Judge orders Detroit to turn over records in stripper case
Detroit — A federal judge today ordered the city of Detroit to turn over additional records to an attorney representing the family of slain exotic dancer Tamara “Strawberry” Greene.
Greene, who was linked to a rumored stripper 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, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation of her still unsolved murder for political reasons.
The defendants deny the allegations.
Today, U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen gave the city until Feb. 4 to turn over records including:
• “Run sheets,” activity logs or other records related to Greene’s shooting.
• Certain other activity logs of the Detroit police and the emergency medical services division of the fire department, with the caveat that any medical information and patient names are for attorneys’ eyes only.
• Certain inter-office communications between Christine Beatty, who was chief of staff to Kilpatrick, and three current or former top police officials, including former Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings.
• The personnel file of James Tolbert, who was then a Detroit police commander and is now a deputy chief.
• Detroit EMS records for every Friday, Saturday and Sunday between Sept. 1, 2002 and Nov. 30, 2002.
• City contracts with wireless cellular or text messaging service providers.
• Written material related to Gary Brown, Harold Nelthrope and Walt Harris, three former officers who sued the city and Kilpatrick for whistle-blower violations.
• Police overtime requests from Sept. 1, 2002 to Oct. 31, 2002.
Whalen also told the city to turn over to Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene’s family, certain computer data tapes “as soon as technically possible.”
He denied a request for police and fire dispatch logs from Sept. 1, 2002 to Nov. 30, 2002, based on the city’s assertions that such records do not exist. But he told the city to certify that “it has made a diligent and good faith search for the records.”
Whalen denied Yatooma’s request for e-mails for all city employees for specified time periods as “overly broad and excessively burdensome.”
Last year, judges pored through hundreds of thousands of city text messages that were filed with the court under seal before determining that 36 of them might be relevant to the lawsuit. The contents of those 36 messages have not been revealed.
The city and Kilpatrick were earlier ordered to turn over records in the case. Yatooma recently filed a motion for default judgment, saying the records Kilpatrick provided were incomplete and the city provided no response by the court-ordered deadline.
