Government Rebuttal

7/29/2019 Government Rebuttal

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTEASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff, Case No. 10-CR-20403Hon. Nancy G. Edmunds

v.

D-1 KWAME M. KILPATRICK,D-2 BOBBY W. FERGUSON, andD-3 BERNARD N. KILPATRICK,

Defendants.______________________________/

EXCERPT OF JURY TRIALVOLUME 81

Detroit, Michigan - Friday, February 15, 2013

APPEARANCES:

For the Government:

Mark ChutkowR. Michael BullottaJennifer Leigh BlackwellEric DoehUnited States Attorney's Office211 W. Fort Street, Suite 2001Detroit, Michigan 48226

Counsel for Defendant Kwame M. Kilpatrick:

James C. ThomasMichael C. Naughton535 Griswold, Ste. 2500Detroit, MI 48226313-963-2420


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Appearances(continued):

Counsel for Defendant Bobby W. Ferguson:

Gerald K. Evelyn Susan W. Van Dusen535 Griswold Law Offices of Susan W. VanDusenSuite 1030 2701 S. Bayshore Dr., Ste 315Detroit, MI 48226 Miami, FL 33133313-962-9190 305-854-6449

Michael A. Rataj535 Griswold, Suite 1030Detroit, MI 48226313-962-3500

Counsel for Defendant Bernard N. Kilpatrick:

John A. SheaAlexandrea D. Brennan120 N. Fourth AvenueAnn Arbor, MI 48104734-995-4646

- - -

S u z a n n e J a c q u e s , O f f i c i a l C o u r t R e p o r t e r email: [email protected]

Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography.Transcript produced by computer-aided transcription.

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Excerpt of Jury Trial Volume 81

Friday, February 15, 2013

I N D E X- - -

Proceeding Page

Government's Rebuttal Closing Argument 4

10-CR-20403 USA v. Kwame Kilpatrick, et al


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4Excerpt of Jury Trial Volume 81Friday, February 15, 2013

Detroit, Michigan

Friday, February 15, 2013

9:01 a.m.

- - -

(Jury in 9:05 a.m.)

THE COURT: Be seated. Good morning again,

everyone.

We're ready for the government to give its rebuttal

argument. Mr. Chutkow, you may proceed.

(9:05 a.m.)

MR. CHUTKOW: Thank you, Your Honor.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. In my opening

statement in this case, in the evidence that you saw at trial,

in my colleague's closing argument and in the indictment that

will be handed to you for your deliberations in this case, this

case has always been about bribery, extortion, and fraud.

Rather than meeting those allegations head on

through this case, the defense has often tried to justify their

actions as somehow driven by desire for the advancement of

minority business enterprises and Detroit-based businesses.

Now, these goals are obviously very important, but they are not

what drove the defendants to take the actions that they took in

this case.

Through the Kilpatrick years and again in this

trial, that agenda was a smokescreen for their real agenda


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5Government's Rebuttal Closing ArgumentFriday, February 15, 2013

which was helping themselves to the city's resources. In

reality, they were equal opportunity extortionists. They drove

out black and white contractors who got in their way. If

minority business enterprises got in their way, in Ferguson's

or Mr. Bernard Kilpatrick's way, they crushed them, and then

they laughed at these people when they came to the Kilpatrick

administration for help.

First, Odell Jones. As you recall, when he

confronted Mr. Ferguson about the fact that Mr. Ferguson had

not provided proper safety equipment to his own workers in the

Book Cadillac Hotel, Ferguson was offended that Jones had the

nerve to question him. You heard from Mr. Jones that after

that, invitations for bids for city business dried up. He went

to everybody in the administration, from Christine Beatty to

Derrick Miller to the mayor himself, to try to get relief.

Here is what Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Kilpatrick had to say about

Jones' plea to Mr. Kilpatrick's family members:

Ferguson, "Odell Jones called your mama, laugh out

loud."

Kilpatrick, "I know, and my sister."

Ferguson, "Okay, I thought it was funny, should have

followed my first mind. I know he wasn't" expletive.

Kilpatrick, "Yep."

And then Tom Hardiman of Lakeshore Enterprise, he

was completely shut out when he tried to find out what happened


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to those two contracts that were canceled. He went to

everyone, as well. When Hardiman reached out to

Mr. Kilpatrick's mother, the former congresswoman, this is what

the mayor and Mr. Ferguson had to say about it. They mocked

him just like they had done Odell Jones.

Ferguson, "Tom Hardiman, Lakeshore, they called your

mother's office on us. Zeke just called me."

Kilpatrick, "Laugh out loud."

Ferguson, "You got to talk to DeDan and Zeke. This"

expletive "is funny about the" expletive "the union and

Lakeshore is saying. Hey, I not know I would become the MF-ing

man of the real man, KMK."

Bernard Kilpatrick also did not hesitate to punish

minority business enterprises that got in his way. You will

recall the testimony where Jim Jenkins, who was a

minority-based enterprise and a Detroit-headquartered business

here in Detroit, he had the temerity of not hiring

Bernard Kilpatrick's client to haul waste from the Book

Cadillac Hotel. Bernard Kilpatrick asked Bobby Ferguson,

Bobby Ferguson, to see if he could find some city regulators to

run Jim Jenkins out of town.

And then there was Eric Simmons. Mr. Evelyn in his

closing argument made much of mentoring minority business

enterprises. The defense claims -- and the only example they

gave of that was Eric Simmons of E&T Trucking. Well, you heard


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the testimony of Tom Hardiman, that Bobby Ferguson asked them

to put E&T Trucking onto his bid for the 2014 contract, and

after that Lakeshore, in fact, won that contract, but once they

won that contract, they started giving work to E&T Trucking

directly. They cut Mr. Ferguson out and started working

directly with the person whose name was on the bid.

What did Bernard Parker tell you about that? He

said that Bobby Ferguson became furious. Why? Because E&T

Trucking, Eric Simmons, wasn't paying him a fee for the work

that he was receiving. And so what did Bobby Ferguson tell

Bernard Parker to do, who used to work at the human resources

department for the City of Detroit? He told him to "Go to your

snitches and see if you can yank Eric Simmons'

Detroit-headquartered business certification." This is not

mentoring. This is kneecapping somebody that was about to

stand on their own.

These sewer jobs that you've heard about in this

case, they may not have been glamorous, but it was valuable

work for those that did excavation in the city and those that

did engineering projects in the city. Now, Mr. Thomas in his

closing said that Mr. Ferguson was out there in the cold

digging sewers that no one else wanted to do.

