Kwame expected in court for probation violation hearing

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy apparently has had more than
enough of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s alleged flaunting of a $1 million resitution order.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Worthy “forced the issue Wednesday, filing a motion accusing Kilpatrick of violating his probation by cutting his restitution payment in half, failing to turn over his pensions, and ignoring a court order requiring him to disclose information about his personal finances.”

And, reports The Detroit News, Worthy expects Kilpatrick to attend an Oct. 28 evidentiary hearing on the matter before Wayne County Circuit Court Judge David Groner.

Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Michael Alan Schwartz, has justified Kilpatrick’s self-imposed 50 percent trim of his restitution payments from $6,000 a
month to $3,000 per month because the former mayor has had his paycheck cut in half.

Schwartz yesterday did not respond to either of the papers’ requests for a comment.

COA boots Kwame’s bid to lower restitution payments

The Detroit News reports that the Michihgan Court of Appeals has denied a motion by former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to trim his restitution payments to the city from $6,000 to $6.

From The News:

The court’s rejection came the day after Kilpatrick took his own action to slice his monthly payment in half.

Kilpatrick had claimed Wayne Circuit Judge David Groner unfairly ordered him in March to pay 30 percent of his monthly income toward restitution owed the city for crimes related to the text message scandal. Kilpatrick had agreed to pay $1 million in five years as part of a plea-bargained sentence. Kilpatrick claimed his resources — after deducting expenses for living in the affluent Dallas suburb of Southlake, Texas — allowed him to pay at a rate that would settle his obligation in about 166,666 years.

The one-sentence rejection issued Thursday by the appeals court said the denial was based on “lack of merit.”

Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Michael Alan Schwartz, said he will talk to Kilpatrick about appealing to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, The Detroit Free Press reports that Kilpatrick told Schwartz that he didn’t expect a favorable ruling from the COA.

‘In order to do justice, you’ve got to at least look at the material that’s before you,’ Schwartz said of the appeals court. He said no decision has been made whether to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Schwartz in March sought to reduce Kilpatrick’s monthly restitution payment. He argued that Kilpatrick’s monthly expenses — including $2,700 for rent and $900 to lease a new Cadillac Escalade — ate up $9,994 of his $10,000 monthly salary as a health care software salesman with Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware.

Kwame coming up short

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has reduced his restitution payments by 50 percent telling a judge that his monthly income has dropped from $20,000 to $10,000, reports The Detroit Free Press.

From The Freep:

So instead of sending $6,000 in September to pay off the $1 million he owes Detroit from his criminal conviction, Kilpatrick paid $3,000 [yesterday].

His attorney, Michael Alan Schwartz, said Kilpatrick’s $10,000 monthly salary had been supplemented with a $10,000 advance during his first six months at the Texas office of Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware.

Schwartz cited Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner’s order in March that Kilpatrick pay 30 percent of his gross salary as restitution.

The order allows the payments to rise or fall with his income.

Meanwhile, The Detroit News reports that while Kilpatrick is pleading poverty in court, he is seemingly living the good life in an upscale Dallas suburb.