Attorney in stripper case asks judge to find city in contempt

DETROIT — A lawyer representing the 15-year-old son of a slain exotic dancer began contempt of court proceedings against the city of Detroit Thursday, alleging city officials have not provided him with a homicide file and other records a federal judge ordered them to produce.

Norman Yatooma, who represents the son of Tamara “Strawberry” Greene, asked U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen to order the city to show why it should not be sanctioned or found in contempt of court.

Greene, who was shot to death in Detroit on April 30, 2003, was linked to a long rumored but never substantiated party at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002.

Ernest Flagg, the father of Greene’s son, Jonathan Bond, alleges in a federal lawsuit filed in 2005 that the Detroit police failed to properly investigate Greene’s unsolved killing for political reasons. Defendants include the city, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, former mayoral chief of staff Christine Beatty and Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings.

In the motion filed Thursday, Yatooma said Rosen ordered the city to provide him with Greene’s Detroit police homicide file by March 28. The judge also ordered the city to provide SkyTel pager identification numbers for various police and city officials so SkyTel could provide the court with pager text messages sent and received by those employees. Under Rosen’s order, federal magistrates would privately review the records to determine their relevancy before any text messages could be made public or used in the lawsuit.

Yatooma of Birmingham said both sets of records are “critical” to his case but the city has produced none of them in response to Rosen’s order.

He cited correspondence from the city saying the list of pager identification numbers may have been shredded “to protect the privacy of (city) appointees.” As for the homicide file, city officials pointed to a request city lawyers recently filed asking for a halt to proceedings in the Greene civil lawsuit. In that filing, city attorneys argued that having to turn over the Greene file could interfere with the homicide investigation.

“The city of Detroit has clearly defied this court’s orders,” and should be sanctioned with fines or other penalties or found in contempt of court, Yatooma argued.

City attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mayer Morganroth, attorney for Beatty, has said pager text messages can not be subpoenaed in a civil case.

A hearing is set for Monday on the city’s request for a halt to proceedings and a gag order in the case.