The Kwame Kilpatrick show goes on.
The attorney for disgraced ex-Detroit mayor, Harold Gurewitz, will get a shot Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati to argue before the judges that Kilpatrick didn't get a fair trial when he was convicted of public corruption and tax charges in Detroit and sentenced to 28 years.
The odds are always against the defendant prevailing and getting the conviction overturned and getting a new trial. Nonetheless, Kilpatrick has to try. Kilpatrick, who is in a federal prison in Oklahoma, is not expected to be at the hearing on Tuesday.
Contractor Bobby Ferguson, Kilpatrick's buddy who was also convicted in the trial, will also argue his case today. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Kilpatrick's key arguments are:
■ He was forced to go to trial with a lawyer, James Thomas, he didn't want – and shouldn't have had – due to a conflict of interest. Thomas and his associate were working for a law firm that was suing Kilpatrick for the same alleged crimes of which Thomas was defending him.
■ The nearly $4.7 million in he was ordered to pay in restitution was not authorized under federal law.
■ The judge erred in allowing two FBI agents to offer their opinions to jurors about what Kilpatrick's and others' text messages meant and how texts and phone calls showed the ex-mayor was involved in crooked contracts.
Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press spoke to white-collar crime and corruption expert Solomon Wisenberg, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who questioned former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, believes Kilpatrick is facing an uphill battle.
"Lets face it, when (prosecutors) go after public corruption cases, usually they have a pretty good case," Wisenberg said, adding such cases are hard to beat.
"All credibility (in a federal appeal case) is viewed in a light most favorable to the government," he said. "It's a difficult standard." -- Allan Lengel
