Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A Book?

Kwame Kilpatrick's Book Covers Affair, Legal Saga

Disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick claims in an upcoming book that an unspoken alliance of political adversaries, Detroit business leaders and an aggressive media capitalized on a sex and perjury scandal to send him from leading one of America's largest cities to a prison cell.

The former politician bills "Surrendered! The Rise, Fall and Revelation of Kwame Kilpatrick" as the true tale of his saga. While he takes responsibility for an affair with an aide and lies told during a civil trial, he also blames plenty of others for his downfall.

"When I perjured myself, I gave my enemies a lane. And they turned that lane into a highway," Kilpatrick writes, according to an advance copy obtained by The Associated Press. "My intent entering office was to empower Detroiters, and my actions heading into my second term suggested that we had the ability to do it. And that threatened too many people's bottom line. Their bottom lines for me, then, became simple. Get rid of me. And they're not finished."

Kilpatrick, dubbed the "Hip-Hop Mayor" when he was elected at age 31, was charged with perjury after text messages on city-issued pagers contradicted testimony he gave during a 2007 police whistle-blowers' trial. The sexually explicit text messages showed he lied when he denied under oath that he had a romantic relationship with the aide.


The rest of the article here.

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