Just as Olympic star Marion Jones starts to settle into her prison time for perjury charges in her doping case, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may soon be following!
Media news outlets are reporting that The Detroit News / Free Press has obtained copies of emails sent between the mayor and his Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty, implying that they lied to the court during the “Whistle Blower’s” trial that took place August of 2007.
The outcome of that trial was that the city of Detroit has to pay out millions of dollars as a judgment due to the mayor terminating city employees who brought his questionable behavior to light. Part of that behavior was the alleged affair between Mayor Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty which it now appears both of them lied about under oath.
The Detroit News / Free Press is not disclosing how they got the copies of the emails but have made text from them public. The emails were sent via the City of Detroit server system and Mayor Kilpatrick’s city issued “BlackBerry”.
If the prosecutor presses forward with charges Mayor Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty could face up to 15 years in prison.
For the record former President Bill Clinton lied to a special prosecutor, and the country about his affair yet did no time … I wonder how this one will play out?
For a video checkout this CNN link: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/24/detroit.mayor/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
As this case develops and more information is revealed, the concept of and demand for “privacy” continues to be presented as a defense and excuse!!
However, privacy has a context which cannot be ignored, less we re-define privacy oblivious of actions derived from and supported by city staff and support systems, including the use of and resulting in the loss of city funds.
Privacy is forfeited when it becomes evident that a public official
has a pattern of utilizing official staff for secrecy, and public
funds for financing.