Mayor's settlement records are public, court holds

The Michigan Court of Appeals decided on Wednesday to uphold a judge’s Feb. 5 ruling requiring the City of Detroit to release all remaining secret documents that were part of the Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick case.

Detroit citizens will now get to view more of the 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.

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.