City of Detroit must turn over mayor's secret settlement docs

Following a judge’s ruling Tuesday morning, Detroit citizens will now get to view more of the sordid details of their mayor’s recent affair and the secret settlement deal reached with two of his former bodyguards that gave the men $8.4 million of city funds to walk away and keep quiet about it.

Attorneys for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick immediately said they will appeal the decision by Wayne County Judge Robert Colombo Jr., who rebuffed the city by ruling that the state’s Freedom of Information Act mandates the disclosure of the settlement details that relate to an estimated 14,000 text messages sent between the mayor and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

The city had argued that some of the settlement documents — the bulk of which the city once claimed didn’t even exist — are private and therefore exempt from disclosure under state law.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” the judge said, according to a Detroit Free Press report.

The Free Press has already reported on some of the text messages, which suggest that Kilpatrick lied in court when he testified he was not having an affair with Beatty and that he may have had motive to fire the two bodyguards. After the bodyguards claimed they were forced out to protect the mayor’s reputation, they sued but then eventually settled for the $8.4 million.