Messages Link Mayor and Aide, Who Had Denied Having an Affair

Jan 25, 07:47 AM

By Corey Williams

The Associated Press

DETROIT

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick bristled in the witness chair last year when asked whether he had had an affair with a top aide. No, the mayor confidently told jurors, the two were never romantically involved.

But a trove of 14,000 text messages that emerged this week tell a different story: The mayor and his chief of staff carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit, dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their numerous trysts.

Now Kilpatrick's actions have landed him in a scandal that could cost him his job and his law license and even bring perjury charges.

"I think the mayor needs to take responsibility for the situation," City Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said Thursday. In politics, she said, "you operate in a fishbowl."

The Detroit Free Press did not detail how it obtained the messages, sent or received in 2002-03 from Chief of Staff Christine Beatty's city-issued pager. The newspaper said it cross-referenced the messages with the mayor's private calendar and credit card records to verify events in some of the notes.

Kilpatrick's denial came last summer during testimony in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims from two former bodyguards that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.

Mike Stefani, a lawyer for the officers, asked Beatty whether she and Kilpatrick were "either romantically or intimately involved" during the period covered by the case. "No," she replied, rolling her eyes.

While still on the witness stand, the mayor later went on the offensive about the allegations . "I think it was pretty demoralizing to her - you have to know her - but it's demoralizing to me as well," he testified.

Late Wednesday, Kilpatrick issued a statement about the messages that was more subdued. "These five- and six-year-old text messages reflect a very difficult period in my personal life," he said. "It is profoundly embarrassing to have these extremely private messages now displayed in such a public manner."

Kilpatrick is married with three children. Beatty was married at the time and has two children. Last summer's suit ended with the jury awarding $6.5 million to the two officers.

Judge Michael Callahan, who presided over the suit, said it would be up to local prosecutors to decide whether to seek perjury charges against the mayor.

(c) 2008 Virginian - Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Messages Link Mayor and Aide, Who Had Denied Having an Affair
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