Manoogian fight rumors: Cox must be up- front now
Next year’s gubernatorial campaign ought to be about Michigan’s priorities and how to fund them. But if he means to participate meaningfully in that campaign, Attorney General Mike Cox must answer questions about his investigation into a rumored 2002 assault at Detroit’s mayoral mansion more forthrightly than he has to date.
In a sworn deposition first revealed publicly in Sunday’s Free Press (“Did Manoogian Mansion Tapes Vanish?”), Michigan State Police Det. Mark Krebs testified last month that Cox and top executives in the Detroit Police Department repeatedly thwarted efforts to examine evidence and interview witnesses Krebs and his colleagues believed could shed light on allegations that then-first lady Carlita Kilpatrick had assaulted a stripper at the Manoogian Mansion in September 2002.
Lawyer Norman Yatooma, who alleges in a lawsuit filed on behalf of the late Tamara Greene’s children that DPD deliberately compromised the investigation of Greene’s 2003 homicide, says Krebs’ testimony bolsters his theory that then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his political allies choreographed cover-ups of both the alleged Manoogian assault and Greene’s slaying.
Cox has agreed to answer Yatooma’s questions about the AG’s Manoogian investigation — which ended in Kilpatrick’s exoneration when Cox famously dismissed the rumored party and assault as “urban legend” — in a yet-to-be-scheduled deposition in the Greene case. If the AG hopes to change the subject of his gubernatorial campaign back to jobs and economic development, that deposition can’t be taken or be made public soon enough.
Among the questions to which Cox owes the public detailed, candid answers:
• Did the AG’s office condone DPD’s refusal to provide evidence sought by state police investigators, as Krebs asserts — and if so, why?
• Was the state police attempt to subpoena hospital records investigators hoped would identify the alleged Manoogian assault victim a fishing expedition involving the records of “thousands of African-American women at Detroit Receiving,” as Cox has previously asserted, or a narrowly focused inquiry into one three-hour period, as Krebs testified? And if Krebs’ version is correct, why did the AG’s office refuse to authorize the subpoena?
• Why did Cox close down his investigation and pressure the state police to conclude its own before Krebs and his colleagues were satisfied with its thoroughness?
• What did Cox hope to achieve by interviewing Kilpatrick himself, without placing the mayor under oath or making a record of the interview?
In a recent visit to the Free Press, Cox described the Manoogian matter as “gum on my shoe” and expressed the hope that “it will wear off if I just keep on walking.”
But that metaphor fails to acknowledge either the lingering questions about Cox’s own judgment or the role his hastily concluded investigation has played in keeping rumors about Greene’s death alive.
Those who insist that Cox defend that judgment aren’t fanning rumors so much as exercising due diligence, and we trust the attorney general will respond with alacrity and candor.
