Hit man, drug king among witnesses in Detroit stripper lawsuit
DETROIT — Confessed city “hit man” Vincent Smothers and notorious drug kingpin Milton “Butch” Jones are among the names on a beefed-up witness list filed by relatives of a slain exotic dancer in their federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit.
Norman Yatooma, the Birmingham lawyer representing the family of Tamara “Strawberry” Greene, filed the new witness list late Friday. It contains the names of 343 witnesses and classes of witnesses, up from 193 names on an earlier witness list filed in October.
Other names on the expanded witness list include John Bebow, a former reporter for The Detroit News; Matt Allen, a former spokesman for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; and exotic dancers described only as “Mia;” Charlotte, also known as “Netta;” and Kelly, also known as “Lucky.”
Greene, who was linked to a long-rumored party involving strippers at the mayor’s Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside her Detroit home on April 30, 2003. The killing remains unsolved.
Greene’s family is suing the city, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his former chief of staff Christine Beatty, former Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings, and other top city and police officials, alleging they obstructed the investigation of Greene’s killing for political reasons.
The defendants deny the charges. The case could go to trial this year.
Among the allegations is that Greene sought hospital treatment in the fall of 2002 because she was assaulted at the party by Carlita Kilpatrick, the wife of the former mayor. Witnesses have signed affidavits saying they had evidence a dancer was treated for injuries at a Detroit hospital at about the time of the rumored party.
Carlita Kilpatrick’s name has appeared on all witness lists filed in the case, including Yatooma’s, a witness list filed by the city of Detroit on Oct. 20, and a witness list filed by Beatty on Oct. 17. Her name also appeared on an updated witness list filed by Beatty on Friday.
Smothers, 27, who is housed at the Wayne County Jail, confessed in court in May to the December 2007 contract killing of Rose Cobb, the wife of Detroit police officer David Cobb. Police say he has confessed to a total of 10 killings but they have not linked him to the Greene killing.
Jones, 53, a leader of the notorious Detroit drug gang Young Boys Inc., was sentenced to 360 months in federal prison in May for federal drug charges involving two homicides. Jones has served as a jailhouse informant in past cases.
Bebow investigated Greene’s killing for The Detroit News before leaving the newspaper to join the Chicago Tribune. He is now executive director of the Center for Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Allen lost his job as spokesman for Kilpatrick after a 2007 domestic violence incident.
In another development in the Greene case, Yatooma has circulated to lawyers for defendants in the case a proposed motion in which he will seek to examine text messages a U.S. magistrate judge identified as potentially relevant to the lawsuit in a sealed filing on Oct. 14. That filing followed an in-camera review of all city text messages sent or received by any person who carried a city-issued SkyTel pager on the day of Greene’s killing.
None of the lawyers has seen the handful of text messages identified as potentially relevant to the case.
Under a protocol established by U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen, lawyers for defendants in the case were to seek to review the text messages filed under seal and to file any relevant objections before the sealed text messages were turned over to Yatooma.
Yatooma said Saturday that lawyer for Kilpatrick, Beatty and other defendants in the case have still not filed any such objections and there is no indication they have even sought to review the text messages. His proposed motion, which could be filed early this week, calls on Rosen to let Yatooma examine the text messages if the lawyers for the defendants are not filing any objections.
“I’m trying to move the process along,” Yatooma said Saturday. “What I’m saying is, if the defendants have objections to raise, they need to raise them now.”
Mayer Morganroth, a lawyer for Beatty, said Friday he has not reviewed any text messages filed under seal but he has reviewed hundreds of thousands of text messages turned over to defense lawyers in connection with the recent state perjury case against Kilpatrick and Beatty.
“In the text messages that we have seen, we didn’t find anything that has any significance to it,” Morganroth said.
He is opposed to Yatooma viewing sealed text messages before he and other defendants’ lawyers have had a chance to review them, because some could be subject to privileges such as those that apply to communications between client and lawyer or between spouses.
