Kwame Kilpatrick's ex-mistress Christine Beatty got a nice parting gift after resigning in 2008 amid the text-message scandal: $140,000 from the ex-mayor's civic fund, according to a defense lawyer in the public corruption case."A soft landing, if you will," was how attorney Martin Crandall explained it in federal court this morning as he argued his client, ex-water boss Victor Mercado, was not a member of Kilpatrick's inner circle, and that he "didn't get anything other than his salary."
"I want to show the jury what they got," Crandall said, referring to Kilpatrick's inner circle, "when Victor didn't get anything."
Crandall, however, did not provide any evidence that Beatty, Kilpatricks former chief of staff, received $140,000 from Kilpatrick's personal charity.
When asked how he learned about the alleged payment, he told the Free Press: "I knew that from reading other discovery documents. I want to show, essentially, what everybody who was an insider received while working for the Kwame Kilpatrick administration, because Victor was an outsider."
Beatty's lawyer said Crandall was trumpeting stale news.
"This is nothing new and no bombshell," said Beatty's attorney Jeffrey Morganroth. "This is two years old and has been thoroughly looked at."
Morganroth said Crandall was referring to $100,000 Beatty got to help produce a full-color booklet touting the city's progress under the Kilpatrick regime.
Is it too late to claw any of this back?