Feds have evidence ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took bribes

[leland_palmer]

Contractor said Kilpatrick got up to $100K, his father up to $290K; Kilpatrick's lawyer says he knows nothing of bribery accusation

BY JENNIFER DIXON and JIM SCHAEFER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

A contractor who pleaded guilty in an ongoing corruption probe in Detroit has told investigators that he handed as much as $100,000 in bribes to then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in 2002, according to interviews and sworn documents reviewed by the Free Press.

The contractor, Karl Kado of West Bloomfield, also told the FBI he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the mayor's father, and thousands more to a close mayoral aide, according to the records and interviews.

Kado told authorities he paid Kwame Kilpatrick in four or five installments of about $20,000 each. Kado, who is awaiting sentencing for paying bribes to protect multimillion-dollar Cobo Center contracts, said he sometimes delivered the money in envelopes to Kilpatrick's office on the 11th floor at City Hall, and sometimes Kilpatrick dropped by Cobo to get the cash.

The allegations are significant because they show, for the first time, that the government has secured the cooperation of someone who says he gave payoffs directly to Kilpatrick.

In pursuing Kilpatrick, investigators tracked cash moving in and out of bank accounts and wiretapped the phone of his father, among others, while slowly trying to build a case.

FBI agents also contend in sworn statements that they have grounds to believe Kilpatrick and his associates used the mayor's office to run a criminal enterprise, a term the FBI reserves for organized crime and racketeering cases.

It remains to be seen whether Kilpatrick or his father ever face federal charges.

Authorities describe a variety of alleged bribes and extortion demands during Kilpatrick's years in office that, when taken together, could amount to racketeering violations under federal law. Allegations cited in government documents and culled from interviews include:

• That Kwame Kilpatrick accepted bribes of up to $100,000 from Kado, a businessman who had exclusive, no-bid janitorial and electrical-services contracts at Cobo Center and a sundry shop at the convention hall.

• That Kilpatrick deposited unspecified sums of cash into bank accounts without declaring the funds as income.

• That Bernard Kilpatrick received large amounts of money from contractors and business owners in return for official acts by the mayor; and that he pressured others to donate to his son's political or civic fund.

• That Kado paid at least $30,000 in bribes to mayoral aide Derrick Miller, including $10,000 for a trip to Europe.

• That Miller told a local businessman he would be punished for backing a political opponent when Kilpatrick sought re-election. Shortly afterward, the businessman's commercial vehicles started getting ticketed in Detroit -- with the directive to do so allegedly coming from the mayor's office.

A RICO case -- if it ever materializes -- would expose Kwame Kilpatrick to far greater potential punishment than others who have been charged in an ongoing metro Detroit public corruption probe. Defendants in RICO cases can face up to 20 years on each count.

Is the other shoe finally about to drop?