The First of Several Sentencings
Former Mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick, convicted last March on 24 of a 38-charge felony indictment including conspiracy, corruption and racketeering, was sentenced today in Detroit by District Judge Nancy Edmunds to serve what prosecutors asked - 28 years in federal prison.
The sentence - which under guidelines could have been life - is equal to the highest ever given in a public corruption case. (As perspective, consider that the most recent poster child for public corruption, former Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, received 14 years in prison in 2011 on 17 charges, including that he tried to sell or trade an appointment to the US Senate seat once held by President Obama.) Mr. Kilpatrick, present today in the Detroit court, without his wife and children, made a final plea to the sentencing judge in which he asked for a "fair" sentence, while accepting responsibility, but showing little remorse. He said he "really, really, really messed up", was sorry, and wanted "the city to heal..to prosper..to be great in the end" like it was when he oversaw the 2006 Super Bowl in the city. Describing his family, he talked about his father, Bernard Kilpatrick (recently convicted on one of four counts of conspiracy and facing prison), as a good man - "typical Detroit north end guy" - who is the reason "I'm a great dad".
There's more to come in the Kilpatrick saga. His co-defendant and contractor friend Bobby Ferguson will be sentenced tomorrow on his 9 convictions; his father faces sentencing on October 17; Derrick Miller (Kwame's right-hand man, who testified against him) will be sentenced to possibly 10 years in prison; Victor Mercado (former head of the water department who also cut a deal with prosecutors) is facing 18 months in prison.
The tragedy here is not Mr. Kilpatrick's capacity for self-deception - however grand that is. It is that, though the city of Detroit's financial woes were decades in the making, Mr. Kilpatrick, with his charisma and broad political mandate, could have made the admittedly tough decisions needed during his regime to restore at least a breath of life to the city. Instead he chose to establish a criminal enterprise within city hall to enrich himself and his friends. He left an already vulnerable Detroit near death. His legacy is today's extraordinarily difficult process of municipal bankruptcy.