Detroit thread. Post Kwame, Monica, and $1 houses here.

[Savonarola]

And from the City Hall insider:

Kilpatrick's golden touch
Posted by Joel Kurth (The Detroit News) on Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 12:35 PM
It's funny how the ball bounces sometimes. On the same day news broke that ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is living in a $1 million rented mansion, the City Hall Insider was handed documents showing his old digs -- the one he sold to his ex-lover Christine Beatty and her now-ex husband Lou -- were sold at a foreclosure auction.

The May 11 sale comes atop a string of personal losses for Lou Beatty, who was divorced from Christine in 2006 and filed for bankruptcy protection in October, claiming assets of $50,000 to $100,000 and between $50,000 and $100,000 in liabilities.

His ex-wife is also listed on the foreclosure documents that show the 1,500-square-foot brick home fetched $102,411 at auction. As Insider fans recall, the mortgage was more than $90,000 delinquent, and behind more than $7,000 in property taxes.

The house on Santa Rosa -- where the Beattys lived during her affair with Kilpatrick and from where Lou noted in a notorious text that 'You had attitude until KK came over' -- was a major windfall for Kilpatrick. He and his wife bought the home in 1995 for $42,000 and sold it to the Beattys five years later for $103,500.


Kilpatrick, meanwhile, is now resting his feet in a nearly 6,000 square-foot, palace in Southlake, Texas, built in a style known in French as decor de Tony Soprano.

[alfred russel]

I'm guessing he's refering to socialized medicine; a CAW laborer is cheaper than a UAW one because the company provides the American laborer with health care while the government provides the Canadian laborer with the same.  This isn't a fair comparison because the taxes in Ontario are higher than those in Michigan in part in order to provide socialized medicine.

I've always thought that was something of a canard--in theory the lifting of the private burden of health care in the US is offset by the higher taxes in a country with a public system.

The Big Three could argue that as they don't make money and thus wouldn't be paying taxes that they would benefit from the Canadian system, but then under this system they have underfunded a lot of their medical benefits so that the US government is essentially on the hook for them anyway.

[Berkut]

I think this is one of DG's "convenient truths" except it isn't so much the strawman that he uses the term for.

[Savonarola]

A couple from the Detroit News Blogs:

Category: A reason to drink
Posted by Dave Krieger on Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 8:02 PM
A tale of two cities
Today in Detroit, I had my car jacked by a teenager and then was shot at by a group of east siders hanging out on the street.

There are two cities within Detroit, one for those of us who try to make life better for all of us and another for those who seem to rob humanity of all its gleaming worth.

Why doesn't our society wake up and decide that this is an anathema to our co-existence? The educational and family values instilled in those remaining in Detroit are suspect at best and downright criminal at its worst.

Right now this city disgusts me over such a simple life skill called respect. If those of us who have cannot teach and help those less fortunate, we are going to dissolve into a Tombstone society in which gunplay and arrogance rule the day.

I volunteer to teach students photography, I work and live in Detroit and support many organizations designed for those who struggle and this kind of BS happens.

What the hell is going on with this city and those we elect who seem to spend more on their lavish lifestyles than care about crime and changing the lawless attitude in this town?

Hey, Cal, Moneybutt, here's a way to make some money off your arsenal:

Posted by Diana McNary (The Detroit News) on Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 3:07 PM
My rant about those 2 cities: Detroiters need serious attitude adjustment
My goodness. My sympathy goes out to Dave Krieger after reading his most recent post. Doesn't everyone who's been in Detroit for a while have some sort of story like that - either as a crime victim, friend of a crime victim or as a witness?

I do. My husband was carjacked and robbed two blocks from our house in 2006. Two teens had rented, yes rented, an assault rifle from some other enterprising punk who'd seen a way for some easy cash. They came up behind him as he pumped gas, asked him for money and stuck him in the ribs with the gun (which, to this day, we suspect didn't work). Then they went through his pockets and took his wallet, keys and phone and told him to run. The car was packed full of musical equipment, ready for our bands to play at a benefit for five kids who'd just lost their mother to cancer. It was probably $20,000 worth of our lives, gone in an instant to two scrawny little losers who didn't give a damn about how much damage they were doing.

There's no way to describe the seething anger at anyone who thinks that's an acceptable way of life. There's no way to describe how it felt when one of the guys scowled at my husband and the judge in the courtroom while being arraigned. There's no way to describe how much I wanted to slap his family, sitting on the courtroom bench in front of me, his mother and tiny teen sister chatting nonchalantly about how she'd skipped some court date because her friend said she didn't have to go and what to name her baby and how to get a baby-daddy test.

