Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit who was removed from office and convicted of perjury, gave his first media interview in more than a year to reporters from The Final Call, the weekly news magazine of the Nation of Islam.

The interview covered various subjects ranging from the future of Detroit to national politics. However, Kilpatrick’s comments about his former chief of staff and lover Christine Beatty are creating the most buzz.

Kilpatrick and Beatty had a highly publicized affair. Beatty was also convicted of perjury for not admitting to the affair during a whistleblower lawsuit in 2008.

Below is an excerpt of the interview.  Click here to view video of the interview.

FCN: I’m glad you mentioned your family. Clearly, they have stood by you and your wife has demonstrated tremendous strength as well as your children with you being in such a public spot. As it relates to Ms. Christine Beatty, the sister who was in the news related to her relationship with you, do you have contact with her, do you all talk?

KK: I’ll simply say, I have talked to her since all of this stuff has happened. I try to make sure that she understands that I still care about her very deeply and I simply back up and say first that, a lot of times when women get caught in a situation like that, they are perceived as a wh— and sorry and I just think that is so unfair. It takes two to tango they say but I think even other than that she is a very good person. She is incredibly brilliant, a 4.0 student, masters (degree) and we made some bad decisions and we are living with the consequences of those decisions. I respect her tremendously and love her and wish her the best. That has been an incredible situation, somebody has been in your life since ninth grade, this is my friend, this wasn’t a person that just showed up. Ninth grade and now out of your life and having her own and you have to really figure out how to move forward with your wife and children. So I wish her the best. I have tried to keep tabs and make sure that she is doing all right. But as far as the kind of interaction we had, we will never really have again.

A Detroit grandmother testified in court on Tuesday that her own 19-year-old step-grandson raped her repeatedly then begged her not to tell anyone.

Lee Aaron Moorer is facing several counts of criminal sexual conduct and will spend years in prison, if convicted.

The grandmother has a medical condition which requires her to take medication that causes her to go asleep. While drowsy, she claims her grandson forced himself on top of her and allegedly proceeded to rape her. After the attack, the grandson sent her several text messages pleading with her to keep it secret.

The grandmother said the rapes happened after she allowed her grandson and his mother to move into her home.

His grandmother told a reporter that she hopes her son is convicted and “violated” in prison.

“If he goes to jail, I hope they rape him. I hope they make him somebody’s princess,” she said.

A retired NBA star was elected Tuesday to run the Motor City, formally replacing the disgraced Kwame Kilpatrick. Former Detroit Pistons guard Dave Bing nudged rival Ken Cockrel Jr., to become Detroit’s mayor.  Read more.

Rumor had it that baller was barred. After ending his season with the Detroit Pistons early, Allen Iverson made news again recently after his bodyguard reportedly got into a scrap at a casino. Frequently spotted at the game tables around Detroit, the point guard was said to have caused a dust-up in the weeks since his departure from the Pistons was announced. But both Iverson and casino managers denied rumors that followed, suggesting that Iverson was banned entry from any of the facilities. Iverson is sitting out the rest of the NBA season after claiming a back injury prevents him from performing. But it’s been openly speculated the Iverson chose to sit out rather than play back-up to Pistons starter Richard Hamilton.

 Bo knows banking. Having achieved all-star status in both the NFL and Major League Baseball, Bo Jackson knows a thing or two about money. The retired top athlete and pitchman for the old “Bo Knows…” Nike campaigns is a founding investor in the Chicago-area’s Burr Ridge Bank and Trust. Jackson will sit on the board of directors, as well as interacting with staff at the location that opened this week. “We’re a small community bank, and one thing we all decided is that if we are going to do a bank in our community, it needs to be owned by the people who live in the community,” Jackson told reporters. He retired from football in 1990 and from baseball four years later.

