Police officer who moonlighted as a stripper testifies in Greene case
Detroit — The mystery woman said to have danced at Kilpatrick’s fabled Manoogian stripper party quietly gave her story today.
Paytra Williams, a Detroit police officer who moonlighted as an exotic dancer under the name Almond Joy, is expected to testify at a deposition held at her lawyer’s downtown office that she did not dance at the never-proven party, despite long running innuendo.
“She has been told that her name was used at an emergency room for someone who was allegedly beaten at a so-called party back in 2002,” said her lawyer, Marvin Barnett. “But she maintains she never danced anywhere near the place and never received any bill from any hospital.”
But former homicide Sgt. Odell Godbold Sr. said that during his investigation of the murder in 2004, he learned that Williams had performed at the party.
“She informed me that she was scared and didn’t know what to,” Godbold said in a court affidavit, filed earlier this month.
William’s deposition is the latest development in a lawsuit against Kilpatrick and the city by the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara “Strawberry” Greene, who also was said to have danced at the party with a number of other women and may have been beaten by Kilpatrick’s wife after she burst into the mansion and caught her husband in a compromising position.
Norman Yatooma, the lawyer representing Greene’s family in a $150 million lawsuit, contends her murder investigation was quashed because it got too close to city hall.
Williams’ name has been linked the party since 2003. Back then, Williams promised state police investigators she would submit to a polygraph test, but eventually backed out and hired a lawyer, according to investigators’ notes obtained by The Detroit News.
While moonlighting as a stripper, Williams also was assigned to the office of Jerry Oliver, then the chief of police.
Sometime after Kilpatrick fired Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, head of police internal affairs, who was investigating the Manoogian party and wrongdoing by the mayor’s inner circle, Williams was transferred to the Kilpatrick’s executive protection unit.
By the time Kilpatrick was released from jail in February 2008, Williams was working in the vice squad, where she and a half-dozen others were placed on desk duty in March 2009 pending an investigation that they falsified prostitution arrest reports and shook down club owners. Williams has returned to full duty although disciplinary action is pending in the vice squad investigation.
Barnett said he believes that Williams knew Greene, but he doesn’t know to what extent.
According to retired homicide detective Mike Carlisle, who investigated the re-opened Greene case in 2008, the women’s paths never were far apart.
Both danced at the All-Star gentleman’s club on Eight Mile Road, a hang out for all-stars of the Detroit underworld.
What is more, Carlisle said, the night Greene was killed she had stopped by the house of Joe Billingsley to pick up her boyfriend, Eric Mitchell.
Mitchell was in the car with Greene that evening when she was slain in a drive-by shooting. Mitchell survived.
Billingsley is the father of one of Williams’ children.
Carlisle is scheduled to give his deposition Wednesday.
