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Journalism of Courage
First, in The Scandal That Ate Detroit, you must remember that it’s all about text.
These would be the text messages between Mayor Kwame “Never Busted” Kilpatrick (married) and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (married, at the time of the following exchanges, to one of Kilpatrick’s childhood buddies).
Second, you must remember that Detroiters have put up with a lot of bad news — Forbes magazine just awarded it top billing in the “America’s Most Miserable Cities” index — and are fed up with another blow to the city’s image.
Third, it helps to remember that KK and CB testified under oath last year that they had never, ever, ever had anything but a professional relationship. This was during a trial that found they had fired a couple of police officers for investigating allegations of mayoral misconduct. The jury awarded the officers $8.4 million.
Kilpatrick and Beatty got all kinds of angry at the insinuations about their relationship.
So, you can only imagine the mayor’s surprise to pick up the Detroit Free Press on January 25 and read a headline that began with the subtle assertion: ‘Mayor Lied Under Oath.’
The paper had obtained — it won’t say how — thousands of text messages between KK and CB, many of which were so sexually explicit that the paper said it couldn’t print them without scandalizing southeastern Michigan. (Also, while the pair testified they did not “fire” one of the officers in question, the messages show them privately discussing how the decision to “fire” the officer could have been better handled. Whoops.)
Here’s a sampling of the messages the paper found fit to print:
Kilpatrick, in Washington, Sept. 12, 2003, 9:02 a.m., after Beatty had apparently spent the previous night in his hotel room: The mayor’s bodyguards “were right outside the door. They had to have heard everything …”
CB: “So we are officially busted. LOL.”
KK: “LOL LOL! Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see! LOL.”
CB: “LOL, LOL! Damn, so they have to walk in before you concede busted! LOL.”
KK: “Hell yeah. Walk in. (Expletive) that.”
Beatty, text message, April 8, 2003, 8:55 p.m.: “Did you miss me, sexually?”
KK: “Hell yeah! You couldn’t tell. I want some more!”
A month later, midnight:
KK: “That’s the first time I couldn’t fully seduce you! My game is off. LOL!”
CB: “Your game is way on, baby!”
Oct. 7, 2002, 11:20 p.m.:
CB: “I’m feeling like I want another night like the most recent Saturday at the Residence Inn! You made me feel so damn good that night.”
KK: “I feel we can do that in WV (West Virginia) + just relax together. I need you soooo bad … “
But that’s not all!
Kilpatrick’s administration had told the paper for months there had been no “secret agreement” to settle that case.
But the paper had filed a Freedom of Information Act suit intended to force the mayor to turn over all records related to the $8.4 million settlement after the trial. A judge ordered the city to turn over a confidentiality agreement that had been signed by the mayor and approved by a city lawyer, specifically keeping the damning text messages from public view.
The mayor’s chief counsel, Sharon McPhail (who once accused him of being a “thug” before she went to work for him, but that’s another story), then said, when a judge finally compelled the city to release the documents: “There was no secret agreement.”
Last fall, when the suit was settled (the city dropped its right to appeal on October 17), the mayor told the public and the city council that he was reluctantly settling the case at the behest of business and religious leaders who were urging him to move forward.
In reality, the paper produced documents showing that Mike Stefani, the police officers’ attorney, had obtained the text message records in early October and presented them to Kilpatrick’s attorney in a sealed envelope on October 17. The paper reported the mayor’s attorneys settled the case that day, but only if the text messages stayed secret. The mayor sort of forgot to mention that to the city council when he asked them to approve the payout to the wrongfully fired police.
After Kilpatrick and his wife, Carlita, went on television to acknowledge their marriage wasn’t perfect — they held hands — the mayor went on a local radio show last week.
He said the Free Press had “committed a crime” in obtaining the text messages.
We sit down with Executive Editor Caesar Andrews to ask him about Kilpatrick’s charges “It’s just so insane. You don’t expect comments like that from responsible community leaders,” he said and refused to reveal the source of the messages.
