Cox deposition in stripper lawsuit gets heated

Detroit — Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox spent Friday answering questions under oath in connection with a federal lawsuit brought against Detroit officials by the family of a slain exotic dancer.

But he still isn’t finished testifying in the case.

Friday’s daylong questioning of Michigan’s top law enforcement official and gubernatorial hopeful — which has no recent precedent — apparently grew heated, and Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen had to be called on to resolve disputes.

Both Cox and Norman Yatooma, the lawyer for the dancer’s family, said as they left the federal courthouse shortly after 5 p.m. that they need to schedule a date to complete the deposition. That’s expected to happen next week.

Neither would say much about the deposition — citing orders from Rosen — but Yatooma described the session as “not cordial,” and said: “It’s not nearly finished.”

Cox said: “I tried to answer all the questions.”

The family of Tamara “Strawberry” Greene, a dancer linked to a rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion in fall 2002, is suing former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation of Greene’s April 30, 2003, shooting death for political reasons. Kilpatrick and the other defendants deny the allegations.

Cox, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, investigated the rumored party in 2003, personally interviewed Kilpatrick and dismissed the party story as an “urban legend.”

He’s been criticized by officials in the Michigan State Police and others, who said he shut down his investigation too soon and didn’t question Kilpatrick under oath.

But Cox said on his way into the deposition Friday that he does not expect the Manoogian issue to dog or hamper his campaign for governor.

“We did a righteous investigation,” he told reporters. “All the intervening history from that time shows that.”

Federal court rules limit depositions to seven hours without a special court order. But due to a number of breaks in Friday’s session, a good chunk of that time has not been used, Yatooma said. Rosen did not sit in on the deposition but had to get involved Friday, holding a meeting with the parties in his chambers to resolve objections, court records show.

Cox, who is not a defendant in the case, could have successfully fought the subpoena but wanted to tell all he knows that might relate to the case and wants Greene’s killing solved, spokesman John Sellek said.

Yatooma said as he arrived at court Friday that Cox was in a good position to expose a cover-up related to Greene’s killing but failed to do so.

He accused Cox of exhibiting “false bravado” about the deposition because he said Cox knows the transcript will be sealed by Rosen and the public won’t learn what was said.

“He’ll be beating his chest, much like a man at the zoo outside the gorilla cage where he’s protected by the shatter-proof glass,” Yatooma said of Cox.

But Cox has said he would have preferred to answer Yatooma’s questions in public.

Sellek said Friday that Cox’s office plans to make a motion to unseal the deposition once a transcript is made, though he did not know when that might happen.

Rosen ordered the sealing of the Cox deposition, like many others being taken in the case, because he said he is concerned that publicity surrounding the Greene case could hamper the Detroit Police investigation into her death.