Detroit — Kwame Kilpatrick hopes no one thinks he is trying to avoid paying the $1 million he promised the city as part of a plea deal to avoid trial in the text message scandal.

“I stay up at night trying to figure out how to find $870,000 laying on the ground or if somebody would just pay it, hit the Powerball … when I ride past that sign now, and I rarely play that game, I think about,” the former mayor said Tuesday outside the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit. “If I had the money, I’d pay it.”

Kilpatrick arrived in Detroit on Tuesday, a wanted man on an arrest warrant.

Today, he is free on $10,000 bond after being arraigned on multiple probation violation charges. But he is unable to return to his Texas home due to his own efforts to remove the judge overseeing his criminal probation.

“I want someone who is nonbiased making the decisions,” Kilpatrick said.

Kilpatrick showed up unexpectedly in Wayne Circuit Judge David Groner’s courtroom Tuesday with his attorneys and a motion to disqualify Groner from the proceedings. Groner refused to recuse himself, and sent Kilpatrick to the sixth floor of the courthouse, for Judge Timothy Kenny, the presiding judge of the court’s criminal division, to hear an appeal of his decision.

Kenny arraigned Kilpatrick on the probation charges and ordered Kilpatrick to remain in Michigan until he rules on the appeal Thursday.

Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Michael Alan Schwartz, claims Groner committed misconduct by meeting with a prosecutor on the case. He also said Groner is biased against Kilpatrick because his brother-in-law is a top administrator for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

Groner denied having the meeting and explained his brother-in-law, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Richard Hathaway, hasn’t influenced his handling of the case.

“You alleged I had a secret meeting. I don’t know where you get your information, but it’s wrong,” Groner said.

Kilpatrick declined to say where he will stay while awaiting the ruling on the appeal.

“I’m so sorry for what the city has to continue to go through,” Kilpatrick said, explaining that when he visits he sees none of the economic vitality he believes was in place before his plea-bargain on charges related to the text message scandal that required him to resign as mayor in 2008 and serve 99 days in jail.

But Kilpatrick also complained he’s been given unusual treatment by Wayne County’s prosecutor and the court.

“There is nobody else in Michigan who has been under such scrutiny like this,” he said.

Groner sentenced Kilpatrick last year. When Kilpatrick appeared before Groner Tuesday, the judge assumed it was to face arraignment on charges that he has violated probation terms that allow him to live in Texas and work as a $120,000-a-year software salesman for Compuware subsidiary Covisint.

The arrest warrant for Kilpatrick was requested by the Michigan Department of Corrections on Feb. 23, and Worthy’s office added other charges, including accusations that Kilpatrick failed to surrender funds the court had ordered turned over for restitution and that he hid assets.

The arrest notice was posted on the FBI’s nationwide database Monday, making Kilpatrick subject to arrest by any police officer who stopped him.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Athina Siringas countered Schwartz’s complaint that he should have gotten an advanced copy of charges amended Monday. Siringas said a defendant and his lawyer have no right to get an arrest warrant in advance.

The new charges added Monday claim Kilpatrick failed to report the sources of $40,000 in money orders received by the court toward his $79,000 restitution payment due Feb. 19.

Siringas also said the fact that the judge’s brother-in-law works in the Prosecutor’s Office has no bearing on the case.

“There is no basis for disqualifying this judge,” she said.

Schwartz said he filed a complaint against Groner on Tuesday with the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission.

“You could see the difference between the two courts,” he said. “I couldn’t make statements … things were very tightly controlled by Judge Groner. Judge Kenny invited me to speak. I’m pleased Judge Kenny is looking at this.”

Groner agreed to hold off on all court action until after Kenny’s review. Kenny listened to arguments Tuesday and said he will have a transcript of Groner’s latest session delivered for his review today and will issue his opinion Thursday. Kilpatrick’s new spokesman, Mike Paul, president of a Fifth Avenue New York public relations firm, said Tuesday’s action in court “was a lesson in legal ethics” delivered by Schwartz.

When Paul was asked who is paying for his services, he replied: “That’s confidential.”

From The Detroit News:

Detroit — The attorney for former Mayor Kwame KilpatrickCorrectionsenforcementSachs said he has informed his client about turning himself in to authorities now after an arrest warrant was issued Monday for probation violations in the text message scandal.

