High-Profile Blacks Rally to Support Defense Fund for Irresponsible Detroit Mayor

By: BlackAmericaWeb.com and Associated Press [HERE]

Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is picking up financial support from some high profile national business and political leaders to help mount a defense against charges of perjury and other felonies.

On Tuesday, Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty were arraigned on multiple perjury, conspiracy, misconduct and obstruction of justice charges. They face a June 9 preliminary examination in Detroit's 36th District Court.

The charges stem from statements Kilpatrick and Beatty gave under oath last summer during a whistle-blowers' trial. Both denied having a romantic relationship in 2002 and 2003.

Supporters of Kilpatrick’s Detroit Justice Fund include former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, author and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson and past National Bar Association President Reginald Turner, according to a listing on DetroitJusticeFund.com.

Judge Greg Mathis originally was listed on the site along with 11 others; however Mathis issued a statement on Thursday saying that he should not have been included. He also said that Kilpatrick should resign.

Mathis said in a faxed statement he told Kilpatrick Wednesday he supports due process, "but I could not support him."

"This is the same type of deceit that has plunged our city into a deep crisis," Mathis said in the statement. "Not only do I not support him, but I recommend he resign so the city can heal and move forward."

Ironically, Detroit's 36th District Court is the same court where Mathis once presided.

Reginald Turner, a Detroit-area attorney and member of the Detroit Justice Fund committee, says in his own statement that it is in the best interest of Kilpatrick and Mathis that the judge no longer be part of the effort.

"Apparently, there are different recollections regarding the conversation about the Detroit Justice Fund," Turner said in a statement issued by a spokesman for the legal defense fund.

"We are happy to hear that he has remained consistent on one thing -- that the mayor should be allowed a fair process," Turner said.
 
“Every citizen is entitled to the presumption of innocence and the right to counsel under our Constitution. A critical factor in assuring that Mayor Kilpatrick receives a full and fair hearing is making sure that he has the financial resources to fund his defense,” said Turner, a Detroit-based lawyer. “The Detroit Justice Fund has been formed to assure that those resources are made available to him.”

According to the website, other Justice Fund members are Reverend Horace Sheffield III, Pastor of New Galilee Baptist in Detroit; Gregory Eaton, a partner at Karoub Associates and former executive assistant with the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association; David Baker Lewis, chairman and founder of the law firm Lewis & Munday; Donald Davis, chairman of the board of First Independence National Bank; S. Martin Taylor, retired executive vice president of DTE Energy Company and former president of Detroit Renaissance; Donald Watkins, a Birmingham, Alabama-based banker and entrepreneur; Marianne Spraggins, president of Buy Hold America, a consulting company in New York devoted to introducing AIC, Ltd., a minority-owned money management firm, into the U.S. institutional money management market, and Danny Bakewell, real estate developer and CEO of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper.

Kilpatrick also is being supported by several Detroit area ministers. According to an article published in the Detroit Free Press, about 60 pastors representing a variety of denominations gathered at Corinthian Baptist Church in Hamtramck to say that Kilpatrick deserves forgiveness and compassion.

“The mayor is not standing alone,” the Rev. E.L. Branch, pastor of Third New Hope Baptist Church in Detroit, said in the Free Press. “We’re holding him up in prayer all the way through.”