Posted on 01/20/2021 7:06:40 PM PST by nickcarraway
By | fburns@mlive.com Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and departing President Donald Trump share some traits in common.
Both left divided communities in their political wake, enlisting devout supporters who engaged in emotional faceoffs with disgusted opposition along the way.
Kilpatrick, now 50 and one of Michigan’s most notorious taxpayer-funded convicted conmen, is set to be released from prison after serving seven years of his 28-year federal prison sentence. He was originally slated to live behind prison walls until age 67 with an earliest release date of Jan. 18, 2037.
That changed when the Trump administration announced Kilpatrick’s sentence will be commuted late Tuesday, Jan. 20.
Related: A promising politician’s decent into corruption
The amount of time state and federal prosecutors spent investigating and prosecuting Kilpatrick nearly matched the amount of time he’ll have spent behind bars.
“My position on the disgraced former Mayor of Detroit has not changed. Kwame Kilpatrick has earned every day he served in federal prison for the horrible crimes he committed against the people of Detroit,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said following news of Kilpatrick’s commutation. “He is a notorious and unrepentant criminal.
“He remains convicted of 24 felonies. Kilpatrick has served only one quarter of the sentence that was very appropriately imposed. Thankfully, under Michigan law, he cannot hold state or local public office for 20 years after his conviction.”
In a statement announcing commutation, the White House said Kilpatrick is “strongly supported by prominent members of the Detroit community.” Among the list of names that followed were: Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, known as Diamond and Silk, a pair of Black political activists who became famous for supporting Trump; multimillionaire businessman Peter Karmanos Jr., who founded Detroit-based Compuware; more than 30 religious leaders, Detroit school board member Sherry Gay-Dagnogo and state Rep. Karen Whitsett. It was unclear what connection Diamond and Silk have to Detroit or Kilpatrick.
“During his incarceration, Mr. Kilpatrick has taught public speaking classes and has led Bible study groups with his fellow inmates,” the statement said.
Throughout Kilpatrick’s corruption trial that lasted from September 2012 until his conviction on March 11, 2013, the sharp-dressed, bow-tie-wearing, 6-foot-3 former football player regularly elicited honks and shouts of support from residents as he made his near daily walk through downtown Detroit from his attorney’s office to the federal courthouse.
Nearly any story mentioning Kilpatrick that appears on social media evokes strong emotions from both sides, those who feel his exploitation of Detroit residents earned him a life behind bars and those who feel Kilpatrick was too harshly sentenced as a scapegoat for widespread political corruption, compared to white political counterparts who’ve committed similar crimes.
A jury found Kilpatrick, a then-rising political star in Michigan, guilty of a slew of crimes in March of 2013.
Kilpatrick misspent funds raised by his Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a charitable nonprofit established to help underprivileged children, on luxuries for himself and his family, as well as weekend getaways with his mistress and top aide Christine Beatty, a jury found. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Kilpatrick received kickbacks, bribes and spent more than $840,000 beyond his $170,000 yearly salary. None of it was reported to the IRS.
The flashy mayor held birthday parties for himself at which attendees were expected to make donations to his Civic Fund and helped rig contracts worth nearly $70 million for friend and city contractor Bobby Ferguson between 2002 and 2008.
Unlike Kilpatrick, Ferguson, now 52, received no reprieve from Trump. He remains imprisoned with an earliest release date set for January 2031. Ferguson will be 62.
Kilpatrick, who exhausted his appeals in 2019, spent most of his time behind bars at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma City and is currently lodged at the Oakdale Federal Correctional Complex in Oakldale, Louisiana, about a five-hour drive from his wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, who lives near Dallas.
Kilpatrick still owes most of the $1.5 million he was ordered to pay in restitution upon his conviction.
The youngest person to ever be elected mayor of Detroit, Kilpatrick built an energetic political machine that later toppled, in part, due to extensive text messages that exposed Kilpatrick’s corruption.
The text messages became part of a civil whistleblower lawsuit, but Detroit officials were initially reluctant to publicly release them, even after the lawsuit was resolved. The Detroit Free Press fought for the public release of the text messages, eventually winning.
Much of the content in those messages became a launching point for federal investigators who suspected the mayor of prolific fraud.
Kilpatrick’s political fuse burned fast and his future remains uncertain, but many still remember his parting words when he resigned from office in September of 2008.
“I want to tell you, Detroit,” Kilpatrick said, “that you done set me up for a comeback.”
He has nothing in common with Trump.
Maybe he can clean up the votefraud in Wayne County/Day-Twah.
Ugh.
No Don, no.
Kwame is corrupt.
Stop bashing Trump.
Disturbing.
““He remains convicted of 24 felonies. “
Ouch. Not right to commute his sentence IMO.
Kwame even got a coveted spot at the DNC convention ...and talked from the heart about his family values.....
at the same time he was carousing with his mistress and pocketing graft.
As Kwame eloquently said as he went off to jail: “I want to tell you, Detroit, that you done set me up for a comeback.”
He’s pardoning people who he thinks can help him with the black vote next time. He’s already pardoned several rappers.
Interesting.
Compared to Biden, the Bushes, and the Clintons, this guy is a choir boy. If they aren’t in jail, why should he?
The guy is serious corrupt DNC scum. But since he does a Sunday school class, he deserves pardoning?
If I were to fault Trump, I think some of the folks he let out
of prisons were very problematic.
The fact he did it wasn’t appreciated anyway.
OR Trump doesn’t do everything for politics. Another option, a lot of black leaders stuck their necks out to support Trump. If they asked him for this favor why wouldn’t he?
Amen to your response.
Diamond and Silk are FIRM SUPPORTERS of DJT from the moment he came down the escalator. They prayed for months at 11 am every day for him. You bet if they and other blacks asked, he obliged. They deserved a favor.
Trump was poorly served in his decision making, else proved he is as incapable of using his pardon authority as he was incapable of picking good people to work for him. Or, we are seeing the true Trump sneak out. His actions, like this, definitely don’t match his words.
Did Trump ever pardon Assange today?
Shaking my head, seeing this guy get a pardon while Assange and Snowden remain hunted by the feds.
An Assange pardon would bring up the Russiagate DNC talking points again.
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