Kilpatrick is now listed as a wanted man nationwide for numerous alleged violations of the probationary terms that allow him to live in Texas and work as a $120,000-a-year computer software salesman for Compuware subsidiary Covisint.

No date has been set by the judge for his return. Groner has said he will set a date after arraignment for a hearing on the charges. Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Michael Alan Schwartz, said Monday he hopes to see Kilpatrick in Detroit soon.

An affidavit filed Monday claims Kilpatrick failed to disclose the sources of $40,223 paid on his behalf toward $1 million restitution the former mayor owes the city. Included were copies of 89 money orders received by the court around the Feb. 19 deadline for Kilpatrick to make a $79,011 payment. His lawyers have said Kilpatrick has no money to pay.

Schwartz complained Monday that the judge approved the new complaints in an improper secret meeting with an assistant prosecutor. Schwartz said ethics rules force him to file a complaint against Groner with the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission.

Many of the money orders are signed by Kilpatrick relatives, such as his sister Ayana Kilpatrick Ferguson, brother-in-law Daniel Ferguson, and Kamal, Marvel, Marsha and Ray Cheeks. Others came from friends and long-time supporters, such as Frazier Kimpson, a former mayoral appointee under Kilpatrick who also was director of constituent relations for former Councilwoman Monica Conyers.

Kimpson said Monday he contributed $50 toward Kilpatrick’s restitution.

“I did so out of concern for his children,” Kimpson said. “As a former teacher, I saw the effects of growing up in a household without a father everyday in the classroom. I was hoping that my small contribution would help keep his family together.”

The arrest warrant was requested by the Michigan Department of on Feb. 23, and Worthy added other charges, including accusations that he failed to surrender funds the court ordered turned over to restitution and he hid assets including money he “fraudulently conveyed” to his wife. The Michigan Court of Appeals temporarily halted plans to have Kilpatrick appear for arraignment on Feb. 26. On Friday, the higher court rejected Kilpatrick’s appeal.

Police encountering Kilpatrick are now authorized to arrest him, but law authorities say that is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Kilpatrick has hired a high-powered public relations expert specializing in crisis management.

Mike Paul, president of MGP & Associates on Fifth Avenue in New York, whose former clients include Aretha Franklin, Muhammad Ali and Goldman was named spokesman Monday.

Paul described himself as a “friend” to Kilpatrick and accused prosecutors of “piling on a former mayor who’s down and out.”

“To try and imply that family members and friends, who make restitution, make payments for the restitution for the debt that’s due the city of Detroit, to try and imply that that’s inappropriate is an abomination,” Paul told The Detroit News. “His title is former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, not Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. The prosecutor is an elected official and the judge is an elected official. It’s important for the citizens to be reminded of that.”

From The Detroit News:

Detroit — A federal judge on Monday ordered the city of Detroit to hire a contractor to recover and transcribe 911 tapes from around the time of a rumored stripper party at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002.

U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen gave the city 14 days to produce the transcripts, sought in connection with a lawsuit brought by the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara “Strawberry” Greene.

“It needs to get done,” Whalen said of producing the long-sought transcripts.

Greene was shot to death in Detroit on April 30, 2003. According to court records, Greene may have been assaulted at the rumored 2002 party by Carlita Kilpatrick, the wife of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Greene’s family is suing the city, Kilpatrick and top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation into Greene’s still unsolved killing for political reasons. Kilpatrick and the other defendants deny the allegations.

Robert Zawideh, an attorney for Greene’s family, told Whalen the city should be found in default and lose the lawsuit because of foot-dragging in producing records. Whalen rejected the call, but stepped up pressure on the city.

John Schapka, an attorney for the city, said he located a contractor who can recover and transcribe 911 tapes from the fall of 2002. The work could be costly and take a couple of days, he told the judge.

Zawideh said outside court the tapes were initially sought during investigations into the rumored party by Attorney General Mike Cox and the Michigan State Police in 2003. State Police Detective Mark Krebs testified in a deposition that he and other investigators were about to leave Detroit police headquarters with a cache of 911 tapes when they were stopped by top police officials. Krebs testified the tapes were left in a sealed box, later found with the seal broken and tapes missing.

Also Monday, Whalen was told Cox, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, can’t turn over his home phone records in connection with the lawsuit because he doesn’t remember and can’t find out what phone company he used in 2003.

Norman Yatooma, the lead attorney for Greene’s family, subpoenaed records of phone calls between Cox and four others from around the time Cox investigated the party and declared it an “urban legend.”