Well, tell that to Avinash Rachmale. He told you

that he was home for days sick after they lost that first

contract because he didn't know what to do. Tell that to Eric


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Simmons or to Billy Hayes, or to Willie McCormick, all of whom

did that kind of work and all of whom would have been happy to

be out there in the cold doing it.

Now I'd like to talk about Charlie Williams and

Inland Waters. When Mr. Kilpatrick came into office, the first

thing that he did was hold up that 1368 sewer lining contract.

Why? He held it up until Mr. Soave and Inland Waters dumped

their qualified minority business enterprise, their partner,

Charlie Williams, in favor of Bobby Ferguson.

Now, the defense claims that this was somehow

justified because Charlie Williams was a minority front. Well,

you've heard that Charlie Williams was the long-time director

of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. The defendants

indicated that mentoring of small companies is laudable if it's

real, and we agree with that completely. No one disputes that,

but look at what Tony Soave did with Charlie Williams. After

this incident with the 1368 sewer lining contract, he continued

to invest in Charlie Williams, and he's now the chairman of a

company that makes $35 million a year and employs numerous

Detroit employees. That wasn't a front, and that wasn't a

smokescreen by Mr. Soave.

Let's talk about the real minority fronts in this

case that were used by the defendants to line their own

pockets.

First, Akunna Olumba, you've heard tape,


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Bernard Kilpatrick on tape trying to insert his ex-girlfriend,

Akunna Olumba, as a figurehead in a trucking business to haul

waste for the Synagro project. Where is the boots on the

ground, as the defense likes to say, in that case?

And then they considered putting another gentleman

who happened to be Bernard Kilpatrick's son-in-law, Daniel

Ferguson, as the trucker, and they were going to hide his last

name. They were going to use the name Leighton(sp) as

stenciled onto the doors of the truck. Where is the

transparency that the defendants like to claim is so important?

Let's talk about Archie Clark for a moment.

Bernard Kilpatrick was again caught on tape again telling

Karl Kado that he wanted to insert Archie Clark, his buddy,

into the food service contract at Cobo. Archie Clark had no

food service experience, so why give it to him? Because he was

paying Bernard Kilpatrick. Look at the records and see how

many payments National Media, Archie Clark's company, were

making to Bernard Kilpatrick.

I now want to talk about Amendment Number 4 to the

1368 lining contract. Mr. Kilpatrick's team claims that he was

too busy to sign that Amendment Number 4, which he did not sign

until December 23rd, 2005, yet you've heard testimony from two

witnesses, Bernard Parker and Derrick Miller, plus you've seen

emails that showed that contract was held up that whole summer,

not just in December but that whole summer, and they told


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you -- this was not speculation or inference -- they both said

they had face-to-face conversations with the former mayor where

he was saying that he was holding it up until Bobby Ferguson

got satisfied, until he got his payment on that sinkhole

contract.

Bernard Parker even told you about a meeting that he

had outside of Ferguson Enterprises' headquarters, in his

parking lot because he didn't want anyone to hear it, where he

confronted Mr. Parker, he said, "Why are you siding with Inland

Waters against me and the mayor on this issue?"

Think about that. That shows unquestionably the

partnership between the mayor and Bobby Ferguson here. "Why

are you siding with Inland against me and the mayor?"

You've also heard from Derrick Miller who told you

that, in a show of force, he went to a meeting on December 16

at a Detroit restaurant between a gentleman named Dennis Oszust

at Inland and Bobby Ferguson, said that Dennis Oszust knew who

had the backing of the administration. Mr. Miller said that he

went to the restaurant and pulled Mr. Ferguson out for half an

hour while they let Mr. Oszust just sit there. That was the

meeting where that $350,000 deal took place. That was the

meeting where Mr. Ferguson got his payment on that sinkhole

contract. And guess about timing? One week later is when

Kwame Kilpatrick signed that special administrator's order

giving the $12 million to Inland Waters.


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Now, the defense claims that Bernard Parker is

somehow tethered to the government. I'm not sure exactly what

that means. Mr. Parker was subpoenaed to testify in this case,

just like everybody else. There is no benefit he is receiving

aside from the witness fee that every single witness who comes

into court receives.

I now want to talk briefly about the outfalls

contract, that's contract 849 and the $1.7 million no-show

payment that Ferguson received in that case. The defense

claims that somehow this no-show payment was a legitimate

claim, it was a legitimate settlement, a contract dispute

between parties. If that was true, why is there no paperwork?

Where is the settlement agreement? That's a lot of money if

you're going to settle a claim with somebody. And why did

Ferguson give a fake invoice for the first payment of $450,000

there? Why did he have an invoice with his wife's name on it

and with bogus descriptions of environmental work and

consulting work that he did not do? Because he knew this was

an extortion payment and he had to hide it.

Now I'd like to talk about Walbridge and the Patton

Park/Baby Creek project. The defense argues that that bid was

not held up, there was no delay, that it was, in fact, a patent

infringement suit that delayed it. We don't dispute that.

There's never been a suggestion that that bid was delayed for

any improper purpose. Where it became improper was after the


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bid was opened on February 6, 2003. That's where these guys

took their actions. That's when the extortion started. That's

when Mr. Miller told you that he had a meeting with

Bernard Parker where he said, look -- and Bernard Parker was

working for Walbridge at the time, he said, "You have to put

Mr. Ferguson in on this project." And what did Mr. Parker say?

"We already have somebody. We have an excavator on this

project," and Mr. Miller said, "No," told him that "You have to

go with Mr. Ferguson."

And that's why, and you've seen this contract, this

one page, hastily written, handwritten contract by Walbridge

and Ferguson Enterprises where they say that if, if they are

going to be awarded this contract, they will give Mr. Ferguson

$12.73 million worth of work. Think about that. Just look at

the terms of that contract and ask yourself, they've already

won this bid and the bids have been opened, and all of a

sudden, they have to cobble this together and make sure that

the administration sees it? The administration wanted to see

that they'd taken care of their buddy before they took action

on this project.

Now I wanted to jump back to Lakeshore and the

$10 million contract, the 1361 contract that you've heard that

was canceled. The defense argues that that was somehow -- that

was canceled somehow because it wasn't needed. Well, you've

heard from Darryl Latimer, the head of the Contracts and Grants


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group, that said that it was needed. They went through this

enormous process ending February 6, 2003, where Victor Mercado

himself got the Board of Water Commissioners to approve that

contract. Think of all the steps that had to take place to get

to that point, and then five months later he changes his mind

and he cancels it.