Anger is an obvious way to respond to this lunacy. Oh yeah, I spewed some language in the following days that was nowhere near printable and would probably ruin me if I ever decided to run for office. Then we tried to find a silver lining, telling ourselves that no matter what they did to hurt us, our lives were still better than theirs. We tried to find some relief in seeing a destructive punk sent off to Jackson for 15-60 years. We have an everlasting and deep respect for the Detroit police detectives who cracked the carjacking ring. We also had to laugh at the stupidity of the carjackers, getting caught in a stolen car with stolen car parts and personal items from several of their previous victims.

Still, it brings little comfort to put away a few criminals in a city with far too many of them.

Yes, we need a serious attitude adjustment in this city. We, those from the "good" Detroit, the ones who volunteer to teach photography (hats off to Dave) or to perform at a fundraiser for a grieving family's cancer-treatment bills, do not deserve this. Nor do the disrespectful, don't-give-a-damn criminals deserve one bit of our sympathy or tolerance.

The second part I bolded is the part that I found the most evocative.  I spent several days at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice as an expert witness in a murder trial.  While waiting in the hall for my turn to testify I saw dozens of people there exactly like Diana described.   I also saw a couple lawyers explaining to their clients that they couldn't just skip court dates.

[jimmy olsen]

  I spent several days at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice as an expert witness in a murder trial.

Elaborate.

[Ed Anger]

Hey, Cal, Moneybutt, here's a way to make some money off your arsenal:

I'd really not want some gangbanger fondling my SKS-M.

[Savonarola]

  I spent several days at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice as an expert witness in a murder trial.

Elaborate.

I wrote it out on the old forum:

Detroit has a reputation for violence and mayhem. This reputation stems from a variety of factors; some historical, like the riots and the decline of the automotive industry; some current, like the hard drug endemic and the subsequent drug related crime. In the past decade Detroit has taken the initiative and the city is somewhat safer than it once was, but the reputation has been hard to shake.

Suburban Detroit for the most part is safe, and has a much lower crime rate. For this reason the Livonia City Police were shocked as was the neighborhood at the death of Marco Pesce and his family.

Pesce was a jeweler in the Detroit suburb of Livonia. Jewelers are a preferred target for professional robbers. Cash can be traced by serial number. Stolen goods can often be traced the same way, and fences will offer only pennies on the dollar. Jewelry can be melted down and is therefore untraceable, and precious metals and gems bring in their value on the street. For this reason jewelers must exercise extra caution. Pesce's major mistake was that he left his safe at home.

On a Saturday afternoon, right before Christmas, two men donned masks, broke into Pesce's home and forced his son, at gun point, to call his father home on a family emergency. Pesce raced home to find his children and his mother (who had come from Italy to visit for the holidays) captive. The men forced Pesce to open the safe, then they ransacked the house, then they forced the family to get down on their hands and knees in a circle and then they executed them one after the other.

One of the perpetrators had a Christmas Dinner planned with his girlfriend and family that night. After leaving Pesce's home he called her up and said to her "Honey you're going to hate me for this, but I'm in Kentucky. I found a man who wants to buy my car, and I came down here to sell it."

He called her on his cell phone, and that's how I became involved. I'm an engineer for a cellular phone company. A cellular phone works by broadcasting and receiving frequency from an antenna on a cellular tower. These cell sites have a limited range, (usually a mile or two) on which the phones serve. For billing purposes we monitor and record the cell site and the time the calls were made. Once the police started to get a lead on the perpetrators they subpoenaed their cell phone records and an engineer. I drew the short straw.

The day I was scheduled to go to court was winters last grand rally. A mere dusting of snow was in the air when I left for the courthouse, in the thirty minutes it took me to get there the city was pounded with 6 inches of snow. The wind turned hard bitter and pounding and I was blanketed in snow by the time I got to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. I stood in line for security, miserably dripping melting snow.

After a bit of a clean up I went to the court room. Everyone was late and there was a great deal of concern over whether the jurors would arrive. Eventually they did, there was 28 total jurors since the trials were being run simultaneously. One of the defendants was black and one was white. One of the jurors on the black man's jury, a white woman, had complained to a clerk of illness and asked to be dismissed.