Yatooma wants records of calls between Cox and Kilpatrick, former Detroit Corporation Counsel Ruth Carter, former Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Duggan, and former Kilpatrick aide Conrad Mallett.

Frank Monticello, an attorney for Cox, told Whalen that Cox has provided records from his office phone and his personal cell phone and those records include calls to Carter and “maybe one to Mike Duggan.”

But officials in Cox’s office haven’t been able to determine what company provided Cox’s home phone service in Livonia in 2003, despite seeking assistance from both the criminal division and the Public Service Commission division, Monticello said.

Cox thought it was AT&T but it turns out it wasn’t, Monticello said. There were about 60 companies providing home phone service in Livonia at that time and the three biggest ones say they don’t have any Cox phone records, he said.

Whalen questioned whether Cox’s office would not be able to find such home phone service information if it was conducting a drug investigation.

“We used all the powers of our agency,” Monticello said.

After the hearing, Yatooma described Cox’s claims as “pretty incredible.”

“It’s going to make the criminals in our state feel quite comfortable,” Yatooma said.

Whalen reserved judgment on whether to order Cox to sign a waiver so Yatooma can go directly to the phone carriers to seek the records. Both the motion related to the phone records and Cox’s response were filed under seal, but parts of their contents were revealed at the motion hearing.

From The Detroit News:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — One person was killed and two others were injured Tuesday morning in a shooting at a maintenance building on the Ohio State University campus, 10TV News reported.

None of the victims were believed to have been students, police said.

The shooting occurred inside the McCracken Power Plant building, located on West 17th Avenue near Ohio Stadium. 

According to police, the shooting left one person dead and two others injured.  One of the victims was taken to a hospital in critical condition, while the other was in stable condition, police said. 

No other details were immediately released by police.

A text message was sent to students at about 4:30 a.m., informing them of the shooting and saying that a person was in custody, 10TV News reported.

The message urged them to avoid the area.

Watch 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for additional information.

“My mother’s in the basement; I need emergency,” the breathless 8-year-old Tayonna screamed to the 911 dispatcher on Monday. “She’s almost dead. Mommy!”

Audio of the call released Friday revealed the girl told the operator repeatedly her mother was breathing but near death. But the dispatcher didn’t ask what had happened or learn there was a double shooting at the home until more than four minutes into the call.

It’s unclear how long it took the operator to send help, but the woman died on the way to the hospital. Another victim was dead at the scene.

The chilling call, made shortly after two men opened fire inside a house on the city’s northwest side, has Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans outraged over “the agony of what that young lady went through,” he said.

“If you listen to the tape, you’ll be as righteously indignant as I am,” Evans said

Police said ex-convict Derrick Smith, 42, and another unidentified suspect are responsible for murdering the girl’s mother, Monica Botello, and a man, Purcell Carson, inside a house Monday night in the 19000 block of Glastonbury. Carson is not the girl’s father, although she referred to him as “dad,” police said.

The 8-year-old and her 6-year-old sister were in the home at the time of the shooting, although police said they did not witness the attack.

A warrant for first-degree murder has been issued for Smith, who was released from prison in 2007 for kidnapping and robbery charges and was on parole until January. Detectives are also looking for an accomplice.

Carson served time for a drug offense and was in prison with his killer, said Lt. Dwane Blackmon, head of the Homicide Unit.

“The suspect had some connection with the victims,” Blackmon said, declining to elaborate.

Probe of dispatcher
Police also are investigating the 911 dispatcher who took the girl’s call, Evans said. A recording of the call shows the operator spent several minutes trying to calm the girl and get the address. The girls were visiting the house with their mother.

“I’m not totally comfortable with the demeanor of the dispatcher,” Evans said. “I’m not passing judgment at this point, but we’re going to investigate.

“You need to calm a child down in that kind of situation. When a kid’s traumatized, we need to get a car there as soon as possible.”

Officials of the union that represents Detroit police dispatchers did not return phone calls Friday.

Police released an abridged version of the 911 call with permission of the victim’s family. It is 2 minutes, 27 seconds long, but WDIV-TV (Channel 4) posted a version on its Web site that lasts 5 minutes, 24 seconds. Police said they released only a portion because the unabridged version contains information investigators do not want to make public.

