Greene’s family lawyer: City in contempt
He vows to push for release of text messages in slain stripper suit
DETROIT — A lawyer for the family of a slain exotic dancer said Monday he is planning contempt of court proceedings against the city of Detroit after the city missed a court-ordered Friday deadline to supply him with certain text messages and police records related to a federal lawsuit.
Tamara “Strawberry” Greene, an exotic dancer linked to a rumored party at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion, was killed in a drive-by Detroit shooting on April 30, 2003.
Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma represents the father of Greene’s 14-year-old son in a lawsuit against the city, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and police officials. The suit alleges that Detroit police, for political reasons, failed to properly investigate Greene’s killing.
U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen has ordered the city and its text messaging service provider, SkyTel, to preserve as possible evidence all messages sent and received on the city-issued pagers of Kilpatrick and 33 other current or former city and police officials for selected periods between Sept. 1, 2002 and Oct. 31, 2007.
Friday was the deadline for the city to provide Yatooma with user identification numbers to help SkyTel supply records so they can be privately reviewed by U.S. magistrate judges to determine their relevance. Friday also was the deadline for the city to provide Yatooma with a copy of the police homicide file on Greene.
Yatooma said Monday he has received neither the pager “pin numbers” nor the homicide file. He said he would file a motion in response to the missed deadline, most likely asking the city defendants to “show cause” why Rosen should not find them in contempt.
Lawyer Mayer Morganroth, who represents the mayor and several city and police defendants in the case, said Yatooma is litigating the case in the news media and that’s inappropriate. “If he’s going to file a motion, tell him to file it,” Morganroth said. “I can’t control either his mouth or his methods.”
The pager messages should not be admissible in the civil case under the federal Stored Communications Act, Morganroth said.
On March 24, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy charged Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury and official misconduct. SkyTel text messages from Beatty’s pager, first published in the Detroit Free Press in January, point to possible perjury by Kilpatrick and Beatty when they testified at a police whistle-blower trial last year.
Other records released as a result of a Michigan Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by The Detroit News and the Free Press show Kilpatrick and Beatty signed a secret agreement to keep the text messages under wraps as part of an $8.4 million settlement of police whistle-blower lawsuits.
Worthy will oppose the selection of 36th District Judge Ronald Giles to preside over the preliminary examination of Kilpatrick and Beatty, scheduled for June, spokeswoman Maria Miller said Monday.
Giles was selected by blind draw to handle the preliminary examination, a spokeswoman for 36th District Chief Judge Marylin Atkins said.
But Miller said Worthy wants to disqualify the entire 36th District bench from handling the preliminary examination. Worthy believes a visiting judge should handle the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, she said.
“One judge we are calling as a witness and potentially a second,” Miller said. “It is our understanding that there may be other judges who have ties to the mayor.”
Detroit District Judge Ruth Carter, Kilpatrick’s former corporation counsel, is on Worthy’s witness list.
“Our position hasn’t changed,” Miller said. “We will ask for the entire bench to be recused to prevent the appearance of impropriety.”
Also Monday, a northern Michigan man launched a statewide Internet petition drive to recall Kilpatrick.
Brian Thompson, who said he moved from Detroit to Alpena seven months ago, said he is collecting Internet signatures in an effort to force Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick from office.
“It’s not directed at the (Detroit) City Council,” said Thompson of his nonbinding petition drive. “City Council doesn’t have the ability or the power to remove him. The governor has the ability to remove him from office right now.”
Thompson said Kilpatrick has done “wonderful things for Detroit” but the recent scandal surrounding the text messages has given Michigan a “huge black eye.”
“The entire nation is seeing this. It’s been on CNN, MSNBC and it’s been fodder for Jay Leno,” said Thompson, 45. “Conventions are leaving. They’re saying ‘Look, we don’t want to deal with this.’ Not only is Detroit losing but the state is, too.”
Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said Monday the governor would not comment on Thompson’s recall efforts.
“The governor will not offer a comment that could compromise the legal process that is under way,” Boyd said. “That process must be allowed to work.”
James Canning, a spokesman for Kilpatrick, refused to comment, but said the mayor remains focused on his job. “He will not quit on Detroit and he will not resign,” Canning said.
Last Thursday, Detroiter Angelo Brown filed a Kilpatrick recall petition with the Wayne County Clerk’s office. A commission hearing on Brown’s petition will be at 2 p.m. April 16 in Room 700 of the Coleman A. Young Building. Brown, a 45-year-old minister, said he filed the petition because he thinks legal troubles will hurt Kilpatrick’s performance as mayor.
Another recall petition, filed last month, was revoked after questions were raised about the petitioner’s address.
