Attorney: Cop sent text day of slaying
Message from mayor’s bodyguard to Beatty after dancer shot may involve case, lawyer in suit says.
DETROIT — It could be significant that a police bodyguard sent a text message to Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s top aide just hours after exotic dancer Tamara “Strawberry” Greene was shot to death, a lawyer for Greene’s family said Monday.
New court papers that Birmingham attorney Norman Yatooma filed in a lawsuit against the city over Greene’s death highlight a text message reportedly sent to former mayoral Chief of Staff Christine Beatty on April 30, 2003, the day Greene was shot to death in the early morning hours.
“When you get a chance, could you give me a call?” officer Loronzo Greg Jones text-messaged Beatty that day, according to documents recently released in a separate court case.
“Yes,” Beatty replied.
Yatooma detailed the reported exchange between Jones and Beatty and information about the background of Jones, the former head of Kilpatrick’s executive protection unit, in a motion filed Monday seeking to amend his lawsuit against the mayor, the city, and top police and city officials.
“It’s at least curious — it piqued my curiosity,” Yatooma said of the Jones-Beatty exchange. It was quoted in a court brief prepared last year by police whistle-blower lawyer Michael Stefani, who subpoenaed the text messages from SkyTel Corp. Stefani later gave the messages up to representatives of Kilpatrick and Beatty as part of a secret settlement agreement.
“That text message may be innocuous, but the fact that a member of the EPU and a member of the mayor’s office are in communication the day that Tamara Greene is killed — that’s what we are looking into,” Yatooma said.
“I want to see who else in the EPU was texting the day Tammy Greene was killed.”
Jones, who was transferred from his EPU post in 2003, could not be reached for comment. Mayer Morganroth, Beatty’s attorney, called Yatooma’s latest claims ridiculous and absurd.
“She was getting text messages from the police all the time — that was her job,” Morganroth said of Beatty.
Greene’s name was linked to a long-rumored but never substantiated party involving strippers at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in fall 2002. Yatooma’s suit, filed on behalf of Greene’s 15-year-old son Jonathan Bond, alleges the police failed to properly investigate the killing and concealed evidence for political reasons — charges the police, mayor and city deny.
Former homicide lieutenant Alvin Bowman said in a sworn affidavit he believes a Detroit police officer killed Greene with a .40 caliber police-issue handgun, but has provided few details to back his view. Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings has described the Bowman affidavit as irresponsible and wrong.
Wayne Circuit Judge Robert Colombo Jr., who ordered the Stefani brief made public last Tuesday, said it was the document that broke a negotiating impasse and caused attorneys for the mayor and the city to settle police whistle-blower suits for $8.4 million. A secret side agreement not disclosed to Detroit City Council was intended to keep the text messages — which pointed to a Kilpatrick-Beatty affair and possible perjury by both of them when they testified at the whistle-blower trial — under wraps.
Yatooma’s motion Monday details Jones’ “tarnished record,” including a misdemeanor gun charge in 1992, later expunged, a 1995 incident in which Jones was accused of shooting into a man’s car while off duty, and a 1996 incident in which Jones, again off duty, fought with another police officer who pulled over his car.
The motion also seeks to add Greene’s two daughters as plaintiffs in the lawsuit — Ashly Jackson, 12, and India Bond, 6.
Wayne County Prosecutor charged Kilpatrick and Beatty with perjury and other felonies in March.
You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2300 or pegan@detnews.com.