During the call, which was placed at 8:50 p.m., the dispatcher repeatedly cut off the girl to ask her address, and expressed frustration the girl was unable to tell her.

Evans questioned why the operator left the girl on hold for an undisclosed time, and expressed concern about how long it took her to dispatch a squad car to the scene, although he did not say how long it took. Carson was dead at the scene. Botello died on the way to the hospital.

“We need to have an investigation to satisfy those concerns,” Evans said.

Had the call been made from a land line, it would have been an easy matter for the dispatcher to determine the address, Evans said. Because the call came via cell phone, the technology does not exist to quickly determine its location, Evans said.

911’s troubles
Detroit has had trouble with 911 dispatchers in recent years.

An operator, Sharon Nichols, was convicted of willful neglect in 2008 after she told a 5-year-old boy to stop playing on the phone when he called to report his mother collapsed in 2006. By the time police arrived at the home hours later, the boy’s mother, Sherrill Turner, was dead. An arbitrator in July gave Nichols her job back.

Evans said listening to the little girl’s cries during the emergency call was troublesome. “If you see the lines in my forehead, they’re there because of the angst I feel in this type of situation,” he said. “We’ve all got kids. We’re anxious to get this guy in custody. We want to get all murderers off the street, but this one tugs at us a little more than others.”

Source: George Hunter / The Detroit News

LISTEN TO THE CHILLING 911 CALL from the 8 year old girl Tayonna begs for help for her dying mom, who was shot – while her dad laid dead: Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans said this, “If you listen to the tape, you’ll be as righteously indignant as I am.”

Derrick Dennard Smith, 42, is the suspect in this double homicide. Police say 42-year-old Derrick Smith, also known as “Leatherface,” is a career criminal and a man who served time with Purcell Carson and then murdered him and Monica Botello Monday night in the basement of Carson’s home on Glastonbury. He has a criminal history that includes prison stints on kidnapping, assault, armed robbery and weapons convictions. He was paroled in 2007, then released from state supervision in January. Police are asking for your help. Those with information are asked to call Detroit homicide at 313-596-2260 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-773-2587 (800-SPEAKUP). Also, anonymous tips can be text messaged to 847411. Texts must begin with the letters “DPD”, followed by the tip.

This latest program will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way.

More than 5 million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some in the banking industry say much more is needed.

For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.

Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept the arrangement, forgiving the difference between the property’s market price and what they are owed.

“We want to streamline and standardize the short sale process to make it much easier on the borrower and much easier on the lender,” said Seth Wheeler, a Treasury senior adviser.

Should the incentives prove successful, the program could have multiple benefits. For the investment pools that own many home loans, there is the prospect of getting more money with a sale than with a foreclosure.

For the borrowers, there is the likelihood of suffering less damage to credit ratings. And as part of the transaction, they will get the lender’s assurance that they will not later be sued for an unpaid mortgage balance.

For communities, the plan will mean fewer empty foreclosed houses waiting to be sold by banks.

DetNews.com - State Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, said today he’s running for Congress to try to create jobs, setting up what could turn into another feisty primary fight for Democratic Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

“I want to bring prosperity back here,” Clarke said in an interview. “I want to help create new jobs and help people reduce their debt and save their homes.

“We need a person in Congress who can create jobs in the region.”

Clarke, born in Detroit, represents more than half of the 13th Congressional District, which stretches from Grosse Pointe Woods through Detroit to Wyandotte.

Kilpatrick, Michigan’s only member of the House Appropriations Committee, has not filed for re-election, and her campaign didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about her plans.

The 64-year-old congresswoman has rarely missed votes in this Congress — 3.6 percent — and nearly always votes with the Democratic leadership, according to data compiled by the Washington Post.

First elected in 1996, Kilpatrick was recently in headlines when the House ethics committee cleared her of wrongdoing over two trips she made to the Caribbean for a trade summit.

In 2008, the veteran congresswoman experienced backlash from the text-messaging scandal engulfing her son, Kwame Kilpatrick, then Detroit’s mayor. She found herself in a nail-biter of a three-way primary fight. She won, but with only 39 percent of the vote.

The 53-year-old Clarke, who is term-limited out of the Michigan Senate, will open a congressional campaign office this week.

According to his Web site biography, Clarke grew up in a working class neighborhood on Detroit’s lower east side. He was 8 years old when his father died, and his mother supported him as a school crossing guard.