Why did that happen? Well, Mr. Latimer told you

that he always thought it was a good project and he never

understood that. Well, let's take a look at Exhibit LS1-11.

This is when Bobby Ferguson became interested in that 1361

project.

Ferguson, "Hello, Black, you haven't released that

contract, right?"

Kilpatrick, "Right. They know I'm holding it."

Ferguson, "Using your terms, it's still cool with

you. I need to hold it for a long time."

And then Mr. Ferguson texted Kwame Kilpatrick again.

He was weighing his options to see whether he should go with

Lakeshore, who had the 1361 contract, or Inland, who had the

1368 contract.

Ferguson, "1361 is the same contract. 1361 prices

may be less than the other one, but, hey, you know the rest."

Kilpatrick, "Cool."

Think to yourself, why is the mayor of a major

metropolitan -- major city in this country talking about the


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prices of a contract? Because he was going to share in the

prices of that contract.

You've heard from Mr. Miller. He said that

Bobby Ferguson wanted this contract canceled, and so

Kwame Kilpatrick told Victor Mercado to cancel it. You've

heard from Mr. Latimer who said that he wanted this contract

kept. He didn't understand why they couldn't keep it. And he

had actually told that to Victor Mercado, but on July 13, 2003,

Mr. Mercado comes into his office and tells him, "I want you to

write me an email saying that there is no need for this

contract."

Think about that. Why does the director of DWSD

have to tell a subordinate who doesn't agree with him to write

him an email? Because Mr. Mercado needed a cover story,

because he was uncomfortable with the decision, because just

five months before, he had gone through a big process to get

this thing approved in the first place. And so Mr. Latimer

said he did it, he felt uncomfortable. The next day, he gets a

memo back from Victor Mercado following Mr. Latimer's supposed

advice and canceling the contract.

Now I want to talk about Heilmann Recreation Center.

The defendants in their closings didn't say much about it and

I'm not going to say much about it either because you can look

at the text message between Christine Beatty and Bobby Ferguson

on the day that the contract was awarded. That's all you need


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to know. That bid was rigged.

All the defense did was attack LaJuan Wilks from the

recreation department, saying that she had an ax to grind. I'm

not sure really how to respond to that. You saw her. She was

a diligent career employee of the recreation department, and

the only reason that she got in trouble, because she was doing

her job. She was administering two different recreation

department projects, the Heilmann Recreation Center which had

been rigged unbeknownst to her, and the Patton Park, and guess

who was on both of those recreation center projects, Xcel

Construction, Ferguson's companies, and she knew that they were

double dipping, they couldn't possibly be at both places.

And so she made that known at a Board of Water

Commissioners meeting, and for that, what happens? She gets

berated and demeaned by Bobby Ferguson, with her own boss

sitting there doing nothing.

I'd now like to talk about Mr. Ferguson's influence

within the Kilpatrick administration. The defense said in

their closing that Mr. Ferguson had no pull on contracts.

Well, take a look at the internal communications between

Bobby Ferguson and the mayor, shows the complete opposite.

First, the Baby Creek Walbridge project, during bid

openings for award of subcontracts on that project for the Baby

Creek, this is what Ferguson instructed the mayor of the City

of Detroit:


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Ferguson, "Baby Creek, I told you when I would call

on you when I need help, help F-ing Victor. I don't need DWSD

to sit in on the bid opening."

Think about that. Who is the client here? The

water department. And he's telling the mayor that he doesn't

want the water department to sit in on a bid opening? Why do

you suppose that is? And why would the mayor listen to him?

Next, the sinkhole up in Sterling Heights, when

Ferguson wanted a piece of that project, this is what he told

the mayor:

Ferguson, "We need to meet how I move in. I got a

great idea, sir. Holla in the morning."

Now, the defense says that Mr. Soave is such a

bigshot that there is no way that a mayor could bully him.

Well, you've heard from Mr. Soave. He had business -- first of

all, he's centered in this city, he has businesses that can be

messed with by regulators all over the place, from his scrap

business to his sewer lining business, and if it was true that

he couldn't get bullied, then why did he dump his good friend

Charlie Williams and insert Bobby Ferguson in his place when

the mayor told him to do that? Why didn't he just say, "No,

Charlie Williams is my longtime friend and I don't know who

this guy Bobby Ferguson is"? He did it because the mayor told

him to.

And then, when Ferguson was causing problems on the


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job site, why did Mr. Soave go back to the mayor and say, "Is

Bobby still your guy?" Why didn't he just dump Mr. Ferguson

right there? He didn't need the mayor's permission. Or maybe

he did.

And let's talk a minute about Kathleen McCann who

used to work for Inland. She told you shortly after

Kwame Kilpatrick was reelected mayor of the City of Detroit and

Mr. Ferguson was back in the driver's seat again with contracts

that he paid a visit to Inland Waters, and at that time he told

Ms. McCann, "You act like Victor has ever made one decision

ever." She told you that "Working with Mr. Ferguson was like

having a sword dangling over our head."

Next, DLZ. Mr. Evelyn has told you that the 2012

downtown water main project, that Mr. Ferguson did a great job

on that, he came in under budget and on time, as well as the

previous pilot project that preceded that.

If you look at your notes of the testimony of the

head of DLZ, Pratap Rajadhyaksha, call him Mr. Pratap, he said

something quite different. Mr. Pratap refused to give

Mr. Ferguson more work because he wasn't completing his

previous projects. He said that he had set this up as a

competitive process so that each of the contractors could get a

new link to the sewer project if they completed their own ones,

but Mr. Ferguson wasn't finishing his.

And what did Mr. Ferguson tell him? "You don't need


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to worry about the director. You need to worry about me." The

director being Victor Mercado, the head of the water

department.

Unfortunately for DLZ, Pratap, Mr. Pratap didn't

listen to Mr. Ferguson. And so what happens to DLZ? They get

their Detroit-headquartered business certification yanked with

absolutely no notice to them so that they could respond. And

then somehow, mysteriously, it gets reinserted, also without

any notice to them. If they truly weren't a

Detroit-headquartered business, then who was it that advocated

on their behalf to get their certification back?

If you look at the timing of that yanking of the

certification and then the reinserting, the one thing that

comes in mind is that the contract that was awarded for 2012 is

what goes between those two.

Now, you've heard from the deputy director of the

Human Rights Department, Kim Harris, and he testified that he

was told by his boss to yank that certification and that he was

told it was on orders from the mayor.

