The former mayor of Detroit will hear his fate on Thursday, following a 5 month-long trial that resulted in his conviction on 24 counts of bribery, extortion, racketeering, fraud and tax evasion.
Prosecutors are urging U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds to give 43-year-old Kwame Kilpatrick a prison sentencing of more than 28 years in prison.
"Kilpatrick's crimes put him at the very top of the most significant municipal corruption cases in this country in decades," U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade wrote in a memo obtained by USA Today. "City government essentially became up for grabs for the right price."
Meanwhile, Kilpatrick's lawyer Harold Gurewitz requested that Edmunds dole out a limited sentence of no more than 15 years. He argued that the former mayor did good things while he worked as a legislator and a leader of Detroit, all convictions aside.
"This court should also consider Mr. Kilpatrick's current circumstances: he is infamous, destitute and disgraced," Gurewitz stated. He also said that Kilpatrick's family has already experienced enough embarrassment and degradation, not to mention the fact that his mother, ex-Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, lost her seat in Congress due to the storm of negative media attention following the scandal.
Kilpatrick, who was elected in 2001 at 31 years old, was the youngest mayor of Detroit. He was called "America's hip-hop mayor," for the signature diamond earring he wore, along with the Harley Davidson motorcycle he rode around town.
After text messages that showed he'd lied under oath during a whistle-blower lawsuit were published in the Detroit Free Press, Kilpatrick was forced out of office in 2008. At that time, the feds were already in the midst of an investigation into some city contracting methods that prosecutors called "the Kilpatrick Enterprise." At least 20 people were convicted of crimes related to that probe, USA Today reported.
According to an article published by the Lansing State Journal titled, "The High Cost of Corruption: How Kwame Kilpatrick's Crimes Deepened Detroit's Crisis," about $9.6 million in illegal earnings made by sketchy water and sewer contracts went to some members of local government. Kilpatrick's friend Bobby Ferguson and wife Carlita got a cut of a $500,000 state grant that was supposed to go to children and senior services. $42,000 of taxpayers' money was used to pay for two Lincoln Navigators for the Kilpatrick family. Kwame Kilpatrick also used his work credit card to fund trips to Las Vegas, spa treatments, and famously, an $850 steak dinner.
