Jeffrey Beasley (Photo from WXYZ)
Kwame Kilpatrick is serving 28 years in prison. His buddy, contractor Bobby Ferguson, is serving 21.
Now, the feds want Kilpatrick's former frat buddy, Jeffrey Beasley, the former city Treasurer and trustee on the city's pension fund, to serve at least 15 years, Robert Snell of the Detroit News reports.
That sentence would be the third longest handed out to 38 people convicted during a years-long federal investigation of public corruption in Detroit, Snell writes.
The feds, in court papers filed Monday, say Beasley was a greedy “catalyst of corruption” who pocketed bribes and kickbacks from city pension fund businessmen, Snell writes.
Snell writes:
Beasley, 46, a former trustee on the city’s pension funds and Kilpatrick fraternity brother at Florida A&M University, will be sentenced Sept. 21 by U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds. She presided over a jury trial late last year that ended with guilty verdicts against Beasley, former pension trustee Paul Stewart and pension fund lawyer Ronald Zajac.
The trio was charged in a high-profile case alleging they defrauded the bankrupt city’s pension funds by accepting kickbacks and bribes in exchange for approving $200 million in corrupt deals. Once weakened, the city’s pension system faced takeover during the city’s landmark bankruptcy case.
“(Beasley) was a catalyst of corruption,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gardey wrote in a court filing Monday, according to the News. “Beasley’s decisions as treasurer and trustee were for sale."