Now, Mr. Evelyn has shown you an exhibit, it was one

of ours, in fact, LS3-9. It was a letter from Mr. Latimer of

the water department saying that he wanted an investigation to

be done of the Detroit-headquartered business certification of

DLZ. Well, what Mr. Evelyn didn't tell you about was the back

story of that letter. Shortly before that letter was written,


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Mr. Latimer was summoned to the mayor's office for the first

and only time along with Mr. Mercado, and that's where they had

a discussion, and the mayor asked him about DLZ and asked him

about their Detroit-headquartered business.

When Mr. Latimer got back to the office after that

meeting, Mr. Mercado came into his office and told him to write

the letter that Mr. Evelyn showed you.

Next, the defense claims that Mr. Kilpatrick did not

use his power to help Mr. Ferguson in any way. Well, if that

was true, then ask yourself, why was it so important for

Mr. Ferguson to purposely lose a major city bid, in this case

the construction of the Detroit Police Department?

Christine Beatty, "Why not Bobby in this?"

Kilpatrick, "Bobby wanted to strategically lose a

major bid. He will be in this one at bid time."

Now, ask yourself, what contractor would spend the

time and the money to put in the bid only to lose it and lose

it on purpose? Somebody who didn't really have to bid because

they were partners with the mayor, the guy that made the

decisions, and someone that wanted to conceal that partnership.

In fact, the preference for Mr. Ferguson on city

contracts got so extreme that it even trumped family ties.

Mr. Kilpatrick's own sister, Ayanna Kilpatrick, couldn't get

into the action after awhile. You heard Mr. Miller testify

that Ayanna Kilpatrick complained to him when she wanted to get


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in on that Synagro sludge hauling trucking deal.

This is what she had to say:

Ayanna Kilpatrick, "Here we go with this Bobby bull

again. Tardif canceled meeting with my guys today. Just

stated Bobby wants to do the same thing, waste hauling. Great

if it's room for him, terrible if he's holding us up. Can we

make money too?"

Now, think about this, if Ayanna Kilpatrick couldn't

get business from the city, do you think Odell Jones had a

chance? But here's the rub, by putting Mr. Ferguson over his

own sister, Kwame Kilpatrick was really picking himself and his

own financial benefit over his own sister.

Now, Mr. Thomas in his closing argument said that

Kwame Kilpatrick and Bobby Ferguson never denied their

friendship. Well, that's not true. Here's what Mr. Kilpatrick

told Ferguson to tell reporters. Ferguson -- and this is Darci

McConnell who used to work for the Detroit News:

Ferguson, "Hey, Darci is asking me, are we friends

and do we travel together and do we talk on the phone."

Kilpatrick, "Don't confirm none of that. I am

someone you support. You think I'm doing a great job for the

city."

Why did they have to hide their relationship, their

partnership? Well, these last five months should tell you

that.


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Now, I wanted to talk about money. Mr. Kilpatrick

lived way beyond the means of a public official. You've heard

evidence in this case that he stuffed a half a million dollars

into his bank accounts and his credit card accounts while he

was the mayor. None of this came from his salary as mayor,

none of this came from an identifiable, legitimate source.

Mr. Kilpatrick spent more than $840,000 more than he

had in his accounts. How did the defense explain all this cash

going into his accounts and Bernard Kilpatrick's accounts, all

the cash leaving Bobby Ferguson's business accounts, all of the

cash found in Ferguson's safes all over the city? Well,

Mr. Kilpatrick's attorney said that it all came from gifts.

First, Mr. Kilpatrick's wedding reception which

occurred six years before he was mayor. One thing that is

undisputed in this case, when it comes to Mr. Kilpatrick, is

that monetary gifts are preferred. The defendants claim that

this wedding was somehow a cash bonanza, that it allowed him to

have a cash hoard that would take him through his time as

mayor. Well, if that's true, then why did his banking activity

before he became mayor look so normal?

If you look at this, this timeline, these lines are

when he became mayor and when he left as mayor. Before he was

mayor, he was withdrawing cash from his bank accounts, not

depositing it. He was acting like a normal person who doesn't

get bribed.


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But that all changed when he became mayor of the

City of Detroit. Suddenly all the cash withdrawals become cash

deposits, and then he starts depositing regular round number

figures into his credit card account. It took a little while

to ramp it up, as you can see, he continued to behave like a

normal person for at least the first six months of his

administration, but after that, it's all green, and look at the

peak at the very end when he left office.

And you will see if you look at the bank records

that Mr. Kilpatrick was not depositing hundreds of thousands of

dollars at a time into his bank accounts. They were regular,

round number figures, just enough to pay his bills, just enough

to put into his bank account so that he could write checks or

wire money, but not enough to cause suspicion or alert

regulators, bank folks, that there was something wrong with his

accounts.

So how does the defense explain all that green, all

that money that was going into Mr. Kilpatrick's bank accounts

after he became mayor? It all comes down to what they called a

Splash of Red, birthday parties, allegedly awash in cash. All

we've seen in this case is checks like this one, a woman named

Mablene Rodgers for $10. In the memo line it says, "To our

mayor." This is someone that probably believed in him.

Agent Sauer has told you he didn't count any of

these checks when he came up with his monetary figures. He


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only looked at the cash. So the defense then attacked

Mr. Sauer and suggested, "Well, did you go to every check

cashing facility in the city?" There is no evidence that

Mr. Kilpatrick was going around with these checks and going to

check cashing facilities.

Look at the endorsement on the back of Mablene

Rodgers' check, "For deposit only," signed by the mayor

himself. The mayor apparently had the time and inclination to

sign a $10 check, and they're telling you that he didn't have

the time to sign a $12 million Amendment Number 4.

No, none of these checks account for the $840,000 in

unexplained expenditures by Mr. Kilpatrick during his time in

office.

That $10, by the way, that $10 figure from

Ms. Rodgers' check, is the same amount that William Tandy, the

head coach of the Westside Cubs said that he was comfortable

giving to Mr. Kilpatrick at one of those parties, but he felt

that he had to step it up and give $100. He said that he had

to eat ramen noodles for a week to afford to do that.

No check was turned down by the mayor, no matter how

big or small, no matter whether the person could afford to give

it. No one disputes that.

Then the defense talked about the lavish parties,

the lavish gifts that were given to the mayor at twice a year

office parties in his honor by his office staff. As you heard


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from Kizzi Montgomery, contributions were expected by these

office staffers. Remember what -- how much money

Ms. Montgomery made? $32,000 a year. That's five times less

than the mayor of the City of Detroit, and yet she was expected

to give him a present?

