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Judge denies Kwame Kilpatrick's motion to vacate prison sentence

Ex-Detroit mayor filed motion in 2017

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick appears in Wayne County Circuit Court for his sentencing October 28, 2008 in Detroit, Michigan. Kilpatrick will spend 4 months in jail as part of a plea deal he accepted back in September in which he plead guilty to two felonies and no contest to a felony assault charge. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

DETROIT – Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's motion to vacate, set aside or "correct" his prison sentence has been denied by a U.S. District Court judge. 

Judge Nancy Edmunds issued a court order Tuesday denying Kilpatrick's motion that he filed in 2017. The former Detroit mayor has claimed the court made several errors, many similar to the issues in his last appeal before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court upheld the corruption convictions.

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Kilpatrick, 48, was sentenced to a term of 28 years in prison back in 2013 and ordered to pay $1,637,087 in restitution. Kilpatrick told the court in February 2017 that he doesn’t believe that he should have to pay because it’s impossible to calculate the amount of money he took from taxpayers.

Court records showed that Kilpatrick currently has 96 cents in his inmate account and has had an average balance of $55.34 over the last six months. 

The motion alleged that the court erred in providing the jury with an incorrect instructions on the definition of “official act” and that a jury should have never found Kilpatrick guilty of the RICO conspiracy count.

Six court errors are listed in the motion, including allegations of an incomplete verdict rendered by a jury, the inability for a court to set a proper restitution amount, impermissible hearsay being allowed during testimony and inadequate trial counsel.

Kilpatrick resigned from office in 2008 after pleading guilty to perjury. He was later found guilty on 24 of 30 counts, including racketeering.


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