Detroit mayor, lover, charged with lying, misconduct (Roundup)

Mar 24, 2008, 18:20 GMT

Washington - Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff were charged Monday with at least 12 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in a probe of the firing of a whistle-blowing police official.

The case is the latest sex scandal for a public official in this country. Earlier this month, New York governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to step down after revelations he had paid thousands of dollars an hour for a high-price call girl.

In broadcast remarks, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy read through the dozen charges and said she was determined to see that laws governing the conduct of public employees would be upheld.

'Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people's lives were ruined, the justice system severely mocked and the public trust trampled on,' Worthy said.

Kilpatrick, 37, declared his innocence, saying he was 'deeply disappointed' in Worthy's decision to prosecute and calling the indictment a 'flawed process.'

He said he looked forward to 'complete exoneration once all the facts' are in.

Kilpatrick and his one-time chief of staff, Christine Beatty, were charged with trying to cover up their love affair in a trial last year about his firing of the former deputy police chief Gary Brown in 2003.

The Detroit Free Press unearthed the sexually explicit text messages from 2002 and 2003 on Beatty's public pager, triggering the eight-week investigation that lead up to Worthy's charges.

Kilpatrick was also charged with misconduct in office in connection with an 8.4 million-dollar settlement with Brown and another former city employee.

After a court awarded the fired deputy police chief 6.5 million dollars in damages, Kilpatrick intended to appeal. But in October, he decided to settle the case with Brown and his former bodyguard Walt Harris for 9 million dollars including legal costs.

City Council was not informed of the secret parts of the settlement.

The police officer's lawyer apparently pried the settlement out of Kilpatrack through blackmailing him with the incriminating text messages, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Kilpatrick fired Brown in 2003 after he and another of the mayor's bodyguards started asking questions about a wild party at the mayor's mansion which threatened to reveal his relationship with Beatty.

Kilpatrick has defied repeated demands by city council and city unions to step down.

Beatty resigned in late January.