Kilpatrick pal says he passed $90K to ex-mayor
By Ed White
Topics: From the Wires, News
DETROIT (AP) — A college buddy who was granted immunity by federal prosecutors testified Tuesday that he delivered $90,000 in cash to Kwame Kilpatrick in 2008 while the former Detroit mayor’s family was settling in Texas after his resignation.
Mahlon Clift said he gave $50,000 to Kilpatrick in Dallas in September 2008, after the ex-mayor had pleaded guilty to lying in a civil trial. He said the balance changed hands at a Detroit apartment a month later, just days before Kilpatrick began a jail sentence.
The source of the money is a key part of the government’s case in Kilpatrick’s federal corruption trial. Clift testified that money came from Bobby Ferguson, the owner of a Detroit construction company and a co-defendant in the case.
Kilpatrick, 42, is charged with bribery, fraud, racketeering conspiracy and tax crimes. He’s accused of extorting money from people who wanted business from the city when he was mayor and rigging contracts to help Ferguson. Kilpatrick’s father and Detroit’s former water boss are also on trial.
Ferguson had a gift bag full of cash and said “hold onto this for Black,” Clift told the jury, referring to a Kilpatrick nickname. “I assumed it was Kwame.”
Clift, a Chicago resident, said he’s known Kilpatrick since the 1980s when they were students at Florida A&M University.
“It was a friend in need. I was trying to be a good friend,” Clift said of his courier role.
Clift said he flew to Chicago from Detroit with $90,000 in his pockets — nine rubber-banded stacks of $10,000 each — and then stashed the cash inside a vacuum cleaner at home.
He said he never got specific instructions from Ferguson. Clift said Kilpatrick was silent when they met in Dallas for the $50,000 delivery. During the testimony, it was disclosed that Clift has an immunity agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office.
The defense tried to cast doubt on the story. Ferguson attorney Michael Rataj said Clift would have looked like the puffy “Michelin man” as he walked through airports with stacks of cash in shorts under his jeans.
Clift acknowledged that he still can’t remember the date when Ferguson gave him the money, despite the extraordinary circumstances.
Tuesday’s second witness was Officer Michael Fountain, who said he was threatened into dropping misdemeanor trash violations against Ferguson shortly after Kilpatrick took office in 2002. Ferguson had been ticketed for high weeds, broken-down vehicles and debris that attracted rats to his property.
Fountain said he was confronted in the courthouse by Ferguson and two police officers who were members of Kilpatrick’s security team. He said Ferguson told him, “Your family wouldn’t like this.”
Fountain said he canceled the tickets and told the judge that he had made mistakes. He testified that he feared “something could happen to me or my family.”
Kilpatrick, a Democrat and son of ex-U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, was a state lawmaker when he was elected mayor in 2001. He resigned in 2008 and pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by lying in a civil case about having sex with an aide. He subsequently served 14 months in prison for violating probation in that case.
___
Follow Ed White on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
1 killed in Oklahoma tornado
-
Peggy Noonan hears a dog whistle
-
Paul Krugman's right: Austerity kills
-
Jon Karl makes things worse
-
How Guantanamo affects China: Our human rights hypocrisies
-
Top 5 investigative videos of the week: Nailing a dictator
-
Alex Gibney: Julian Assange has become like "those he despises"
-
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks
-
Financial Times hacked by Syrian Electronic Army
-
Gitmo hunger strike reaches 100th day
-
New DSM, new debates over ADHD and autism
-
John Brennan makes surprise Israel trip over Syria concerns
-
Pentagon officials: Drone War on Terror is endless
-
Toronto mayor reportedly caught on video smoking crack
-
Google Glass chief: "You'll know" when someone is spying on you
-
California powers $550 lottery jackpot
-
North Dakota lawmaker: Blame Roe v. Wade for school shootings
-
Take the Pope Francis tour of Buenos Aires and be pontiff for a day
-
U.K. hacker sentencing highlights U.S. overreach
-
Obama leaves room for whistle-blower prosecution
-
Should Obama go Bulworth?
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
Jonathan Bernstein
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
"Jodorowsky's Dune": The sci-fi classic that never was
Andrew O'Hehir
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
Tracy Clark-Flory
-
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: "Sounds like diagnosis by committee"
Temple Grandin
-
My open relationship went awry
David Farley
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
-
Stop comparing everything to "Girls"!
Daniel D'Addario
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com

289 points290 points291 points | 250 comments


Comments
0 Comments