Detective Testifies In Greene Suit
DETROIT — Testimony of one of three Michigan State Police detectives heard Tuesday during a lawsuit hearing brought by the family of slain Detroit exotic dancer Tamara Greene revealed that they believed the Detroit Police Department was destroying evidence in the case. But his testimony also said because of actions by Attorney General Mike Cox, they were powerless to stop them.
Michigan State Police detective Mark Krebs gave six hours of testimony Tuesday.
Greene’s family is suing the city, ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and other officials. Greene’s family attorney Norman Yatooma claims they stifled a police investigation into her 2003 shooting death.
The 27-year-old Greene is rumored to have danced at a never-proven wild party at the mayor’s official Manoogian Mansion residence a few months before she was killed.
Detectives Curt Schram, John Figurski and Krebs were looking into the original case until it was closed.
The three detectives had filed motions in U.S. District Court asking that they not be required to testify in the lawsuit hearing because an elite violent crimes task force has reopened the case. However, a judge decided Tuesday that the detectives’ testimony was imperative.
The task force is made up of officials from the FBI, Michigan State Police and the Detroit Police Department.
Since Krebs was the only one to testify Tuesday, Schram and Figurski will be deposed at another hearing.
Krebs had wanted to come clean for years, but said he was ordered by his bosses not to come forward under any circumstances.
“These are state troopers who did their best to investigate what was going on. Look at Tamara Greene, the party and everything else that was contained in that Gary Brown memorandum. I have no reason to believe that they will be objectionable,” said attorney Norman Yatooma.
The three detectives said they had solid leads that Kwame Kilpatric had a party with strippers at the mansion; sources including people who worked at the alleged party and 911 dispatchers who took calls of a possible assault by the former mayor’s wife.
The officers said Cox killed the investigation by refusing to allow investigators to subpoena witnesses, insisting that Carlita Kilpatrick not be interviewed at all and that Kwame Kilpatrick have only a one-on-one interview with Cox.
“It’s the idea that the state troopers were trying to investigate and they were denied subpoena power by the attorney general’s office. So shut down, well if you have no subpoena power you have no opportunity to move forward,” said Yatooma.
The decision to reopen the case follows a Local 4 Defender investigation that uncovered a team of new police officers who, in sworn statements, said they were shut down when they tried to follow up on leads. The officers testified that one lead involved how self-proclaimed hit man Vincent Smothers could have been involved in Greene’s death, but that the investigation was shut down by police brass in Kilpatrick’s final months as mayor.
