EX-MAYOR KWAME KILPATRICK “MUST REALIZE THAT HE IS ACONVICTED FELON.”
Wayne County Circuit Judge DAVID GRONER
Judge to Kilpatrick: Scale down, pay up
$6,000-a-month payment to Detroit not optional, he says
By M.L. ELRICK and JOE SWICKARD
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Kwame Kilpatrick will have to scale back his lifestyle instead of his restitution payments, a judge ruled Friday.
Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner rejected the ex-mayor’s request to avoid paying the City of Detroit $6,000 per month toward the $1 million he agreed to reimburse the city as part of a plea deal to resolve the text message scandal.
Kilpatrick attorney Michael Alan Schwartz had argued in a March 24 court filing that Kilpatrick could only spare $6 a month from his $120,000 annual salary as a salesman for a Compuware subsidiary.
He cited expenses such as his $900-a-month 2009 Cadillac Escalade and the $2,700-a-month rent for his posh home in Southlake, near Dallas.
But Groner — who ordered Kilpatrick to make the payments after news reports about his high living after being released from jail in February — wrote in his decision that the former mayor “must realize that he is a convicted felon, and will have to balance meeting all the conditions of his probation, including restitution payments, with the lifestyle to which he has grown accustomed.”
“In other words,” Groner added, Kilpatrick “may not be able to sustain an upper middle class existence while he still owes a debt to society.” Groner invited Kilpatrick to request a restitution hearing, but Schwartz instead said he would appeal the decision.
Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, said Kilpatrick “presented no legitimate grounds to modify his restitution.”
■ CONTACT M.L. ELRICK: 313-222-6582 OR MLELRICK@FREEPRESS.COM
City Council lawyer: Cockrel is the boss 3A
No comments:
Post a Comment