Greene lawsuit narrows its target to city, Kilpatrick
In hopes of moving his case to trial, lawyer Norman Yatooma said he has dismissed several defendants in his civil lawsuit regarding the 2003 death of exotic dancer Tamara Greene.
The remaining defendants are former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the City of Detroit.
Defendants such as former police chief Ella Bully-Cummings and Christine Beatty, the former mayoral chief of staff whose affair with now-imprisoned Kilpatrick could have figured into the alleged cover-up of Greene’s homicide, are still to be deposed but they aren’t named as defendants in the lawsuit, Yatooma said.
“We’re losing some defendants and gaining some traction,” said Yatooma, who was joined by Greene’s 17-year-old son, Jonathan Bond, at an afternoon news conference to announce the development.
The lawsuit in Greene’s death was first filed in November 2005. The trial date has been adjourned seven times in part because there have been so many lawyers that scheduling court dates has been a headache, Yatooma said.
The suit seeks $150 million and alleges that the city and Kilpatrick impeded the investigation into Greene’s shooting death. The woman danced under the name Strawberry and allegedly performed at a rumored party at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in 2002.
Greene’s death was at the center of the 2007 whistle-blower lawsuit filed by three Detroit officers who claimed they were fired while trying to investigate the shooting. That case ended in an $8 million settlement and led to Kilpatrick’s downfall because he testified that he and Beatty had not been having an affair, an assertion that proved to be a lie.
Jonathan said that despite the delays in the case, he’s confident he’ll someday learn what happened to his mother.
“A lot of people have answers,” he said, “and that’s basically what I want.”
