TheHeretic
Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007 From: California, USA Status: offline
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For those with issues for links, here are a few snips, and something that should load easily. quote:
DETROIT — Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted Monday of corruption charges and then sent to jail to await his prison sentence in yet another dramatic setback for a man who once was among the nation's youngest big-city leaders. Jurors convicted Kilpatrick of a raft of crimes, including racketeering conspiracy, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years behind bars. He was portrayed during a five-month trial as an unscrupulous politician who took bribes, rigged contracts and lived far beyond his means while in office until fall 2008. ... Prosecutors said Kilpatrick ran a "private profit machine" out of Detroit's City Hall. The government presented evidence to show he got a share of the spoils after ensuring that Bobby Ferguson's excavating company was awarded millions in work from the water department. Business owners said they were forced to hire Ferguson as a subcontractor or risk losing city contracts. Separately, fundraiser Emma Bell said she gave Kilpatrick more than $200,000 as his personal cut of political donations, pulling cash from her bra during private meetings. A high-ranking aide, Derrick Miller, told jurors that he often was the middle man, passing bribes from others. Internal Revenue Service agents said Kilpatrick spent $840,000 beyond his mayoral salary. U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade hailed the verdict and said Kilpatrick was "grabbing money from the citizens he was elected to serve." ... The government said Kilpatrick abused the Civic Fund, a nonprofit fund he created to help distressed Detroit residents. There was evidence that it was used for yoga lessons, camps for his kids, golf clubs and travel. "The scale of corruption was breathtaking," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Chutkow said in a closing argument on Feb. 15. "We cannot turn away and ignore the corruption that occurred in this city. It is time for the former mayor and his accomplices to be held accountable for their crimes — it is past time." Kilpatrick, 42, was elected in 2001 at age 31. He resigned in 2008 and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a different scandal involving sexually explicit text messages and an extramarital affair with his chief of staff. The Democrat spent 14 months in prison for violating probation in that case after a judge said he failed to report assets that could be put toward his $1 million restitution to Detroit. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=82FF7471-9CA0-E4F5-6166094049CD4410
< Message edited by TheHeretic -- 3/11/2013 6:40:07 PM >
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If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced. That's why people with no sense of humor have such an inflated sense of self-importance.
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