Lawyer alleges Carlita Kilpatrick may have assaulted exotic dancer
DETROIT — A lawyer representing the family of a slain exotic dancer says he wants more than a year’s worth of pager text messages sent and received by former First Lady Carlita Kilpatrick because he claims there is evidence suggesting she may have assaulted the dancer, Tamara Greene, at a Manoogian Mansion party months before the stripper was killed.
Yatooma sought to justify his request for Carlita Kilpatrick’s text messages in a court filing late Thursday as he produced a new affidavit in which city paramedic Cenobio Chapa says he saw an injured woman at Detroit Receiving Hospital in the fall 2002 who claimed to have been assaulted by the former first lady.
Carlita Kilpatrick could not be reached for comment Friday, but the former mayor, the city and other defendants in the case have denied the party even occurred, let alone an alleged assault on a dancer by Carlita Kilpatrick.
Greene’s family is suing the city, the former mayor, and top city and police officials in federal court, alleging the investigation into Greene’s unsolved drive-by shooting on April 30, 2003, was obstructed for political reasons.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Whalen, whose job it is to sift through pager text messages turned over to the court in the case and determine if any of them are relevant to Yatooma’s lawsuit, has set a Monday hearing to help determine whether the volume of text messages Yatooma has requested can be reduced.
Whalen instructed Yatooma to describe what relevant evidence he expects to get for each set of text messages from 39 different city of Detroit pagers he has requested.
In his response to Whalen’s order, Yatooma said he wanted text messages from the pager marked “First Lady” because he believes those will be messages sent and received by Carlita Kilpatrick.
“There is information to believe she assaulted Tamara Greene at the Manoogian Mansion party,” and the desire to obstruct investigation into what happened at the party “was at least one of the motives in retaliating against Gary Brown and Harold Nelthrope,” Yatooma said in the court filing.
Brown and Nelthrope were former Detroit Police officers who filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city and the former mayor. A secret deal to conceal text messages as part of the settlement of their lawsuit led to Kwame Kilpatrick pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges in September. He is to be sentenced Tuesday and is expected to be ordered to spend 120 days in jail.
Yatooma said he also wanted text messages from a pager marked “Bernard K” because he believes those were sent and received by Bernard Kilpatrick, the father of the former mayor who is under federal investigation in connection with a city corruption investigation.
“There is information to believe he was at the party where Ms. Greene was assaulted, and that he communicated regularly about all matters with his son,” Yatooma said about Bernard Kilpatrick in the court filing.
Abraham Singer, Bernard Kilpatrick’s attorney, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Yatooma said in the court filing he also wanted text messages sent and received by Ajene Evans, whom he described as a city official and Kilpatrick relative.
The Birmingham lawyer said he believes Evans “had all of the parties at the Manoogian Mansion, and even had keys to it.”
Text messages sought are for the period between Aug. 1, 2002, and April 17, 2004.
SkyTel has said it can provide the text messages but needs more time to compile them, because of the large volume.
Whalen has already sifted through all city text messages sent and received on the day Greene was shot to death. There is no word yet on whether he found any text messages deemed relevant to Yatooma’s case.
You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or pegan@detnews.com.
