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Convicted Ex-Detroit Mayor Wants A Pardon From Trump

Convicted Ex-Detroit Mayor Wants A Pardon From Trump

 

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted in a federal corruption case and sentenced to 28 years in prison, has appealed to President Trump for a pardon Seems Kilpatrick wants to be one of the possible 3,000 people Trump recently said he will pardon because “many of those names really have been treated unfairly.”

And according to Kilpatrick, he was treated unfairly. He went to jail in 2013 after he was convicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, extortion, and filing false tax returns.

Earlier this week, Kilpatrick apologized to his family and to the city of Detroit in a Facebook post in which he said he is “ready mentally, emotionally and spiritually to go home.”

“Our chances has always been the land of 2nd Chances! I am hoping, confidently expecting, that I will have the opportunity to boldly move into the next season of my life; outside of these prison walls,” Kilpatrick wrote.

But while Kilpatrick may be saying sorry, he is not taking all the blame for the city’s historic 2013 bankruptcy, putting it off on his predecessor, Dennis Archer. Kilpatrick’s official Facebook page recently posted: “The Bankruptcy of Detroit has NOTHING to do with Kwame Kilpatrick. When the economy was strong in the late 1990s, the Detroit Pension System had a Surplus of Funds. Mayor Archer (Kwame’s predecessor) decided to give the surplus funds to all the member of the pension system in an extra check. It was called ‘The 13th Check.’ ”

“The so-called 13th check, Kilpatrick claims, left the pension system with a $107-million deficit. And he had no choice, he claims, but to use city funds to pay off a deficit he inherited from Archer,” the Detroit Free Press reported.

Kilpatrick may be trying to take advantage of the wave Trump pardons. So far, Trump has pardoned conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza as well as the late boxing legend Jack Johnson. He also recently–after a meeting with celebrity Kim Kardashian about prison reform–commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a Black woman who was serving a life sentence for drug charges. There are also rumors Trump is considering pardons for Muhammad Ali and even the late Black nationalists Marcus Garvey. Some see Trump’s current pardons and his potential pardons of noted Blacks as an effort to lure in Black voters to the GOP.

This isn’t Kilpatrick’s first bid for freedom. “A petition was created in 2013 asking former President Barack Obama to give Kilpatrick clemency and had over 28,000 supporters. It was never granted,” Newsweek reported.

No word from President Trump if he’s read Kilpatrick’s social media plea for a pardon.

Trump
In this Tuesday July 13, 2010 artist sketch, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, second right, appears in court in Detroit for arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Scheer, right, after being indicted last month on tax and fraud charges. Kilpatrick pleaded poverty Tuesday and was granted a lawyer at public expense to defend him against charges that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars collected for a charity on himself and his family. Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Michael Bullotta, left, and defense attorney James Thomas, second from left, look on in Detroit (AP Photo/Carole Kabrin)