Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has resurfaced as a salesman for a software and information technology firm in Texas, is hoping to convince a judge that SkyTel should cough up $100 million in damages for leaking embarrassing text-messages that ultimately cost him his job. Read more.

Did dethroned Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick violate local laws by tapping $1 million from his political war chest to pay for his mountainous legal bills? That’s the question being pressed by one of the ex-mayor’s leading critics, retired Wayne State University law Professor Maurice Kelman. Kelman has blasted Kilpatrick firstly for missing his filing deadline by two months, and secondly for using the money to defend himself in the infamous sex text-messaging scandal with his then-chief of staff, Christine Beatty. Ultimately, the two married city officials were sentenced to 120 days in jail for lying in court to hide their affair. James Thomas, Kilpatrick’s lead attorney, defended tapping the campaign account. A spokeswoman for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy declined comment on the legality of tapping the fund but said prosecutors will look at the $215,000 that Kilpatrick said he had left in the fund at the end of 2008. “We’re interested in any money that can go toward the mayor’s restitution,” she said. The former mayor owes the City of Detroit more than $900,000 in restitution as part of the deal he reached last year when he pleaded guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice stemming from the text message scandal.

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.

Lawyers for Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit’s disgraced former mayor, sent a letter to SkyTel Inc. on Monday demanding $100 million and accusing the communications provider of violating Kilpatrick’s privacy by releasing the scandalous “sex-text” messages that ultimately ruined his career. More here.

Beatings Abound in Chicago Schools

Over the past six years, more than 800 students in Chicago’s public school system have claimed they were beaten, whipped and choked – all at the hands of school staff. Since 2003, 568 out of the 818 reports of abuse, were investigated and proved true, according to a report by Chicago TV station CBS 2. One alleged victim, elementary school student Treveon Martin, says he was hit with a belt by a teacher. “He’s threatened almost all the kids in his classroom,” he said. “He holded my arms and he picked my body up, and then he just slammed me on the desk,” Martin said. Click for more.
Disgraced Hip-hop Mayor Lands on His Feet

It’s been a little over a week since former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was released from jail after serving 99 days for perjury, but he might have already landed a new gig. A Texas affiliate of Compuware Corp., a Detroit-based company, is set to name Kilpatrick to a new post soon, reports The Detroit Free Press. Read on.

 It’s safe to say that Detroit’s disgraced ex-mayor has landed on his feet. The day after being released from his 99-day stint in jail, he jetted off to the richest neighborhood in America to begin a new life, supposedly as a high-paid exec. It’s not quite clear what he’ll be doing in the community of Southlake, Texas, where the median household income is about $173,000, but he’ll need every nickel he can scrape up to pay $1 million restitution to the Motor City for his text-message scandal penalty. Read the rest here.

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.

He’s on his way home early for good behavior after a 120-day jail sentence. But the ex-mayor of Detroit could be headed back to a courtroom with the possibility of serving far more time behind bars if he’s convicted of federal corruption. Kwame Kilpatrick and his dad Bernard Kilpatrick are reported to be the men identified in a recent federal bribery case as “City Official A” and “Relative of City Official A.” The recently fired exec of a sludge recycling company is expected to serve 11 months in prison after confessing that he paid large sums of cash to secure a major city contract during Kilpatrick’s time in office. Among the figures reported in court papers to have participated in the Synagro company’s pay-to-play scheme are a politician fitting the ex-mayor’s description and his father, who reports suggest received cash from the contract through his consulting firm. No charges have been filed against the Kilpatricks, and Bernard Kilpatrick denies any wrongdoing in the case. The ex-mayor is completing jail time after he confessed to perjury and related charges last year in a case involving ex-cops who were investigating Kilpatrick’s security detail. He is expected to travel to Texas to seek private employment upon his release in early February.