City withholds evidence in Greene lawsuit, contempt motion claims

The attorney who claims Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the City of Detroit covered up the killing of stripper Tamara Greene is accusing the city of refusing to turn over key evidence in the federal lawsuit.

Norman Yatooma, who represents Greene’s son, Jonathan Bond, and Bond’s father, Ernest Flagg, said Thursday the city has refused to surrender any information about text messaging devices used by city officials.

The city also has admitted shredding records “to protect the privacy of appointees” of the mayor, Yatooma said, though the city did not indicate when this occurred.

Yatooma filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge to hold city officials in contempt. The motion says the city is also refusing to turn over most of the information in Greene’s homicide file, despite a March 28 deadline to do so.

Greene’s son is suing the city, Kilpatrick, Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings and other top officials, claiming they derailed the investigation into his mother’s death in a drive-by shooting on April 30, 2003. The lawsuit says that prevented the family from filing a wrongful death suit against her killers.

Yatooma hopes to use text messages to determine whether city officials were involved in covering up the circumstances of Greene’s death.

Greene, who went by the name Strawberry, has been linked in rumors to a never-proven party the mayor supposedly threw at the city-owned Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002.

Krystal Crittendon, who is representing Kilpatrick, Bully-Cummings and the city, could not be reached for comment.

Mayer Morganroth, who is representing Kilpatrick’s former chief of staff Christine Beatty, said he believes his client did not do anything wrong.

The Free Press sought to intervene Thursday in the case so it could oppose the city’s motion for a gag order on the release of information.

Morganroth said he had no objection.

“Everyone wants to join the circus,” he said.