Kwame Kilpatrick Corruption Trail Ends, but the Fight Isn’t Over

kilpatrick 2After 14 days of deliberations, a federal jury convicted Kilpatrick, his longtime contractor friend Bobby Ferguson and his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, on a combined 34 charges on Monday. Among the most serious: extortion, bribery and racketeering, which the defense referred to as the government’s “nuclear bomb.”

The verdict marked a landslide victory for the federal government, which turned its radar gun onto Kilpatrick about a decade ago after a homeless shelter operator donated money to the Kilpatrick Civic Fund in exchange for a political favor.

That donation, which was first disclosed by the Free Press, triggered an Internal Revenue Service investigation that transformed into a broader probe of widespread corruption throughout City Hall that has ensnared more than 30 convictions.

“Kwame Kilpatrick didn’t lead the city, he looted the city,” U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said at a news conference, flanked by the prosecutors who tried the case and the federal agents who investigated it.

Kwame Kilpatrick was found guilty of 24 of 30 counts. Ferguson, who also was led away in handcuffs, was convicted on nine of 11 counts. Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on just one of four counts: filing false taxes. The jury acquitted him on two other counts and deadlocked on the most serious charge: racketeering.

The government built its case against the Kilpatricks and Ferguson through secret surveillance videos, wiretaps and cooperating witnesses — several of them Kilpatrick’s closest friends and aides, who earlier pleaded guilty to various crimes and agreed to testify. Perhaps most compellingly, the government also used text messages from the defendants as evidence stitching together the crimes. It worked.

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