DETROIT – A judge on Tuesday allowed the release of raunchy text messages that a lawyer allegedly used to get Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to shell out $8 million in city money to make a police whistle-blower lawsuit go away.
The messages are among the most embarrassing yet released, showing in sometimes explicit detail how the affair between Kilpatrick progressed from flirtation to talk of marriage.
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"You were my girl for as long as I can remember," Kilpatrick wrote. "I was too young and stupid to know. I promise for the rest of my life you will be my girl."
Even more significant is that these are the messages that convinced Kilpatrick to settle last summer's police whistle-blower case.
In October 2007, Michael Stefani, attorney for a fired Detroit police officer, showed up to a whistle-blower lawsuit settlement meeting with an envelope containing the messages that Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Colombo Jr. allowed to be released to the public on Tuesday.
When these messages -- filled with words of love and possible conspiracy to fire nosey police officers -- reached the hands of the mayor's attorney, Sam McCargo, he excused himself from the room and immediately called his boss at the airport.
Fifteen minutes later, the city of Detroit was about $8 million poorer, but Kilpatrick's reputation was safe, as was the object of his romantic gestures and words, Chief of Staff Christine Beatty ? for the time being.
That all changed when the Detroit Free Press blew the lid off the scandal by printing some of the text messages, which not only revealed embarrassing, private moments between Kilpatrick and Beatty, but also apparently proved they lied on the witness stand when they had testified last summer they did not have an affair.
"This isn't about sex," said James Stewart, attorney for The Detroit News, which joined the Free Press in having the "smoking gun" text messages released under the Freedom of Information Act. "This is about lying under oath."
Jim Thomas, one of the mayor's attorneys, said the information Stefani put into the document is not correct and should have remained private.
It's just a shame. A shame," Thomas said. "In some ways, it seems that what is happening here is that the case is being driven by the salaciousness. It was improper to print it at this point in time. It's going to affect his ability to have a fair trial. We plan on vigorously challenging those documents."
The messages also show what critics, including Detroit City Council member Sheila Cockrel, are calling "inappropriate interference in the operation of the police department."
Cockrel was referring to the 2003 firing of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, who had been investigating rumors of inappropriate behavior involving parties and his security detail.
One of the messages is an exchange between Shereece Fleming-Freeman, who is now a deputy police chief, with Beatty regarding Brown.
"I thought about this thing," Fleming-Freeman wrote. "Why would you guys offer GB an option to take a demotion? It is obvious that he needs to be gone. He just needs to be gone. No chance or restitution."
Beatty responded to Flemming-Freeman: "Right! Can he just be fired? Doesn't he revert back to the lowest unappointed rank?"
"It's pretty ironic that the mayor tried to say that I wasn't qualified to run internal affairs, when I have a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, plenty of investigative experience and he ends up replacing me with people that don't have half the level of experience ? that I have," Brown said. "So, that, in and of itself, stinks."
The messages paint a picture of a mayor and a chief of staff working together behind the chief of police's back to fire and punish officers who refused to look the other way when it comes to possible corruption in the mayor's administration.
"They ruined my life, my family's life, my wife, my daughter, my son. It ruined the career that I loved so much ," said Harold Nelthrope, former Detroit police officer.
Nelthrope was one of the mayor's drivers on the executive protection unit. New text messages say the city leaked Nelthrope's name to the media.
Nelthrope said the release was a message warning other officers not to become snitches.
"Well, it means they don't care about anyone but themselves," Nelthrope said. "And they say it's a dog-eat-dog world and I guess they're living by that."
And the messages also show, more than any previous release of text messages, how the affair between Kilpatrick and Beatty began with a flirtation and escalated to talk of marriage and even joint parenthood.
"You need to know that you are the man in my life that I depend on most," Beatty texted to Kilpatrick on April 27, 2003.
In 2002, according to Stefani's brief, Beatty was having a difficult time in her relationship with the mayor because of another woman -- the mayor's wife, Carlita Kilpatrick.
"Have a good evening," Beatty texted to Kilpatrick on Sept. 9, 2002. "I'm trying real hard not to be jealous knowing that you are about to spend a romantic evening with your wife. Had to get that off my chest. I hope you guys have a good time."
In another message, the mayor wrote: "Just leaving airport. Rest well beautiful. Definitely will dream about you. All love songs, I think about you."
Other times, the messages became downright raunchy, describing specific sex acts.
The messages had resided in the hard drive of Stefani. City attorney Bill Goodman had pushed to have them released.
"I'm glad that Mr. Goodman was able to get this document," Colombo said Tuesday. "I appreciate that, Mr. Goodman. That's good lawyering and good work on your part and I think it's a public document and the public has a right to know."
Mayer Morganroth, Beatty's attorney, insisted that they were private communications.
"If the media and everybody wants to create more than it is and keep on going with it, so be it," Morganroth said.