Detroit Mayor Sends Steamy Text Messages

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick bristled in the witness chair last year when asked whether he had an affair with a top aide. No, the mayor confidently told jurors, the two were never romantically involved. But a trove of 14,000 text messages that emerged this week tell a different story: The mayor and his chief of staff carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their numerous trysts.

Now the mayor's indiscretion has landed him in a Clinton-style scandal that could cost him his job and his law license and even bring perjury charges. "I think the mayor needs to take responsibility for the situation," City Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said Thursday. In politics, she said, "you operate in a fishbowl."

The Detroit Free Press did not explain exactly how it obtained the messages, which were sent or received in 2002-03 from Chief of Staff Christine Beatty's city-issued pager. 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. The mayor's denial came last summer during testimony in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims from two former bodyguards that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.

Mike Stefani, a lawyer for the officers, asked Beatty if she and Kilpatrick were "either romantically or intimately involved" during the period covered by the case.
"No," she replied, rolling her eyes. While still on the witness stand, the mayor later went on the offensive about the allegations, defending his reputation and that of Beatty.

"I think it was pretty demoralizing to her -- you have to know her -- but it's demoralizing to me as well," he testified. "My mother is a congresswoman. There have always been strong women around me. My aunt is a state legislator. I think it's absurd to assert that every woman that works with a man is a whore."

Late Wednesday, Kilpatrick issued a statement about the messages that was more subdued.
"These five- and six-year-old text messages reflect a very difficult period in my personal life," he said. "It is profoundly embarrassing to have these extremely private messages now displayed in such a public manner." Last summer's lawsuit ended with the jury awarding $6.5 million to the two officers. The mayor seemed flabbergasted at the verdict and denied the allegations against him.
By Corey Williams
Source: Google News