And bear in mind -- and remember what they said

about these presents. One of them included a $22,000 Rolex

watch or a golf getaway vacation. One thing to keep in mind

about Ms. Montgomery's testimony, she never said that there was

cash, let alone balls of cash, given to the mayor. They were

gifts. She just recalled the two that were presented to him

that day on two different occasions.

What these lavish parties show beyond any reasonable

doubt is the selfishness of the mayor. It was a one-way

street, all for him, nothing for anyone else, except his

partners over there.

And think about this, if Mr. Kilpatrick was willing

to shake down a modestly compensated staffer in his office, do

you think that he had any reservations shaking down a

businessman of means, a businessman who wanted something in

return from the mayor? The real money in this game came from

businessmen who needed something back from the mayor, and the

number one person on that list was Bobby Ferguson, and the cash

they gave to Mr. Kilpatrick in return for those official

actions was no splash of red. It was a tidal wave of green.


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Now, Mr. Thomas in his closing argument tried to

explain away the money that Mr. Rutherford gave to the mayor as

a gift. They suggested that Mr. Kilpatrick asked

Mr. Rutherford to give him $10,000 in cash just before he went

to Dubai so he could buy him suits, and that Mr. Kilpatrick

asked him to give him another gift of several thousand dollars

when they were both in Las Vegas so that he could go and shop

and entertain.

Think about that. What type of public official asks

for a gift from someone that's looking for something in return,

let alone someone who is looking to land a casino in the same

city that the mayor governs? No, that's not a gift, that's a

bribe, just like the payments to Mr. Ferguson, from

Mr. Ferguson to the mayor, and just like the payments from

Karl Kado to the mayor.

Now, I'd next like to address the cash that was

coming out of Mr. Ferguson's accounts. As you've seen on

spreadsheets and other sorts of charts, during the time that

Kwame Kilpatrick was mayor, Mr. Ferguson took over $2.3 million

out of his various business accounts. The defense doesn't

really address this directly, but they suggest that we did not

show that there was a precise correlation between when

Mr. Ferguson made a withdrawal and when a deposit came into

Mr. Kilpatrick's account. You're not going to see a

correlation like that. You saw the safes stuffed with cash.


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He didn't need to go to the bank to make a withdrawal to pay

off the mayor.

Now, the defense also argues about that $2.3 million

in withdrawals saying, "Hey, some of it was legitimate business

expenses." Well, ask yourself, what normal business withdraws

$2.3 million in cash? So the defense showed you a bunch of

checks to cash with memo lines on them that said "Truck parts."

The problem was the truck parts don't always mean what they

say. You saw Agent Paszkiewicz show you checks that said

"Truck parts" that were sequential checks on the same day, just

under $10,000 that happened to be given to a jeweler, Golden

Sun, for jewelry.

No, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Kilpatrick were in a

partnership together, and it involved cash and city business.

Think about the evidence in this case. Mr. Kilpatrick went out

of his way to steer contracts to Mr. Ferguson. Mr. Kilpatrick

and Mr. Ferguson regularly met privately, and take a look at

some of those text messages and the coded communications about

their meetings.

Andre Cunningham, you remember his testimony, he

said that when Mr. Kilpatrick learned that Andre Cunningham's

phone had been tapped, they went and they talked behind the

Manoogian Mansion with their hands over their mouths, and then

Mr. Cunningham said that who bought new phones for the mayor?

Mr. Ferguson, a phone for Mr. Ferguson and a phone for the


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mayor. Why did they need their new phones? It was

Mr. Cunningham's phone that was tapped.

You've heard, as I said, Mr. Kilpatrick had hundreds

of thousands of dollars flowing through his accounts that don't

trace to any sort of legitimate source. You've heard that

Mr. Ferguson had access to millions of dollars of cash, much of

it coming from contractors that were extorted by him with the

help of the mayor. And Ferguson had lots of cash available to

him all over town. Now, the defense suggests to you that that

cash all basically came at the very end because he was chased

out of banks. Well, take a look at those cash withdrawals,

those charts. He was withdrawing cash from his accounts

throughout the entire time that Kilpatrick was mayor.

And we know from Mahlon Clift on at least one

occasion, and I say one occasion, Mr. Kilpatrick and

Mr. Ferguson were sharing in the spoils of their extortionate

scheme when $90,000 was transferred between the two of them.

Now, before I talk more about the evidence, I wanted

to explain to you some of the legal standards that have come up

in the closing argument and that you will need to use in

evaluating this case.

First of all, in your deliberations you're going to

get our indictment in this case, and look at it very closely.

It provides a structure to the allegations and the chapters

that you've heard in this case. You'll also be getting a


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glossary which gives all the exhibit numbers, and it correlates

to that structure, to that indictment. If you use those two

things together, you'll be able to look at the exhibits in an

orderly manner. And most of the chapters that you heard of are

in that indictment except for a couple, like the Heilmann

Recreation Center, but other than that, all of the rest of them

you'll see in the indictment.

The only count that I really want to talk about on

the instructions is the racketeering conspiracy, and that's

Count 1. Now, for you to find a racketeering conspiracy, you

must find that the defendants agreed that one of the members

would commit at least two types of listed crimes. Now, the

crimes don't need to be accomplished, they just need to be

agreed upon.

And I now want to show you that list of crimes. You

will see this in the indictment in Count 1, but it includes --

federal offenses include extortion, mail fraud, wire fraud,

obstruction of justice; and also state offenses, extortion and

bribery.

I want to first talk about the extortion offenses.

You can, when you're deciding whether there were two types of

activities that were agreed to by the defendants, pick any two

of these federal or state extortion offenses that are shown

here. Let me know if I'm going too fast. Or you could pick

any two of these state bribery offenses to satisfy the


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requirement, or you can pick any of these two mail or wire

fraud offenses. Or you can pick this obstruction offense.

Or you can select any two of these various chapters

that you've heard in this case, any of these extortion,

bribery, fraud or obstruction charges. All you need to do is

select two of them, but you all have to unanimously agree upon

which two you select, and again, none of them have to be

accomplished, but they have to have been agreed upon, and just

one member of the conspiracy had to commit it.

Now, I want to talk about the Kilpatrick Civic Fund

and the mail and the wire fraud offenses. Mr. Thomas in his

closing argument showed you a demonstrative exhibit which

suggested, it was a pie chart that suggested that

Mr. Kilpatrick had only misused $13,000 of his Civic Fund for

personal expenses, inappropriate personal expenses.

I must say that this chart is incredibly misleading.