His artistic ability landed him a scholarship at Cornell University, where he received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting. He went on to earn a law degree from Georgetown University.

Elected to the Michigan House three times, Clarke defeated incumbent state Sen. Ray Murphy in 2002. Clarke was re-elected to the Senate in 2006.

Asked about the challenge of ousting an incumbent congresswoman, Clarke pointed to his defeat of the incumbent Murphy. He also dismissed campaign money advantages of incumbency.

He said he’s raised “thousands,” and expects to have no trouble raising enough money to defeat an incumbent.

Kilpatrick has raised $313,023 in this election cycle, according to her Federal Election Commission filings, and has $346,811 in available cash.

Clarke said he’ll work to help businesses get loans. He also said that Michigan employers seek foreign skilled workers because of a lack of skilled workers in the state. He proposes drawing more heavily on community colleges to better prepare Michigan residents to be able to fill such jobs.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s plan to cut the prison population through awarding “good time” credits, opening halfway houses and hiring parole officers is raising concerns among law-and-order activists of a possible crime wave.

Experts say her plan to release 7,500 prisoners and close five facilities follows a nationwide trend that supporters say shows community support services do more to reduce crime than long jail sentences.

The proposals, part of Granholm’s budget for fiscal year 2011, have had a first hearing before the Senate Judiciary and Corrections Committee. Still, fears over prisoner releases prompted Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, to offer an alternative that would result in fewer released convicts and smaller savings. Granholm is trying to wipe out a $1.7 billion budget deficit.

The debate over releasing prisoners comes as the first of 1,300 Pennsylvania criminals arrived at the shuttered Muskegon Correctional Facility late last month. Pennsylvania is about 7,000 prisoners over capacity in its own corrections system and plans to house them at Muskegon.

Michigan has about 40 correctional facilities and has been looking for alternative uses for its closed or soon-to-close sites. Pennsylvania will pay Michigan $62 per prisoner per day to use the Muskegon prison — a few dollars less per day than Michigan pays to house in-state prisoners there, Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. Michigan will make a small profit, about $500,000, by charging Pennsylvania a 1 percent administration fee, Marlan said.

Under Granholm’s plan to shave $139 million from the Corrections budget next year, “good time” credits for prisoners would be restored. They were eliminated for some violent crimes by ballot Proposal B of 1978, a ban later expanded to all felonies. Granholm also would undo the 1998 Truth in Sentencing law that requires felons to serve at least their minimum sentences.

She would resurrect community residential programs, also known as halfway houses for prisoners, which were banned under the Truth in Sentencing law, which requires all sentences to be served behind bars.

Some of the estimated savings of $139 million would be reinvested in more parole officers and increased support for parolees, such as substance abuse programs, job training and housing assistance.

Critics: Gov shifting burden

Opponents argue Granholm is shifting the corrections burden to local law enforcement agencies.

“You can’t balance the budget on the backs of public safety,” said former state Court of Appeals Judge Bill Schuette, a Republican candidate for state attorney general. “You’re shutting down prisons and putting dangerous criminals out on the street, and at the same time local communities have fewer cops enforcing the law.”

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, said crime will skyrocket if the prisoners are let out before they’ve been rehabilitated.

Michigan has the fewest local law enforcement personnel per capita among Great Lakes states despite having the region’s highest crime rate, according to a study by the Council of State Governments Justice Center.

Cropsey has offered an alternative plan that would, among other things, hold the line on Truth in Sentencing, ensuring that people in prison continue to serve no less than 100 percent of their minimum sentence. But prisoners, with the exception of lifers, would never serve more than 120 percent of their minimum sentence, effectively reducing the maximum sentence for many prisoners.

The Cropsey plan also limits jail time for first-time parole offenders to nine months. And offenders would have to be released at least nine months before reaching their maximum sentence to be sure they spend at least that long on supervised parole in the community.

Cropsey’s plan would reduce the prison population by 433 the first year, for a savings of $2.2 million. By 2014, 4,669 prisoners would be released, and savings would total $35.3 million.

Cropsey said Michigan prisons should be used to house the state’s own prisoners — not emptied and then refilled with criminals from other states.

“If our governor’s insisting we let more of our prisoners out on the streets, we might as well make some money on what’s left,” he said. “But I think it’s wrong to let out as many as we have.”

