All Muck is Local

All Muck Is Local: Busted!

Diane Vacca | March 30, 2008, 12:48PM

"Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see!"

Most people would have thrown up their hands by now. But not Kwame Kilpatrick, who's never busted and seems determined to remain mayor of Detroit until that final gavel falls. He insists, despite the evidence that keeps mounting against him, that he’s still the person best suited to be mayor, because he believes with absolute certainty that he’s on a mission from God.

Handsomely dressed in dark suits and accompanied by a team of lawyers, the mayor and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, were booked and fingerprinted and posed for their mug shots last Monday, the day before their arraignment. For the apparent contradictions between their sworn testimony and the messages they texted each other on their cell phones and the unwarranted dismissal of three cops who they feared were about to disclose their illicit love affair, Kilpatrick was charged with conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice, two counts of misconduct in office and four counts of perjury.

Beatty’s seven counts were similar. She resigned in January after the incriminating text messages were published by the Detroit Free Press.

But Kilpatrick remained positive after being arraigned on Tuesday. “I look forward to complete exoneration,” he said.

He appears to face an uphill battle. In her news conference announcing the charges against the mayor, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy accused him of ruining the lives of three former police officers and then buying their silence with $8.4 million of the taxpayers’ money in a secret legal agreement.

“[T]he justice system was severely mocked, and the public trust trampled on,” she said. Worthy scolded Kilpatrick, 37, as one would a wayward child:

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