Tammy Greene Texts
Even though Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is stepping down… the lawsuit that accuses him of de-railing a homicide investigation is forging ahead.
And lawyers could have the chance to get a first hand look at text messages sent between the Mayor and some of his closest relatives.
Action News Investigator Heather Catallo has the details.
[Heather]The lawyer representing the family of Tammy Greene has been trying to gain access to city text messages for several months. And now that attorney finally has a list of the people who had city issued pagers… and surprisingly, the mayor’s wife and the mayor’s father both had Skytel devices – and now their text messages could be examined.
Carlita Kilpatrick and Bernard Kilpatrick once.. both had city of Detroit-issued paging devices.
And now the attorney who’s representing the family of slain exotic dancer Tammy Greene wants to take a look at some of the text messages that were sent on their pagers… as well messages that were sent on pagers belonging to other city of Detroit employees.
A federal judge has ordered the city to obtain all text messages from SkyTel pagers that were sent by city employees on the morning that Greene was shot to death.
The city must turn over any messages that were sent or received between 1:30am and 5:30am on April 30, 2003.
Those messages will be given to two federal magistrates, who will review the messages, and then decide whether they are related to the Greene wrongful death lawsuit.
Greene family lawyer Norman Yatooma tells the Action News Investigators that SkyTel also has given him a list of names and personal identification numbers for city and police employees who carried the pagers.
Among the names on that list… The mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick… and the mayor’s father, Bernard Kilpatrick.
It’s not clear if any of the text messages that they sent years ago will be relevant to the Greene case, but Yatooma is requesting their messages.
As for all of the other text messages sent back and forth on the various SkyTel devices, if the messages include any information about criminal matters, legal experts say the federal magistrates who receive the information could turn them over to law enforcement after they give them to the judge handling the Greene case.
[Larry Dubin/Legal Ethics Expert]“If the magistrates come across some potential criminal activity.. outside of the lawsuit.. or relevant to the lawsuit, that information most likely will be turned over to the FBI.”
The first round of text messages have to be turned over to the federal judges on September 20th. It’s not clear if they will be made public.
