Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Detroit mayor faces trial on assault charges

DETROIT - A judge ruled yesterday that there is enough evidence for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to stand trial on two felony assault charges stemming from a confrontation with two investigators.

DETROIT - A judge ruled yesterday that there is enough evidence for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to stand trial on two felony assault charges stemming from a confrontation with two investigators.

The investigators testified that an angry Kilpatrick shoved one of them into the other and made racial remarks last month while they were trying to deliver a subpoena in the mayor's perjury case to one of Kilpatrick's friends.

In his ruling in 36th District Court, Judge Ronald Giles said there was no question Kilpatrick was aware that Wayne County Sheriff's Detective Brian White and county prosecutor's investigator JoAnn Kinney were at the home where the confrontation took place on official business.

"It's clear Kilpatrick knew who Detective White was. He had previous contact with him through his other case," Giles said in his ruling. "He specifically called him by name in this case."

White said the mayor shoved him into Kinney when he was trying to deliver the subpoena. He and Kinney also testified that Kilpatrick used profanity and made a racial remark.

"You're a black woman," Kinney said the mayor told her. "You should be ashamed of yourself being with a man with the last name White. You should not be a part of this."

The mayor and Kinney are black. White is white.

Kilpatrick's attorneys have denied an assault took place.

Kilpatrick remains free on bond ahead of arraignment next week in Wayne County Circuit Court. He must continue to wear an electronic ankle tether.

The mayor and his former top aide, Christine Beatty, were charged in March with conspiracy, perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office, mostly tied to their testimony in a civil trial.

Sexually explicit text messages between the pair, published by the Detroit Free Press in January, contradict their denial of an affair, a key point in the trial last year involving a former deputy police chief.