Ousted Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, recently out of jail after serving 100 days for perjury, has missed deadlines to report on the more than $1 million he had on hand at the end of 2007, according to The Detroit Free Press. “What he has to gain by not filing is continuing to conceal how he’s spent his money,” Maurice Kelman, a retired law professor from Wayne State University, told the newspaper. Read more.

It’s not likely that the release of the saucy emails between former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and onetime chief of staff Christine Beatty will do much to help the disgraced city leader rekindle his relationship with his longtime wife in their new Texas digs. Kilpatrick, fresh out of jail and now living in a Dallas suburb with his family, had hoped to keep the steamy sex-texts from the public airwaves. Fat chance. Late last week, the back-and-forth freak show, first obtained by The Detroit Free Press, helped cast the so-called “Hip-Hop Mayor” as “Kinky Kilpatrick.” Read some of the steamy texts.

In this particular case, the judge ain’t digging the player or the game. The player: one disgraced ex-mayor. The game: the system that would award that disgraced ex-mayor substantially more money and perks following his conviction for betraying the public’s trust than he earned while in public office. The person in question is Kwame Kilpatrick, fresh out of jail after a 100-day term for lying to a jury about his seedy affair with former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty. Read the rest.

Store owner could face life in prison. A 69-year-old shop owner will appear in court March 3 after he allegedly shot a man for peeing on his building. Leroy Moon, who runs Detroit’s Asian Fisheries, is charged with killing Shawn Johnson, 36, early this week. Johnson, an elementary school janitor, apparently stopped outside Moon’s business about 7 p.m. When Johnson began relieving himself, Moon reportedly told him to stop and called for another man to bring a gun. Johnson is said to have walked off Moon’s property, while still urinating, when Moon pushed him and then shot. Neighbors say the business owner’s alleged behavior is out of his character, and that he has even given food to the neighborhood needy.

TMZ says Rihanna photo was legally obtained. A popular TV show and celebrity news Web site obtained a controversial photo without breaking the law, producers say. While Los Angeles Police investigated how a head shot of singer Rihanna wound up on TMZ’s Web site Thursday, the companion Fox show broadcast the image again Friday evening. Rihanna is shown with her eyes closed, bruised and beaten in the face, after she was allegedly attacked by her romantic associate Chris Brown on the night of the Grammy Awards. But the LAPD says it would never release a photo of a domestic violence victim and wants to know how TMZ got the image. TMZ posted the Web photo under the caption “Rihanna – The Face of a Battered Woman.” The show’s and site’s main producer, Harvey Levin, is a lawyer.

A former NBA star says bad economic times have forced him to close his popular, upscale restaurant. Derrick Coleman, who wore a Philadelphia 76ers jersey among others before retiring, ran Detroit’s Sweet Georgia Brown in recent years. The exclusive soul-food and sweet spot for American cuisine had closed its doors briefly before Coleman took over its ownership. But the nationwide and local slowdown of spending left the ex- forward no choice but to shut-down the establishment for good, he says. Coleman announced that he plans to help employees of Sweet Georgia Brown land as softly as possible from the job loss.

Detroit’s Ex-mayor is Freed
Detroit’s disgraced ex-mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, will leave jail today after 99 days behind bars for lying to a jury about his relationship with former chief of staff Christine Beatty. The Motor City’s 38-year-old Hip-Hop Mayor left Detroit’s downtown jail just after midnight en route home. He must meet with probation officers tomorrow before heading off to a job interview, reportedly a high-paying gig in Texas. According to The Dallas Morning News, Kilpatrick met with Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert before he went to jail.

Media Want Jena-Six Youth Hearing Records
Media groups want access to the sealed records of Mychal Bell, the Black youth who was convicted for his role in beating a White classmate in the tiny Louisiana town of Jena. He and five other young Black males were charged with attempted murder in the incident, but the charges were reduced amid an outcry from Black leaders, civil rights advocates, students and others, who in 2007 marched 20,000 strong on the community of a couple thousand residents.  Bell later pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery. Read the rest here.