As evidence of how Granholm’s plan would work, Marlan points to the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative, which uses community-based programs and services, and resulted in a 32 percent reduction in recidivism among parolees, with 2,083 fewer returns to prison in fiscal year 2009. A study by the Pew Center on the States found that for every dollar Michigan spent on prisons in 2008, it spent 10 cents on probation and parole.

“We don’t send as many people to prison as the national average, but our issue is how long they stay,” said Marlan. “Our average of 51 months is almost twice the national average.

“(We need to) take some of that money for housing prisoners and invest it in communities to get at that population that commits crime.”

Other states have ‘good time’

States increasingly have reduced maximum sentences, rolled back truth-in-sentencing laws and adopted “good time” for prisoners to contain skyrocketing corrections budgets and embrace research-based strategies to keep criminals from reoffending.

“States are looking at the budget as well as a growing body of data on what works and what doesn’t work in (community) supervision,” said Alison Lawrence, a corrections policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. “The majority of people eventually get out of prison, so there’s a new focus on whether incarceration works as much as we’re doing it.”

Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington are among more than a dozen states that tweaked their sentencing structure in 2009 — from raising the bar on what constitutes a felony, to narrowing the definition of a habitual offender or removing mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes.

At the same time, states are investing more in programs — from mental health services, to substance abuse treatment and job training — that research has shown to reduce recidivism, according to Lawrence.

“Because prison is expensive, you can take some of that money and better allocate it to better supervise more inmates in their communities,” Lawrence said.

In Michigan, where the state’s $2 billion Department of Corrections budget consumes 22 percent of the general fund compared with a national average of 6.9 percent, Granholm has focused on shedding prisoners who have served at least their minimum sentences — reducing the prison population by 6,300 since 2006. Ten Michigan prisons or prison camps were shuttered in the past year.

From The Detroit News:

Federal prosecutors say former Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers should receive a “substantial” prison sentence when she appears Wednesday before a federal judge in Detroit.

In a sentencing memorandum unsealed today, federal prosecutors don’t specify how much prison time they think Conyers should get. But they say her sentencing guidelines would be in the range of 46-57 months if she was held accountable not just for the bribes she admitted taking in connection with a city sewage sludge contract, but for $69,500 in payments she and her former chief of staff, Sam Riddle, received from various business people with matters before the Detroit City Council or the city pension fund.

Sentencing guidelines are advisory only. U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn is to sentence Conyers.

The pattern of abuse of office and self-enrichment highlighted during that (Riddle) trial confirms that Synagro was not an isolated or anomalous incident,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Bullotta and Mark Chutkow said in a sentencing memorandum.

“Consequently, the court should consider this additional misconduct in fashioning an appropriate sentence for Conyers.”

Conyers pleaded guilty last June to taking at least $6,000 in bribes in connection with the $1.2 billion contract the Detroit City Council awarded to Synagro Technologies Inc. of Texas in 2007, with Conyers casting the deciding vote.

Conyers’ attorney, Steve Fishman, has said he will argue Conyers should not go to prison.

From The Detroit News:

A federal magistrate judge is to hear arguments today that the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara “Strawberry” Greene should be awarded judgment in their lawsuit because of repeated foot-dragging in producing records by the city of Detroit and former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

“There is clearly a pattern of disregard concerning the city’s duties to gather, preserve and produce relevant evidence to the court and to plaintiffs,” Greene family attorney Norman Yatooma said in a January court filing asking that the city and Kilpatrick be found in default.

The city filed a response to the motion in February, but the response was filed under seal, so its contents are not known.

Greene, who was linked to a rumored party at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002, was shot to death in Detroit on April 30, 2003.

Her family is suing the city, Kilpatrick and top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation into Greene’s still unsolved killing for political reasons. The defendants deny the allegations. The suit was filed in 2005.

In his motion, Yatooma said the city has missed deadlines for producing records sought in the case, and Kilpatrick has filed late responses that were “incomplete and untruthful.”

Among the records sought are e-mails and records related to Detroit police and fire responses to emergency calls.

U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen is to hear arguments today.

Whalen is also to hear arguments on a sealed motion from Yatooma seeking certain telephone records.

Attorney General Mike Cox, who was deposed in the lawsuit but is not a defendant, has filed a brief in opposition of the motion for telephone records. Cox’s brief is also sealed.

Cox’s office in 2003 investigated the rumored party at the Manoogian and Cox declared it an “urban legend.”

From The Detroit News: