Kwame "The Man"

Texts reveal mayor living large

He traveled to lush resorts. He stretched the rules on the spending of public money. He cheated on his wife and cheated on his mistress.

And, when warned about untoward behavior becoming public, he laughed out loud.

In 650 pages of text messages released Thursday, disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is described as a high-flying chief executive, unbound by social norms or mores, as he jetted around the country, living life large. He engaged in relationships with other women as he traveled in and out of the country on pleasure trips.

It was good to be king, even as the kingdom of Detroit was withering financially.

The messages, which date from 2002 to 2004, also show Kilpatrick fretting about media coverage and a slight from presidential candidate John Kerry, and provide new information about past controversies, including a rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion.

Sometimes, the mayor's behavior was just plain tawdry, a Mayor Gone Wild segment, according to the text messages.

"Are you working, or is it personal?" he wrote Christine Beatty after she suggested meeting at City Hall.

"Strictly personal," she responded.

"TRUE! LOL."

In November 2002, he appears to instruct Beatty to use a check from his nonprofit group, the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, to pay for a getaway they planned for Vail, Colo.

"They are now saying $407 a piece," she wrote in an apparent reference to plane tickets.

"Get a Civic Ck out of my bag," the mayor responded. "I'll be there in 15 minutes."

The civic fund is tax exempt because its stated purpose is supporting voter education and social welfare.

Wife sends messages
While the relationship between Kilpatrick and Beatty has been discussed in text messages released earlier, the messages Thursday -- contained in a motion by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy to show that the exchanges are authentic -- give fresh insight into his wife's view of the Manoogian party, where she supposedly beat up a stripper.

Carlita Kilpatrick wrote to her assistant, Andrea Carroll, that a member of the mayor's Executive Protection Unit was talking to police internal affairs about the alleged party.

"(Harold) Nelthrope went to IA and told them that the party did happen and that I did beat up some girl," she wrote in May 2003. "What (in) the world is going on?"

"DID HE?" Carroll responded. "NO WAY! HE COULD NOT HAVE."

During the same week, the first lady wrote to Carroll that she was upset that another EPU officer also was talking to internal affairs.

"Renee is going to be fired off of EPU!" Carlita Kilpatrick wrote. "Found out she been talking to IA about things going on over here."

"YES! Dang, you're scaring me," Carroll responded.

"I don't know any particulars," Carlita Kilpatrick wrote. "But if she has said anything, she's GOTTA GO! It's the worst when you like someone and they don't do right. This is an issue I'm going to totally defer to God. I don't want to worry about it anymore."

In other parts of the messages, the mayor worried about his treatment by the media and other pols.

In May 2003, Kilpatrick sent a text to an unknown party complaining that Kerry had slighted him.

"John Kerry dissed me," he wrote. "I'm trippin!"

The details of the slight weren't known, and weren't mentioned further.

Many texts intimate
Most of the messages released as part of a criminal case against Kilpatrick's chief of staff, Christine Beatty, involved their sexual relationship. She is charged with perjury for allegedly lying about the relationship in a whistle-blower lawsuit that eventually led to an $8.4 million settlement.

Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice in the case and will be sentenced Tuesday to 120 days in jail, 5 years probation and $1 million in restitution. He also is barred from running for office for five years.

Their often intimate conversations included talk of getting married, the planning and recounting of trysts, and Kilpatrick's relationship with his wife.

At one point, he bragged that he and his wife put up a good front for his kids and the public.

"They absolutely don't see that," he wrote. "Nobody does! WE are real good at masking that (stuff). Plus I do a lot of stuff with my family."

Beatty wasn't the mayor's only paramour. The messages refer to others.

In July 2003, he tried to arrange a liaison with an unidentified woman less than five minutes after receiving a text from Beatty.

Another time, in May 2004, he exchanged messages with a woman as they separately attended the same sporting event.

"Do I get to bump into you tonight, or is it too tight?" the woman wrote.

"I'm back to my seat," the mayor wrote.

"Are you by yourself? What's up with a couple of drinks after somewhere quiet?"

"I'm with my wife."

"OK, I guess it's on for MIA! Cuz it doesn't look like we're connecting b4 then."

Erasing texts discussed
Beatty sometimes warned Kilpatrick to erase the messages, whose discovery in January eventually led to their ousters from public office.

While discussing an upcoming trip together to Colorado, Beatty wrote in November 2002:

"Thank you and goodnight. Erase (your) messages! Sent and received!"

"Worry about your getting caught," Kilpatrick responded. "Stop trying to micromanage my 2way! LOL."

Another time, in August 2002, the mayor told Beatty that he loved her spirit and soul.

"The outside aint so bad either!" he wrote. "Erase and throw away msgs, Ms. Get Caught!"

"LOL!" she responded. "Whatever. That's what I'm doing as we speak! LOL. However I like to sometimes reread my messages from you. They make me smile and I can feel you when I do. Just an FYI. LOL"

In September 2002, long before either lover could envision the legal storm that would swirl about them this year, they discussed supporting each other in a crisis.

"I'd rather be beside you in a storm, than safe and warm myself," Kilpatrick wrote. "Because it can't happen. If you are in a storm I'm in it, too."

"I truly believe that too!" Beatty responded. "There's no storm that I ever want to go through without you. That was my message last night and promise."

Marriage talked about
The messages describe a romantic relationship between the pair where, like most things in Kilpatrick's life, he enjoyed the upper hand.

Beatty is often the one pursuing a deeper relationship, even marriage. Kilpatrick usually is noncommittal. He sometimes says he wants the same thing, but his promises are empty.

"Will you marry me," Beatty asks in December 2003.

"Yes. When?" the mayor responds.

"I don't know when, all I know is that I want to be your wife!"

"Yes. Yes. Yes. I really knew I would be with you since 12th grade. Just a matter of time."

The two have been friends since childhood.

While most of the exchanges between the two are romantic, and sometimes graphically titillating, the mayor scolded his chief aide when she worried that he seemed to be distancing himself from her.

"Oh Boy! Its no way we can have this conversation through the 2way," he wrote in August 2003.

His next message, written in capital letters, shouted: "PLEASE STOP FORMING YOUR OWN OPINIONS ABOUT ME AND INTERPRETING WHAT I SAID I SAID UNTIL THEN. PLEASE!"

"Will do," Beatty responded.

In March 2004, Beatty probed Kilpatrick about his relationship with his wife.

"Can I ask you a question?" she wrote.

"Yes," he said.

"What do you get from CEK (Carlita Ebony Kilpatrick) that you don't get from me?"

If she was hoping to hear something soothing, to be placated by her lover, she was disappointed.

"The tremendous bond of Parenthood," Kilpatrick told her. "J, J & J's (the couple's three children) Mama. The Birth Experiences and the Dreams for our children."

"Is that it?"

"That's it. Its ALL the Family thing. Structure and Comfort."

The messages also describe the point when Beatty learns about the lawsuit that would eventually lead to the discovery of the text messages, which would lead to the demise of her career.

"Clerk just bought me a copy of lawsuit filed today against Mayor, Chief and Bob Berg by Gary Brown and Nelthrope," she messaged the mayor.

Nelthorpe and Brown, a deputy police chief, argued in the lawsuit that they were fired for refusing to end an investigation of police conduct. It was during the ensuing trial where Beatty's and Kilpatrick's testimony led to perjury charges against them.


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