Detroit mayor to be deposed in FOI suit after all

Responding to a proverbial elbow jab to the ribcage from lawyers for the Detroit Free Press, embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will testify after all in the newspaper’s Freedom of Information lawsuit against the city.

Lawyers for the Free Press and The Detroit News complained in a motion earlier this month that Kilpatrick was stonewalling their efforts to schedule him for a deposition. The two newspapers are suing for text messages between Kilpatrick and a former staffer, Christine Beatty; a first wave of messages exchanged on a city-owned pager seemed to reveal the pair had an affair, despite their denials under oath.

According to the Free Press, lawyers for the two newspapers want to ask Kilpatrick about other text messages that might provide more information about the whistle-blower settlement that underlies the texting scandal.

Thanks to a decision reached "in a hallway at Wayne County Circuit Court after weeks of conversations" between the two sides, the Free Press said its lawyers would depose Kilpatrick on Sept. 16.