Court asks for texts in Detroit stripper lawsuit

DETROIT (AP) — A federal magistrate on Monday approved a request to submit text messages from the pagers of 39 city employees as part of a civil lawsuit filed by the family of a slain stripper.

U.S. Magistrate Steven Whalen gave pager company Skytel until Nov. 19 to submit the text messages to the U.S. District Court in Detroit — an extension from an earlier deadline.

The messages were sought by attorney Norman Yatooma, who alleges former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his former top aide Christine Beatty and police officials hindered a probe into the 2003 death of Tamara Greene.

Greene was shot multiple times while sitting with a male acquaintance in a car outside her Detroit home. The man was wounded but survived.

Yatooma has said the messages may reveal communications about Greene on the night of her death. He says she performed at a rumored 2002 party at Kilpatrick’s official residence.

All of the defendants have denied the charges.

Whalen questioned the relevance of some text messages in the trove, saying, “A lot of text messages dealing with the city business … have nothing to do with this case.”

Yatooma agreed, but said it’s necessary for his investigation.

“It could lead to relevant information and that is the standard here,” he said.

Kilpatrick’s attorneys were not at Monday’s hearing, though Beatty attorney Jason Hirsch objected to the volume of messages sought and the fact that so many have no connection to the case.

“At some point we crossed the line and we say they are just fishing,” he said.

Kilpatrick is to be sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty Sept. 4 to obstruction of justice. A four-month jail sentence is part of an agreement worked out with prosecutors.

He admitted lying while testifying last year in a civil lawsuit filed by former police officers who had accused him of demoting or firing them.

Kilpatrick and Beatty denied having an affair, but text messages obtained by a lawyer in the case — and later the Detroit Free Press — clearly contradicted them. They used their city pagers to arrange trysts and engage in sexually explicit talk.

A fresh batch of messages was released last week in Beatty’s criminal case.

Yatooma said after the hearing that Kilpatrick’s status has had no bearing on Greene’s case.

“To date, we’ve received no more cooperation … than we had when Kilpatrick was in office,” he said.