In the end, the morality play doubling as a corruption trial came down to one last gust of hyperbole.
It came in the form of the judge's closing remarks, remarks characterized by the same sort of myopic sanctimoniousness that had turned a brilliant but flawed talent into the lone embodiment of political rot in this city.
In the end, the judge who gave Kwame Kilpatrick 28 years in federal prison – probably a life sentence for the 43-year-old ex-mayor – couldn’t just say she was giving a corrupt and felonious former public official his just desserts.
Kwame Kilpatrick photo from Michigan Department of Corrections
Instead, she treated the sentencing as something akin to an exorcism, as though she were once and for all banishing not just a man, but an overarching evil that had once consumed our fair city but would taint us no more.
She acted as though she were jailing corruption itself.
Per the Detroit Free Press:
“That way of business is over,” U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds said today in sentencing the former Detroit mayor to 28 years in prison in the historic public corruption case. “We’re done. We’re moving forward.”
In an emotional sentencing hearing that included scolding, apologizing and a rehashing of Detroit history during Kilpatrick’s tenure, Edmunds spent 25 minutes explaining not just what Kilpatrick did wrong — a long list that included taking bribes, steering contracts to his friend, extorting businessmen, deceiving donors to his nonprofit, living lavishly on the public’s dime and loading the city’s payroll with friends and family. She also stressed that Kilpatrick’s misdeeds taught Detroiters a lesson about honest government. And she hopes her sentence sends a message to future politicians.
“We’re demanding transparency and accountability in our government,” Edmunds said. “If there has been corruption in the past, there will be corruption no more.”
I’ve said repeatedly that I wouldn’t shed any tears for Kilpatrick, and I stand by that. He did this city, its taxpayers and the people who trusted him grievous harm, a fact he admitted Thursday.
And while there will be debates about the lengthy sentence, I’m content to leave those to Facebook.
But what does irk me something awful is this smug notion that, in finally bringing an end to Kilpatrick’s pathetic saga, we’ve finally uprooted all that is wrong and evil about Detroit’s political culture.
Something Still Stinks
Yes, Kilpatrick’s crime and antics stunk up the joint. But even with him off the street, the intersection of big-money politics and big business continues to give off all kinds of suspicious stenches.
Kilpatrick is gone, but we’ve still got companies like Walbridge, which is brazen enough to cry crocodile tears and demand “restitution” from the city of Detroit — apparently, they were “harmed” when they paid all those bribes to Kilpatrick for access to those multi-million dollar deals. Interestingly, Wallbridge has been far less forthcoming about the nearly $100 million in cost overruns it incurred while building the now-aborted Wayne County Jail.
Corruption no more? Riiiiight.
Kilpatrick is out of here, but the city is facing a mayoral election whose candidates both studied at the same Ed McNamara School of Shady Machine Politics that helped get Kilpatrick elected and that counts among its alumni Kilpatrick’s father, Bernard.
Hell, the apparent front-runner in the current mayor’s race, Mike Duggan, graduated cum laude from McNamara U. Remember when the Maestro, Bernard Kilpatrick, was caught on tape reminiscing about watching McNamara and Duggan shape deals that were “borderline illegal?” (Duggan denied doing anything wrong. McNamara always did, too.)
Meanwhile, Duggan’s opponent, Benny Napoleon was once a high-profile appointee of Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, unquestionably the foulest-smelling lump among all of the detritus littering local politics right now, before being elected Wayne County Sheriff. He too has been questioned about the jail deal.
That way of business is over? Uh-huh. Sure.
Open Meetings Act Not A Sex Site
Kilpatrick has left the building, but we’ve got an emergency manager who lies about the slush fund (whose donors are anonymous) that pays his living expenses and acts galled at the notion of conflict of interest when he awards his former law firm a $3.3-million contract with the city he’s lording over.
We’ve got a governor who seems to think that the Open Meetings Act is some sort of swingers’ website. We’ve got a city clerk who holds up sending out ballots so she can use her office to try to keep a political opponent from challenging her. We’ve got a mayor in the suburb of Warren who was investigated in April for threatening to kill whistle-blowers.
Transparency and accountability? Whatever.
We’ve got Duggan’s PAC being investigated for allegedly breaking election laws. We’ve got fugitive ex-Council President Charles Pugh being investigated by the Madison Heights PD in the wake of allegations that he had inappropriate contact with a teenage mentee.
And of course we have the aforementioned Ficano and, as Tony Soprano once said, “all that comes with him.”
So yes, one corrupt player is finished.
We’re done? We’re not even close.
