Detroit Ex-Mayor: $2,700 Rent, $900 Car Note + $6K Restitution Too Costly
After covering his $2,700 monthly rent on a Texas mansion and another $900 bill for his Cadillac lease, says Detroit’s ex-mayor, he can’t afford to pay another big bill. To be specific, that is the court-ordered $6,000-per-month payment on the $1 million he agreed to give the city in restitution last year when he settled criminal charges over his handling of Detroit police whistle-blower litigation.
But the Michigan Court of Appeals wasn’t persuaded. It rejected last week for “lack of merit” Kwame Kilpatrick’s request that it either eliminate entirely or reduce to $1,000, for now, his monthly restitution obligation in the obstruction-of-justice case, reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.). Kilpatrick says he has just $6 per month left over after paying his bills; the article doesn’t explain how he intended to cover the $1,000 restitution payments.
Kilpatrick, who served 99 days in jail and lost his license to practice law, now lives in Dallas and earns $120,000 annually selling health care software in Texas, according to court documents.
His lawyer, Alan Schwartz of Schwartz, Kelly & Oltarz-Schwartz in Farmington Hills, Mich., contends that the court-ordered five-year repayment schedule imposed on Kilpatrick violates his due process rights because he wasn’t told up front that paying the $1 million restitution would be a condition of his probation.
