Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has just announced that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty will be charged with 15 counts of perjury and must turn themselves in by 7am on Tuesday. Worthy has said if the Mayor and Ms. Beatty do not turn themselves in by this time, arrest warrants will be issued for them.

In a startling decision, totally unexpected by some, Kym Worthy has proven that her office is serious about the text message scandal that the City Council feels has tarnished the city’s image.

 This Christine Beatty relationship map is interactive. Click around to explore relations in the map.

“This case was about as far from being a private matter as one can get. Honesty and integrity in the justice system is everything. That is what this case is about,” Worthy said at a news conference.

“Just when did honesty and integrity, truth and honor become traits to be mocked, downplayed, ignored, laughed at or excuses made for them? When did telling the truth become a supporting player to everything else?”

A perjury conviction could bring up to 15 years’ imprisonment and force Kilpatrick to relinquish the mayor’s office.

Former Police Chief Jerry Oliver said he was surprised by Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown’s ouster.

Days before she recommended that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick get rid of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown in 2003, chief of staff Christine Beatty got some advice from the police department.

But it didn’t come from Chief Jerry Oliver.

Instead, Cmdr. Shereece Fleming-Freeman, Oliver’s chief of staff, offered this unvarnished recommendation in a text message: “It is obvious that he needs to be gone, he just needs to be gone.”

Christine Beatty

Kilpatrick dismissed Brown two days later, on May 9, 2003. Oliver said he never saw it coming. The ouster set off a chain of controversies that dog the mayor to this day.

Text messages show that while Fleming-Freeman secretly lobbied for Brown’s removal, then-Assistant Chief Ella Bully-Cummings helped the mayor’s office obtain the first of two city-funded Navigators for first lady Carlita Kilpatrick.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

Oliver said recently that Bully-Cummings did so without his knowledge, which Bully-Cummings denies.

Fleming-Freeman, now a deputy chief, declined comment. Mayer Morganroth, Beatty’s lawyer, also declined to answer questions.

In Fleming-Freeman’s case, the text exchanges also raise questions about whether she told the truth when she later testified at a deposition in Brown’s whistle-blower suit against the city.

Text message records show several exchanges two days before Brown’s ouster.

“Can he just be fired?” Beatty wrote. “Doesn’t he revert back to the lowest unappointed rank?

“No,” Fleming-Freeman responded, “at the D.C. Level and higher they serve at the pleasure of the chief and mayor.”

But in January 2004, eight months after urging Beatty to fire Brown, Fleming-Freeman said in her deposition that she was surprised by Brown’s firing.

She was asked whether she ever conversed with Beatty about Brown’s fate before his ouster.

“No, sir,” she answered under oath.

The apparent contradictions in Fleming-Freeman’s testimony are the latest in a series of inconsistencies in the sworn statements of city officials in connection with Brown’s departure.

The Free Press, which obtained about 14,000 messages from Beatty’s city-issued pager in portions of 2002 and 2003, first revealed the text messages in January. They show the mayor and Beatty lied at the trial on Brown’s lawsuit last summer when they denied a sexual affair and gave misleading testimony about whether they fired Brown.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is to announce today whether the mayor, Beatty and perhaps others face perjury or other criminal charges.

Oliver speaks on ouster

Oliver, interviewed earlier this month in Phoenix where he now works, said Brown’s firing surprised him and that he had no idea that anyone on his staff had been consulted by the mayor’s office for advice.

As it turned out, Beatty got bad advice from Fleming-Freeman about whether Brown could be fired.

After Brown’s removal, Beatty learned the deputy chief could only be demoted to lieutenant, not fired.

Text messages previously disclosed by the Free Press show the mayor and Beatty discussed the botched effort to remove Brown.

“I’m sorry that we are going through this mess because of a decision that we made to fire Gary Brown,” Beatty wrote six days after Brown’s ouster. “I will make sure the next decision is much more thought out. Not regretting what was done at all, but thinking about how we can do things smarter.”

