Stripper’s murder may topple Detroit's mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

From The Sunday Times (London)

August 31, 2008

Stripper’s murder may topple Detroit's mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

Detroit has been shaken by claims of lurid conduct and a cover-up at city hall
Mayor Kilpatrick

He is an ordinary 15-year-old boy who wants to know what happened to his murdered mother. Yet Jonathan Bond’s painful and protracted quest for justice has plunged him into the heart of an explosive political scandal that has shaken Detroit and wrecked the career of one of America’s most promising young black politicians.

Bond is the son of Tamara Greene, a statuesque black stripper known as Strawberry, whose murder in 2003 triggered an avalanche of sordid allegations about mayoral misconduct, police cover-ups, aromatic bubble baths, lurid text messages, extramarital affairs and a talking turtle.

The case pits Kwame Kilpatrick, the charismatic 37-year-old mayor of one of America’s most blighted metropolises, against a teenage plaintiff whose white lawyer, Norman Yatooma, has an unusually personal stake in the outcome.

Yatooma told The Sunday Times: “No reasonable compassionate person could look at Jonathan and turn away. This is a kid who had the world in front of him and had everything ripped up beneath him.” Yatooma knows exactly how that feels. Fifteen years ago his father was murdered in Detroit when he tried to intervene in a carjacking. His killers have never been found and Yatooma has devoted much of his career to helping the children of murdered parents.

At the heart of the Kilpatrick case is a hotly disputed account of a supposed party at Manoogian Mansion, the city-owned home on the Detroit River that is the mayor’s official residence. It was there in late 2002, according to court documents, that Strawberry was hired to perform at a raucous party allegedly attended by Kilpatrick, several police officers and “nude exotic dancers”.

At one point, the court documents allege, Kilpatrick’s wife, Carlita, “arrived at the party unexpectedly and assaulted Tamara Greene and possibly one other dancer”. Several police officers and ambulance workers have testified that a woman calling herself Tammy Greene received hospital treatment at the time for injuries consistent with an assault.

The mayor, his police chief and numerous other city officials have denied that any such party took place. The city’s chief prosecutor dismissed the claims as “urban legend”. Yet since Yatooma took up the case last autumn, several police officers have come forward to claim that they were intimidated into silence about parties they knew to have taken place at the mayor’s home.

“I was ordered by my supervisors to keep my mouth shut and say that there never was any party,” declared Officer Tony Davis in a letter to Ella Bully-Cummings, the Detroit police chief, in March.

Six months after the supposed party, Greene, 27, was shot 18 times as she drove to her boyfriend’s home. She became the 113th of Detroit’s 366 murder victims that year.

The police lieutenant initially in charge of the murder investigation quickly concluded that Greene had been specifically targeted by a contract killer. Lieutenant Alvin Bowman has since testified in a sworn affidavit that his attempts to investigate reports about the party and Carlita Kilpatrick’s alleged involvement were blocked by the mayor and his staff.

“Every witness . . . felt intimidated against coming forward,” said Bowman. “My squad would have solved Ms Greene’s murder but for the interference [of officials].”

Bully-Cummings insists that her force is continuing to investigate the murder and there has been no cover-up. “Our officers are doing everything that they can to bring the killers to justice,” she said.

Unfortunately for Kilpatrick, more trouble arose from a case involving two police officers who sued for wrongful dismissal after they claimed to have been fired for investigating alleged misconduct at city hall.

In January the Detroit Free Press published salacious details from thousands of text messages between Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty, his married chief of staff. During the wrongful dismissal suit the pair denied on oath that they were having an affair but the texts suggested otherwise.

One of the few printable messages from Beatty read: “Did you miss me sexually?” Kilpatrick replied: “Hell yeah . . . I want some more.” Another from the mayor read: “That’s the first time I couldn’t fully seduce you! My game is off!” The pair are now awaiting trial on charges of perjury, conspiracy, misconduct and obstruction of justice.

Further embarrassment has followed amid allegations of questionable spending of city funds and accounts of the mayor’s hotel bill on a visit to North Carolina – including a $500 “couple’s massage” with bubble bath and chocolate-coated strawberries. The mayor was reported to have been with a woman who gave the name of a talking television turtle.

Few politicians survive such a negative barrage, but Kilpatrick, the son of a well-known congresswoman, has refused to resign and Jennifer Granholm, Michigan’s governor, is due to decide this week whether he should be forcibly removed as mayor.

Yatooma acknowledged last week that he had not been able to uncover a “smoking gun” that proved Kilpatrick was ata party with Strawberry, or that he had anything to do with her death. But a week ago a federal judge ordered the city to hand over thousands more text messages sent by senior officials after the stripper’s death.

“They have gone to such absurd lengths to stop us from seeing these messages,” Yatooma said. “I can only imagine how tainting that evidence must be.” He said that whatever happened at Kilpatrick’s perjury trial, Bond’s $150m lawsuit would proceed.

“We haven’t sued the mayor for having a party,” he said. “We’ve sued him for obstructing the murder investigation. And it seems pretty plain that this investigation was obstructed for no justifiable reason.”