You have heard in this case of over $200,000 in improper

personal expenses used by Mr. Kilpatrick himself. The chart

also that was presented to you by the defense didn't include

$200,000 that were given to family and friends, people like

Christine Beatty, people like Bernard Kilpatrick. None of

that's included in that chart. That chart also doesn't include

the $150,000 in campaign expenses that were used for

Mr. Kilpatrick's campaign, his campaign, nobody else's.

In all, the defendants' chart is missing over


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$550,000 in improper expenses. Nor does that chart include any

expenses for the year 2008. That's an important year because

that was the year that the Kilpatrick Civic Fund was unwinding.

That was the year when the mayor, Bernard Kilpatrick, Christine

Beatty and other associates of theirs drained the fund of

hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own use.

You recall the testimony of April Edgar who had the

checkbook for the Kilpatrick Civic Fund. Right up to 2008, she

told you who was write -- who was asking her, who was telling

her to write the checks. It was Mayor Kilpatrick, nobody else.

She told you that that last meeting, that board meeting, was

called by the mayor where they decided that they were going to

give all that money to him for moving expenses. There was no

discussion of apportioning expenses in that meeting.

And take a look at the IRS application, KCF-2. This

was the application that Mayor Kilpatrick -- well, he wasn't

mayor -- Kwame Kilpatrick signed himself and was filed with the

IRS to give them that tax-exempt status. And take a look at

what the requirement says that you're supposed to do when you

dissolve a non-for-profit like this. It's supposed to go to

another non-for-profit. It's not supposed to go to one of the

former founders.

And don't forget what the donors, the people who

actually gave to the Kilpatrick Civic Fund told you. They were

asked hypothetically by my colleagues, would they have given to


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the fund if they had known it had been used for improper

personal expenses like summer camp, golf, massages, things like

that. They all said no. That is fraud.

Next, the defense claims that Mr. Kilpatrick paid

back the Kilpatrick Civic Fund in 2009, that he had given it

back $13,000, which they claim is the sum total of his improper

personal expenses that he used from the fund. Well, first of

all, if they truly wanted to pay back the fund, they were going

to have to pay back over $500,000, not $13,000.

But, second, take a very close look at the timing of

that check that was written to the Kilpatrick Civic Fund,

paying it back that sliver of the amount of money that

Mr. Kilpatrick used. It only came after the government sent a

criminal grand jury subpoena to the Civic Fund asking for its

expenses.

This put Mr. Kilpatrick, if he didn't know before,

on notice that there was an investigation of the uses of that

fund, and it was only after that subpoena came out, after

almost a decade of using the fund for his own personal

expenses, that he pays back a sliver of what was owed.

Next I want to talk about Bernard Kilpatrick.

Mr. Shea in his closing argument spent a lot of time talking

about the credibility of Mr. Rosendall of Synagro. He said

that you can't trust Mr. Rosendall because he was stringing

along Bernard Kilpatrick, and he was also lying to his bosses


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at the headquarters of Synagro.

Well, I can tell you that Jim Rosendall was

certainly in a jam at that time. Why was he in that jam?

Because Bernard Kilpatrick, the mayor's hand-picked middleman

for the Synagro deal, had gotten into a financial dispute.

With who? Bernard Kilpatrick's hand-picked frontman for this

whole thing, Rayford Jackson, who had his own ethical problems.

Those two were in a financial dispute, and Mr. Rosendall got

caught in the middle. And Mr. Rosendall had Bernard Kilpatrick

breathing down his throat, telling him that he was going to get

this contract, this billion dollar contract, killed if he

didn't do anything about it.

Now, Mr. Shea conceded, as he must, that

Bernard Kilpatrick did threaten to blow up this deal, but he

defends that extortionate action by saying the threat was not

wrongful somehow because it was a legitimate debt that was owed

to Bernard Kilpatrick. If that was true, if this was a

legitimate debt, then why did Bernard Kilpatrick not do what a

normal person does when they have a legitimate debt? Why

didn't he go to court on a breach of contract or a collections?

Because courts don't enforce extortionate debts.

Can you imagine Bernard Kilpatrick going into a

court and asking the judge to order Mr. Rosendall to pay, not

Bernard Kilpatrick, but his ex-girlfriend, Akunna Olumba, and

her so-called trucking company so that Bernard Kilpatrick could


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get paid? No judge is going to do that. And why not? Because

this whole thing was illegal.

Now, Mr. Shea talks about checks that were written

between Mr. Rosendall and Mr. Kilpatrick supposedly for

consulting work. Those weren't corporate checks. Those checks

came from Mr. Rosendall's personal account. Here's one, look

at the memo line, it says "Loan." Doesn't sound like a

consulting relationship.

And Bernard Kilpatrick didn't have trouble taking

cash from people, let alone Mr. Rosendall. You recall at the

end there when Mr. Rosendall was now working with the

government undercover that Bernard Kilpatrick didn't take cash

in the restaurant, and he also told you why he didn't take that

cash. It was a public restaurant, and he didn't trust Akunna

who was there next to him to take that cash.

He said that there were only three people in this

city that were willing to go under the bus for him. Two of

them are sitting at that table over there. If that payment was

legal, why couldn't he take that in a public restaurant, why

did it matter? Cash or check?

Mr. Shea also asks, well, why couldn't the mayor

have expedited this Synagro project? After all, he had the

special administrator's powers. Well, keep in mind when

Mr. Kilpatrick lost that special administrator's power. That

was in January of 2006. Most of the bureaucratic steps in this


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very complicated billion dollar deal took place after 2006.

That's not to say that the mayor did not have power. He did.

He was still the boss of Victor Mercado, who was the head of

the DWSD, but there were more bureaucratic steps that had to be

taking place as a result of that.

Now, Mr. Shea asks, well, why was Mr. Rosendall

lying to his bosses? Well, he couldn't come clean to his

bosses because he was engaged in an illegal transaction with

Bernard Kilpatrick. He didn't tell them about that because

they would have never allowed him to do that. He was trying to

keep them at bay and he was trying to keep Bernard Kilpatrick

at bay and Rayford Jackson at bay. And he wasn't doing a very

good job at it. And we don't excuse that conduct by

Mr. Rosendall, but he paid the price for it. He went to jail

for that.

And rather than undermining Mr. Rosendall's

credibility, the fact that he was lying to his boss actually

proves that he believed these threats were real. He knew that

what he was doing was wrong, and it certainly does not

exonerate Bernard Kilpatrick of his conduct and behavior in

this case.

Now, the defense claims that Mr. Rosendall's

testimony was bought and paid for. Well, when he came into

court to testify before you, he had already served his jail

sentence. There was nothing more that he could get from the


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government.