Kilpatrick responded: “True! It had to happen though. I’m all the way with that!”

Brown declined comment.

Accommodation is a theme

The willingness of high-ranking cops to accommodate the mayor’s office shows up repeatedly in the text messages.

Oliver told the Free Press he was unaware his subordinates at times communicated directly with Beatty, the mayor’s point person for the police department, on subjects such as Brown’s ouster and Oliver’s choices for key positions in the department.

When Oliver resigned in October 2003, after his gun was found in checked airport luggage, Kilpatrick appointed Bully-Cummings to replace him.

Oliver said the secret texts show that politics interfered with police business.

“You can’t trust anyone within the Detroit Police Department because everyone is a sieve for the mayor and his people,” he said. “I think it just creates a lot of paranoia. That’s what happens in an environment where everyone feels like: ‘I have to snitch out the chief to look good in the mayor’s eyes or Christine’s eyes.’ “

Shown the messages, Oliver shook his head and said, “Wow … Shereece.”

The whistle-blower case

Brown and former Officer Harold Nelthrope won a $6.5-million verdict against Kilpatrick and the city last summer.

After pledging to appeal, Kilpatrick abruptly settled the case, and a case involving a third cop, for $8.4 million in October.

The Free Press later revealed that the mayor settled within hours of learning the cops’ lawyer had copies of text messages showing Kilpatrick and Beatty had lied under oath.

One of Oliver’s priorities as chief was reforming the department, which found itself under federal monitoring after years of questionable practices.

Detroit officers were cited for killing residents at a rate higher than any other big-city police force, clearing officers in questionable civilian shootings, making illegal dragnet arrests and having an inordinate number of prisoner deaths. Many of the problems were detailed in Free Press reports.

Oliver chose then-Deputy Chief Cara Best to oversee the department’s compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice.

On May 7, 2003, Fleming-Freeman sent Beatty a text message on Oliver’s decision. Beatty apparently was not pleased, though it is unclear why they objected to Best working with the U.S. Department of Justice.

“The chief did not wait on a response from you, he just announced to the execu’s that cara will be moved to become the liaison with DOJ,” Fleming-Freeman wrote.

Beatty responded: “It will be changing though. I just talked to the Mayor about it.”

Fleming-Freeman: “Thanks.”

Beatty: “Did you try and warn him?” she asked of Oliver.

Fleming-Freeman: “No, he thinks this is his call.”

Later that day, Bully-Cummings sent her own text message to Beatty to convey Oliver’s displeasure at being second-guessed by the mayor’s office.

Bully-Cummings: “He is livid! Will call you later this evening. He asked Shoulders and I if we had any discussion with you and whether we were involved.” Bully-Cummings was referring to Assistant Chief Walter Shoulders.

Beatty: “What did you all say?”

Bully-Cummings: “We said no.”

Bully-Cummings declined to talk to the Free Press about her text exchanges with Beatty, including those on Best. But in a statement, Bully-Cummings said she was puzzled by Oliver’s contention that appointments were made without his consent.

Oliver put Best in the liaison position in August 2003. Bully-Cummings moved her out that December, shortly after Oliver left the department.

Best could not be reached for comment.

“Now, having read some of the text messages, it’s clear that some of the most trusted people within the police department turned out to be people who were undermining my efforts,” Oliver said. “Clearly, this is evidence that Christine Beatty was more in charge of the police department than I was.”

Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy hit Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff Christine Beatty with a combined 12 count indictment on perjury, obstruction of justice, and misconduct charges regarding the firing of Internal Affairs Deputy Chief Gary Brown and officer Harold Nelthrop for investigating the fabled Mannoogian Mansion stripper party where the mayor’s wife is rumored to have attacked stripper, Tamara Green. Green later turned up dead. After this morning’s press conference reporters asked Worthy if she found any information that proving the stripper party occured or anything connecting the mayor to the murder of Tamara Green and Worthy replied that the investigation was ongoing, implying other charges may be filed.

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