No attorney can resist the opportunity to grandstand, and the defense lawyer for that jury. He brought us from the Civil War to pending Supreme Court cases on the issue of racism and covered all points in between. Racism is still a factor in the United States, he argued, so a white woman was expendable on the trial of a black man. The prosecuting attorney then got up to suggest that justice was better served if there were as many jurors as possible. Then the other defense attorney got up and started to make incoherent remarks about jurors. He wasn't looking so good, and suddenly announced that he wasn't feeling well and asked to be dismissed. He stopped mid sentence (a sure sign of serious illness of an attorney) and just started coughing. The judge said he could be excused but the attorney didn't move; he just kept coughing. Then he stopped, started to wobble, and collapsed stiff shoulder and in a straight line amidst a chorus of gasps. The judge ordered everyone to clear the court. That attorney had suffered a mild heart attack and was taken out of court on a gurney.

He had fallen right in the direction of the prosecutor. The prosecutor had been talking to, what he referred to as his "Thug Witness," before the issue with the jury came up. Said thug, upon seeing the attorney collapse asked the prosecutor "Did he make a move on you? I think he's faking it, I saw him try to make a move on you." The prosecutor told the thug that the defense attorney had looked pretty serious to him.

The decision was made to run the trials separately, continuing immediately with the trial with the healthy attorney. Court was in recess for the day, and the trial would continue the next day. I went to the prosecutor's office and spent most of the rest of the day discussing the data we had provided. The defense was still maintaining the alibi that the defendants had been in Kentucky selling their car. The phone records put their cell phones in the city of Livonia in the general vicinity Pesce home. The girlfriend of one of the defendants was going to testify that she had talked to the defendant when our phone records showed he had called her house.

The trials went about the same both times. I was forced to wait out in the hall as the trials progressed. The court house had hard wooden benches that felt like church pews and became uncomfortable after a while. I read books and watched the people pass by.

Parisians say that if you wait in a café in Paris long enough half the world will walk by. The other half passes through the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. Kids were out in the hall filled with indolent braggadocio impatiently waiting for their friend to be sentenced; one minute shouting the next reserved and worried. Women were waiting for their husbands bail hearing. Some guy was telling another how alcohol destroyed his life. An attorney told the defendant's friends that the defendant needed to return his calls.

The real show was the prosecution's star witness in my trial. He was one of the defendant's uncles and the Don of West Detroit's Motorcycle Gang. He was on probation and had a rap sheet as long and as gory as the scroll of the sins of Babylon. The perpetrators were (don't be shocked) previously convicted felons and were therefore not allowed to buy firearms. The Don had connections and had sold his nephew the guns used in the slaying. His nephew had come over the night of the killing and bragged about five people being dead. The Don had agreed to testify on behalf of the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Ratting out your own nephew is frowned upon in organized crime societies, but the Don said he'd never be able to look himself in the mirror again if he didn't testify, so testify he did.

The Don was a hulk of a man, big burly and strong as an ox. He had scars and he looked like he ate nails for breakfast. He left the courtroom in tears, bawling his eyes out. The prosecuting attorney tried to console him, but he just would not stop. It seems the defense attorney had been extraordinarily tough on the Don.

After seeing that I was mighty nervous when it came my turn to testify. My testimony lasted all of five minutes and the defense attorney didn't even bother to cross examine me the first trial. My second appearance was equally brief, but I had to wait out in the hall just as long.

The two men were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Mr. Pesce's brother showed there were no hard feelings at the sentencing by telling the court "They are baby killers. I hope that when they go in jail they get the shit beat out of them every day."

Perhaps some justice was done, and perhaps the city is a better place, but Detroit is still Detroit. The day of the sentencing a man threatened to run poison gas through the ventilation shafts of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice (for reason's unrelated to the Pesce slayings.) Police raided his home and found he did have all the chemicals he threatened to use. Fortunately he didn't use his cell phone to call in the threat.

This was written in 2005; before the collapse of the housing markets and the auto industry.  The statements in the first paragraph about crime being lower, the city being safer and Detroit taking the initiative no longer apply.  Now those seem comically naive; dating from simpler, happier time.

[MadImmortalMan]

Oh, boy.


http://www.detnews.com/article/20090616/METRO/906160373/

Developer admits funneling $6,000 to Detroit City Council member
Paul Egan and Leonard N. Fleming / The Detroit News

Detroit --A Detroit businessman pleaded guilty Monday to paying more than $6,000 in bribes to an unnamed member of the Detroit City Council in connection with a $1.2-billion sewage sludge contract the panel awarded in 2007.

The council member was not identified in court documents or by Rayford W. Jackson when he admitted to the bribery conspiracy charge, but persons familiar with the investigation identified the council member as Monica Conyers, whose change of position on the Synagro Technologies Inc. contract allowed it to pass by a 5-4 vote.

Steve Fishman, Conyers' Detroit attorney, declined comment on Jackson's guilty plea and said he had no new information to provide on any case involving Conyers. She made a brief appearance Monday at City Hall, and her spokeswoman, Denise Tolliver, declined comment.



Jackson, 44, pleaded to a bribery conspiracy charge and admitted he used a courier on four separate occasions to deliver bribes to "Council Member A" -- the same council member that former Synagro official James R. Rosendall Jr. earlier admitted to bribing.

Jackson's plea represents a further ratcheting up of pressure in the long-running and wide-ranging investigation of City Hall contracting, the scope of which includes former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his father, business consultant Bernard N. Kilpatrick. Jackson is the second person to plead guilty to charges stemming from the Synagro contract, while three have pleaded guilty to crimes involving contracts at Cobo Center. Other City Hall deals also are under investigation.

The courier Jackson used is also not identified in court records. But persons familiar with the case identified him as Jackson's 38-year-old brother, Lennie, who was released from federal prison in 2006 after doing time on a drug-related charge.

Under Rayford Jackson's plea deal, prosecutors say his brother will not be charged for delivering the bribes, though he could go back behind bars if it's determined he violated the terms of his parole.

"I conspired with others to provide money to elected officials in exchange for favorable votes before the city of Detroit," Jackson told U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn.

The plea deal Jackson signed is more explicit, saying he "paid or caused to be paid bribes" at the request of the council member to reward the council member for supporting the sludge-hauling and treatment contract awarded to Synagro of Houston. Jackson was Synagro's local partner on the sludge deal, charged with pushing it through City Council.

In January, the city and Synagro agreed to rescind the contract.

Although Jackson insists he is not cooperating with federal authorities to help indict others, his guilty plea directly implicates Council Member A.

And, according to the plea agreement, Lennie Jackson is cooperating with prosecutors. He couldn't be reached for comment.

A sentencing date for Rayford Jackson has not been set. He faces up to five years in prison.

Unlike many plea agreements, Jackson's does not require him to testify against others; nor does it promise lenient treatment. The documents also show he has a prior criminal record, having been placed on probation for three years in 1988 for receiving stolen property.

Jackson, who attended court surrounded by five bodyguards, admitted using his brother to send bribes on four separate occasions, based on information from Jackson's plea agreement and persons familiar with the investigation.

The first bribe, of an undisclosed amount, was delivered to an aide to Council Member A in the fall of 2007. Jackson admitted his brother delivered a second envelope containing an unspecified bribe directly to the council member in the parking lot of the Mr. Fish restaurant in Detroit on Oct. 4, 2007.

On Nov. 20, 2007, Lennie Jackson delivered to the council member an envelope containing $3,000 at the Butzel Family Center in Detroit.

And on Dec. 4, 2007, Jackson's brother brought the council member another envelope containing $3,000 in a McDonald's parking lot, Jackson admitted in plea documents.

"All of the payments were made to Council Member A for the purpose of securing and maintaining Council Member A's support for the Synagro contract and for no other purpose," the plea deal states.

Jackson told The Detroit News in an exclusive interview published Saturday that he planned to plead guilty to cut his losses in the Synagro case, but did not intend to provide federal officials with information or testimony that could be used to indict others in the scandal.

Jackson's attorney, Richard H. Morgan Jr., said Jackson would likely get leniency if he agreed to testify against others.

However, "sometimes people take positions and decide they're not going to bring anyone but themselves down," Morgan told reporters. "That's what he's done."

Morgan said Jackson was not responsible for the downfall of former WJBK-TV (Channel 2) anchor Fanchon Stinger, who lost her job after her ties to Jackson were made public.

"The media took her down," Morgan said.

Jeffery A. Taylor, Stinger's Sterling Heights attorney, said Jackson's guilty plea marks "an important day" for Stinger in moving toward closure of the Synagro story. Taylor said he is confident Stinger will not face any charges in the Synagro scandal.

Rosendall, a Grand Rapids businessman who was Synagro's Michigan vice president, earlier pleaded guilty to a similar bribery conspiracy charge. He is cooperating with federal officials and awaits sentencing.

Synagro, which fired both Rosendall and Jackson after the bribery scandal was revealed, has not been charged.

Bribery. Looks like Monica will wind up in the slammer.   

[MadImmortalMan]

Like a ton of bricks, yeah. If you're not praying for Monica, you're part of the problem. 


http://www.detnews.com/article/20090616/METRO/906160407/

Monica Conyers reluctant to take plea deal, sources say
Leonard N. Fleming, Paul Egan and Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News

Detroit --Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers has yet to accept a plea deal offered by the federal government in connection with a corruption investigation at City Hall, increasing the odds that she could soon face federal indictment.

The federal authorities told Conyers they wanted an answer by the end of the day Tuesday, but there had been no movement by 5 p.m., a person familiar with the investigation said.

The bribery-related charge that Conyers could plead to carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, though she probably would receive less time.

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Two sources who have spoken with Conyers said she is reluctant because she doesn't want to serve time in jail.

Conyers mostly ignored reporters when she left City Hall in an unmarked car after 3 p.m. en route to her weekly television show "Ask the Councilwoman With Monica Conyers." But when asked if she would accept a plea, she murmured that The Detroit News was "full of (it)."

Conyers seemed to briefly allude to the allegations during a live broadcast of her show on WHPR-TV (Channel 33). She acknowledged that she's been in the news but challenged detractors, saying, "If you aren't praying for me, then you are just adding to the problem."

"First and foremost, I am a child of God," Conyers said. "All these things going on right now, I believe in my heart, God will deliver me from."

Later in the show, Conyers brushed off a caller who asked directly what she thought about the "latest scandal" involving Synagro. "I don't have a thought," she said.

Steve Fishman, Conyers' attorney, declined to comment.

Her husband U.S. Rep. John Conyers, who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that oversees the U.S. Attorney's office and FBI, was unavailable for comment. His spokesman in Washington declined to comment on the plea deal or the congressman's knowledge of it.

Conyers was not identified in federal court documents nor by developer Rayford W. Jackson when he pleaded guilty Monday to bribery conspiracy charges in federal court, but sources say Conyers is the official known as "Council Member A."

Jackson pleaded guilty to paying more than $6,000 in bribes to an unnamed member of the Detroit City Council in connection with a $1.2 billion sludge contract approved in late 2007. He admitted to using a courier on four separate occasions to deliver bribes to "Council Member A" -- the same council member that former Synagro official James R. Rosendall Jr. earlier admitted to bribing.

Conyers, who showed up to the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, declined to speak to reporters and was primarily silent during the meeting except to pitch a community event this afternoon. She looked worried.

After Conyers left the meeting, Councilman Kwame Kenyatta said he hoped those involved in the scandal are identified soon. He said he's upset about being lumped in with someone who's allegedly taken a bribe.

"It was an affront to all of us who don't do business that way, and it's incumbent upon us to speak up," Kenyatta said. "Hopefully we're moving toward conclusion, but not fast enough. If you say there's a cloud, a council member A, B, or C, then we need to know who that is. If not, it looks as if it's all of us and could be an indictment on all of us."

Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. told reporters after the session that he wants indictments to move quickly.

"The bottom line is this whole Synagro issue has been out there some time. I'm of the mindset of whatever they've got, bring it," Cockrel said.

"I know in my experience with federal investigations, they tend to be slow and meticulous, but when they come, they come like a ton of bricks. My feeling is if they are going to come like a ton of bricks, they ought to come now."

[jimmy olsen]

Bribery. Looks like Monica will wind up in the slammer.   

Awesome!

[DontSayBanana]

The question on everybody's minds: politicians are paid to act dumb while they're taking the money right out of your pocket, but can anybody act that well? Or is it Option C, and she's just freaking nuts?

[garbon]

Actually the question in my mind is who does something so blatantly wrong for a measly 6k?

[Savonarola]

Actually the question in my mind is who does something so blatantly wrong for a measly 6k?

Former city councilwoman Kay Everett allegedly sold her vote for a 17 pound case of sausage on one occasion and a day at the spa on another.  (She died before her case came to trial; hence the "Allegedly.")

[jimmy olsen]

Actually the question in my mind is who does something so blatantly wrong for a measly 6k?

Former city councilwoman Kay Everett allegedly sold her vote for a 17 pound case of sausage on one occasion and a day at the spa on another.  (She died before her case came to trial; hence the "Allegedly.")

Wow that's just so stupid all you can do is laugh.

[Savonarola]

The question on everybody's minds: politicians are paid to act dumb while they're taking the money right out of your pocket, but can anybody act that well? Or is it Option C, and she's just freaking nuts?

The FBI is very cautious about indicting anyone in Detroit city government for fear of charges of racism.  In part, that is why the Detroit City Council acts as if they're above the law.

Monica, however, is just freaking nuts.  That she was ever just a heartbeat away from being mayor is horrifying.