Your Honor, I don't know when a proper time to break

would be.

THE COURT: You want to break?

MR. CHUTKOW: Yes.

THE COURT: All right. We'll take 15 minutes.

(Jury out 9:58 a.m.)

(Recess taken 9:58 a.m. until 10:16 a.m.)

(Jury in 10:16 a.m.)

THE COURT: Be seated. Mr. Chutkow.

MR. CHUTKOW: Thank you, Your Honor.

During the break, I was alerted to a mistake that I

made during my closing. When I was telling you about DLZ and

the certification that had been yanked, that related to a

contract 2014 and 2015, not to -- I said contract 2012.

Now, I wanted to talk for a little bit about

Karl Kado. Now, Mr. Shea in his closing argument acknowledged

that Karl Kado made regular payments to Bernard Kilpatrick. He

appeared to acknowledge that those payments totaled in the

hundreds of thousands, although wasn't precise on what it was.

He also appeared to acknowledge that Mr. Kado received a final,

one-time payment of $100,000, and that all of these payments

were in cash.

Now, ask yourself if Bernard Kilpatrick ran a

legitimate consulting business. Where are the invoices for the


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services he provided? Where is the contract to Mr. Kado?

Where are the receipts? Where are the Form 1099's that you're

supposed to keep track of these payments? Why didn't he ever

demand a check from Mr. Kado so that he could keep his own bank

ledgers in order? It's because he didn't want anyone to know

about those payments.

Now, Mr. Shea suggested to you that it was Kado that

wanted to pay Bernard Kilpatrick in cash because he was

skimming from his own company, but if Kado was paying a real

consultant as opposed to a bribe or extortion, he could just

write a check to him. As you've seen from this case, Mr. Kado

certainly -- he could have taken a deduction if he had written

a check, and as you've seen from this case, Mr. Kado certainly

could have used some help on his taxes.

Now, on the subject of taxes, ask yourself this, why

aren't the hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash that went

between Kado and Bernard Kilpatrick on Mr. Kilpatrick's tax

returns? Keep that in mind when you're considering the tax

counts in this case.

Now, Mr. Shea played you some tapes between Mr. Kado

and Bernard Kilpatrick, and in one of them they're talking

about money that is owed by the city to Mr. Kado for a

Department of Administrative Hearings, and in one of the tapes,

the mayor of the city is talking to Bernard Kilpatrick and

acknowledges that the city owes Mr. Kado, just a question of


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how much. Yet, on a later tape when Mr. Kado tells

Bernard Kilpatrick that he's not going to pay him, what does

Bernard Kilpatrick say? "You don't want to pay me? It could

take you two years to get paid."

Does that amount of time sound familiar? That's the

same amount of time that he told Mr. Rosendall that he could

delay their operations permits for Synagro if he didn't get

paid on that one. Like Mr. Ferguson, the mantra was no deal

without me.

Now, the defense, Mr. Thomas attacked Mr. Kado's

memory, and specifically, he cited to the -- he suggested that

Mr. Kado couldn't even keep his bribes straight, saying that at

one point, the mayor allegedly went to Mr. Kado's office in the

winter -- or in the summer, and yet he said there was eight

inches of snow. Well, you all took notes that day when

Mr. Kado was being cross examined by Mr. Thomas. He said that

there were two different bribes that took place, one in the

winter and one in the summer, and Mr. Thomas cut him off before

he could finish his explanation.

Now, Mr. Shea talked about Andre Cunningham who was

a former executive assistant to the mayor and he admits that

Mr. Cunningham paid cash to Bernard Kilpatrick and that it took

place in the basement of the City-County Building, and he said

that they did it there because it would look wrong to do it on

the 11th floor, where the mayor's office was. Well, ask


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yourself this, if it was legitimate, what does it matter what

floor of the City-County Building that payoff took place? It

does matter if it was a bribe or an extortion.

Now, Mr. Shea in his closing argument emphasized all

the alleged work that Bernard Kilpatrick did for those various

people, for Mr. Rosendall, for Mr. Kado, for Mr. Cunningham,

for Mr. Rutherford, for the Civic Fund. Now, Mr. Shea is a

fine lawyer, and I would submit to you that most of the work

that was being done was by Mr. Shea trying to come up with an

explanation why all of these people are paying

Bernard Kilpatrick in the first place.

Now, Mr. Shea also talked about the 2004 tax year,

which is one of the counts in this case, and he argues that

Bernard Kilpatrick cannot be guilty of a tax crime because

there is no authorization form for the filing of that

particular tax return. This isn't a serious defense. Are they

suggesting that Bernard Kilpatrick's tax preparers went rogue

on him? They were simply preparing returns for him without his

knowledge?

And when you think about that count, here's a funny

coincidence, these supposed rogue preparers who sent the IRS

the returns for Mr. Kilpatrick, they sent it in October, and

they said that he owed $91,000 to the IRS. That very same day,

take a look at the check Mr. Kilpatrick happened to pay the IRS

that same day $91,000. Ask yourself, how did


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Bernard Kilpatrick guess the amount of money that he was

supposed to pay the IRS? It's because he authorized the

filing, of course.

Now I want to talk about the, in general, the

government witnesses and the defense attack on their

credibility, particularly the ones that have pled guilty in

this case. Defense claims that you can't believe them because

they pled guilty. Well, the defense seems quite willing to

condemn officials like Andre Cunningham and Derrick Miller for

taking bribes, and Karl Kado for bribing city officials, like

Lou Pavledes, or Jim Rosendall for bribing people on the

Synagro deal, and we don't disagree with their criticism.

That's why these people have all been convicted. But it seems

odd that all of these people who are running around city hall,

either working there or paying people off in city hall, are

doing all this corrupt activity but never with any of these

defendants.

Now, Mr. Kilpatrick's attorney came up with an

analogy for how you should determine whether somebody is

telling the truth, had to do with, I guess, caring for your

house; would you let these people housesit for you, or

something like that. It's a ridiculous analogy. The proper

way to look at it, if you want to use their analogy, is that if

your spouse was in an accident and someone came to your door

and told you that, and then another witness came to your door


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and told you the same thing, and then you received a text

message telling you that your spouse was in an accident, and

maybe other financial records, I don't know how that would

work, but that confirm that, would you go to the hospital? Of

course you would.

Now, the defendants don't tell you -- what they

don't tell you is about the government -- what the defendants

don't tell you about the government witnesses, including those

who have pled guilty in this case, is that they all support

each other. Their testimony is consistent. They tell you

about a consistent pattern of behavior by the defendants.

