Sometimes small is big.
And sometimes big is small.
The steam rising from the Detroit Free Press’ revelation two weeks ago of the text messages between Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff/paramour Christine Beatty has really roasted the mayor, what with allegations of perjury and the threat that his lies-under-oath, possible crimes, could endanger his law license in addition to, who knows, maybe prison time.
Okay, I doubt it, too, but a big story it is, no question.
But it may still prove small compared to a much bigger story that is now coming unwrapped.
The big story right now, it seems, is what will happen to Kwame. You could say only Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy knows, or will know when her assistants finish their criminal investigation into Kwamegate, aka the text-message scandal. Will he be charged with perjury? Will he go to trial or will he cut a plea deal? Will he resign or be forced from office?
For late tuners in, the city was sued by cops who claimed they were fired for looking into reports of a wild party at the mayor’s mansion a few years ago. The mayor lost in a court trial, then abruptly agreed to an $8-plus million settlement after the cops’ lawyer, apparently, let hizzoner’s lawyers know he’d got hold of those 14,000 potentially incriminating text messages through a subpoena to Kwame’s phone company. Oops. Forget the appeal. The attorneys on both sides agreed to suppress the messages. Some of Kwame’s attorneys lied, saying the messages didn’t exist.
Imagine the turmoil of conflicting emotions going on in the minds of Kwame’s lawyers. As I type, it’s quite possible that someone is pushing the “send” key to transmit a complaint against one or more of those attorneys, as well as Kwame, to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission. Any lawyer who lied about those text messages, and this includes the cops’ attorneys, could face questions from the AGC . Lawyers aren’t supposed to lie. They have someething called the Canon of Ethics. If the commission considers the complaint serious enough, it could refer the case to the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board. It’s no small thing for a lawyer to face that kind of questioning; the loss or suspension of a lawyer’s license to practice law is like a job layoff. It could prove financially costly, and it would be a terrible blow to one’s self-esteem. Some of Kwame’s lawyers may be weighing where to pledge their loyalty — to the boss, or to themselves.
Incidentally, there’s another issue involving Kwame’s lawyers that I frankly don’t understand. How is it that lawyers from the city’s Legal Department are representing the mayor in a criminal case? Why should city taxpayers foot the bill for problems Kwame allegedly created on his own hook and not on behalf of the city?
All of this is big, big, big. (And by the way, I’m just blown away by the magnificent way the Free Press has risen to cover this story. First, they invested the personnel and time to investigate and break it. They’ve aggressively pursued it. Look at the team: Jim Schaefer and Mike Elrick, two super-sleuths who’ve had Kwame’s sordid number for years, backed by Pulitzer-winner David Ashenfelter on the federal court beat and Bill McGraw, who ought to be designated a public institution.)
Anybody who thinks newspapers don’t have a future needs to read these articles. This is big.
Yes, big, and yet potentially small.
Small, when placed in perspective.
Think about what the city did on Kwame’s behalf. Never mind the lies. Never mind the cover-up. The blockbuster is this: They connived with a plaintiffs’ attorney to suppress the terms of a settlement. And I believe that is illegal. It’s up to courts, of course, but it seems to me that it’s, well, unconstitutional.
This is something even journalists tend to forget. There’s all this hoopla about filing Freedom of Information Act requests with governments. In fact, the state Constitution says all financial records must be open to public examination during normal business hours. Furthermore, the Michigan Penal Code makes it a crime for a public record-keeper to withhold documents from anyone — not just journallists — during normal business hours. By the way, if you decide to file a FOIA request, always find some way to tack on mention of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act. Under OMA, your attorney can get a court order forcing a public body to reimburse legal fees. Ask Royal Oak Township about that — they learned the hard way after ejecting me from a public meeting. An Oakland circuit judge ordered them to reimburse Herschel Fink’s law firm some $14,000 in court and lawyer’s fees, with Herschel billing at the rate of $365 an hour.The bankrupt township had to pay on the installment plan.
Come to think of it, I can’t imagine that Herschel has not used OMA in the case against Detroit, which means that in addition to the now $9 million cops settlement, there will be a city payout to Honigman, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn that will be a hell of a lot more than the piddling 14 grand Royal Oak Township paid out. I hear Herschel’s billing at $400 an hour now.
But lawyers’ bills will be small change compared to the story that now is seeping out. Remember, the state Constitution forbids secret financial records. All money matters are to be open to public scrutiny. That includes court settlements. And Detroit is not the only municipality that enters into secret court settlements. Ask the guv. Actually, Jennifer Granholm opened some settlements to me back in the early 1990s when I covered Wayne County for the Free Press. But I could never get traction for a larger story I pitched then and a few years later that would have looked at suppressed settlements across metropolitan Detroit.
I wrote a story a few years ago about a suppressed settlement in the case of a man who died in custody at or on his way to the Oakland County Jail. Should have heard the lawyers yell. “That settlement was suppressed! You’re not supposed to have that!”
In fact, I’d made copies of the settlement terms, which were lying with the rest of the case file in the clerk’s office of the U.S. District Court in Detroit. Nothing secret about it, except in the lawyers’ minds.
I’ve got a feeling that if some enterprising reporter with lots of spare time (hah-hah!) surveyed all the records of all the suppressed settlements in Detroit area courts, both federal and state, over the past decade or two the total dollar amount would would dwarf Kwame’s nine mil.
Of course, that is why these cases are suppressed. So we won’t know how much governments are paying plaintiffs and their lawyers to go away.
Paying them to go away rich.
Money is not everything, either. Remember what I said: It’s a violation of the criminal code to deny records to the public. Seems to me that applies not just to government clerks, but to attorneys who order government financial records suppressed.
See what I mean about big? Dollar signs are only part of it. If courts rule that people who took part in suppressing records have violated the Penal Code, Kwame and his legal team might share the dock with droves of people.
A big story, for sure, and Kwamegate is just part of it.
Email me at joelthurtell(a)gmail.com
