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Detroit Mayor May Face Perjury Charges In Scandal

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By COREY WILLIAMS, The Associated Press

Published: January 26, 2008

DETROIT - A prosecutor launched an investigation Friday into allegations that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lied under oath about an affair with his top aide. Some political observers are questioning whether the popular yet polarizing figure should stay on the job.

"Can he? Yes. Should he? That's his call," University of Nevada-Reno political science professor Eric Herzik said Friday. "But if you are being prosecuted, your ability to run the city is incredibly compromised."

Others think Kilpatrick could fight perjury charges and still fulfill his mayoral duties. Victoria Mantzopoulos, chair of the political science department at the University of Detroit-Mercy, said it depends on the political machine he has around him.

"I think he can work through it," Mantzopoulos said. "I've heard people ask that he resign. I think that is more on the issue of the affair as opposed to the true ability to continue in his role."
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Friday that her office would investigate reports that Kilpatrick and his chief of staff Christine Beatty exchanged romantic text messages in 2002 and 2003, despite testifying in a trial last summer that they did not have a physical relationship then.

The Detroit Free Press examined about 14,000 text messages on Beatty's city-issued pager that indicate the two had been intimate during that period. They reveal the two carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their numerous trysts.

The newspaper said it cross-referenced the messages with the mayor's private calendar and credit card records to verify events in some of the notes.

Worthy said she was unaware of the text messages until she read the newspaper's report on Thursday.

A conviction of lying under oath can bring up to 15 years' imprisonment. Under Detroit's City Charter, Kilpatrick would be removed from office as mayor if he is convicted of a felony, City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. said.

The trial in question arose from a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.

The lawsuit ended with the jury awarding $6.5 million to the two officers. The payout eventually grew to more than $8.5 million.

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