpoena in July.
“I don’t think there are any winners, just the end of a chapter,” defense lawyer Todd Flood told the Associated Press. “I think the mayor wanted this city to move on, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Besides jail, Kilpatrick will be on probation for five years and must pay the city $1 million in restitution by the end of that period. He also signed a revocation of his law license.
Ken Cockrel Jr. was promoted to mayor from council president. A special election to fill the balance of Kilpatrick’s term will be held in May after the field is trimmed to two candidates Feb. 24.
“This is a sad day for Detroit and for the Kilpatrick family,” Cockrel said in a statement. “As a city, we now must put the past behind us and work together to meet our common challenges.”