These people didn't get together to concoct their stories

together, and yet the stories are the same.

As I said in my opening statement, this case does

not depend on the testimony of a single witness. There are

just too many witnesses saying the same thing. The defendants

spend so much time attacking a few of the government witnesses

because they want to avoid two facts that they can't attack and

they know they can't; the cash and the text messages.

First, let me just make a quick mention of the cash.

That is essentially the smoking gun in the hand of the

defendant. There is no way to explain why a public servant has

that kind of money like Mr. Kilpatrick did except that he was

getting paid off.

And the text messages, these are the thoughts and


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the words, without any filter, by the defendants, thinking that

no one would ever see those things. As was said by somebody

else in their opening statement, the text messages are like

going from your brain to your thumbs to the send button to the

receiver. It's like a crime scene frozen in time for you to

review at any angle you want.

If there's anything that you want to scrutinize when

you're doing your deliberations, look at the text messages.

You don't have to believe our interpretations of them, and you

won't get any better evidence in a corruption case than the

text messages in this case because corruption, by its very

nature, happens with winks and nods, and the payoffs happen in

the shadows when nobody is looking.

Now, the defendants base their whole defense on an

argument that you can't trust the government witnesses, but who

are the government witnesses? Who picked these witnesses?

Bernard Kilpatrick, Kwame Kilpatrick and Bobby Ferguson picked

these people. These are the people that they worked with, that

they were the long-time friends with, not us.

Take Mahlon Clift. He did absolutely nothing wrong

other than to show too much loyalty to his friend,

Kwame Kilpatrick. And what was his reward for that loyalty?

The defendants attacked his character, his business, because he

was loyal to Mr. Kilpatrick, but he was not willing to commit a

crime for him of perjury.


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Now, the defendants question why Mr. Clift stopped

his testimony when he was in the grand jury testifying about

his relationship with Mr. Kilpatrick, and then he called his

mother. Well, that's fairly obvious. He was under oath and

you have an obligation to tell the truth, and he had come to a

moment where he was going to have to disclose that

Bobby Ferguson had given him $90,000 in cash that he was going

to deliver to the mayor. He knew that prosecutors didn't know

this, and he didn't know what to do.

So he stopped and he asked if he could call his mom,

who happens to be a lawyer. The defendants would have you

think that his mom told him to go lie under oath, to make up a

story about the fact that this $90,000 was transferred between

the two of them. That is just preposterous. What mom, least

of all a lawyer, is going to counsel her son to lie in a

federal grand jury? That's not what she told him. She told

him to tell the truth.

And if Clift wasn't actually carrying that money

that day, that $90,000 from Mr. Ferguson to Mr. Kilpatrick, ask

yourself, what possible motive would he have to make all this

up?

You saw the video of Agent Jensen who went through

the airport 100 times with cash. Not once did that alarm go

off. That video completely shot down what the defense promised

to you in their opening statement, telling you that there were


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metal strips in the cash that would have set off the alarms.

Now, the defense argues that the government didn't

want you to see that video. That's not true. The defense

played that video with the TSA Detroit security officer before

we had a chance to. That video was going to be played with

Mr. Jensen. We didn't think you needed to see that video

twice.

Now, ask yourself this. Why are the defendants

fighting so hard to make you believe that Mahlon Clift is

making all of this up? Because they know that if you believe

that what he said was true then they are guilty of committing

bribery. They're guilty of, in exchange for all those city

contracts, Mr. Ferguson paying off the mayor.

Next, I wanted to talk about Derrick Miller. Miller

told you that he was a friend since high school with the mayor.

He asked the mayor to be his best man at his wedding. He was a

reluctant witness. And what does he get in return from the

defense? He was attacked by them. Why did they do this?

Because he came into this courtroom, and, the evidence showed,

told the truth about himself and about them. And his testimony

was completely supported by Bernard Parker, by Kathleen McCann,

by Tom Hardiman and by Karl Kado, and by every text message

that you're going to see that he is on.

Next, Emma Bell, a longtime family friend of the

Kilpatricks, the defense took aim at her. They called her an


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alcoholic and a gambling junkie, another longtime family friend

thrown on the scrap heap.

And, finally, the defense took aim at Andre

Cunningham, a friend of the mayor's since college, a fraternity

brother. Why? Because Mr. Cunningham admitted to you that he

was paying kickbacks to the mayor's father at the request of

his friend, the mayor.

So who did the defendants spare from their fire?

Jon Rutherford, homeless shelter tycoon, a guy who pulled

$650,000 a year from his publicly-financed homeless shelter and

adult foster care services. Then bankrolled, used that money

to bankroll the likes of Mr. Kilpatrick so that Rutherford

could land a casino on the Detroit Riverfront. That is the one

guy that these guys chose to remain loyal to.

The defense, the defendants in this case have

engaged in a pattern of deception from the very beginning of

their partnership, and it continues to this very day. First,

the State Arts Grant. The defendants lied to the state to

justify hundreds of thousands of dollars of state grant monies

saying that it was going to be used for runaways and for

seniors and vocational training and peer mediation.

Mr. Evelyn in his argument said that the entire

thing was transparent. If that was true, then why did

Mr. Ferguson have to doctor the invoices that he gave to the

state? If the expenses were legitimate, just send in the real


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ones. Now, Mr. Thomas said that this chapter, the State Art

Grants, was overkill. Stealing public money is not overkill.

It's wrong and it's illegal.

Then Mr. Ferguson told two sisters to lie to a

federal grand jury under oath, to say that straw donations that

they received from Mr. Ferguson to hide his relationship with

the mayor and that were given to the mayor's campaign, say it

was from them. Now, Mr. Evelyn in his argument appears to

acknowledge that he did counsel them to lie, but only that he

wanted them to lie to a separate regulatory body, Michigan

Gambling Commission, rather than the federal grand jury. Ask

yourself, where is the transparency in that?

Now, the defense in their closing jumped quickly

over that sinkhole. Why? Well, it might have to do with the

evidence that they presented to you at trial. This exhibit,

DIN1-60 which is on the right, is what they presented to you at

trial. The government presented to you the left one, IN1-72.

Mr. Ferguson passed off an altered document to you.

They needed a document to make it appear that Mr. Ferguson had

been at the scene of that sinkhole in late August of 2004. Why

did they need that? To try to undermine the text messages that

occurred in early September where Mr. Ferguson and

Mr. Kilpatrick are talking about how they're going to, how they

want to meet and how Mr. Ferguson can move in. If they could

only show that Mr. Ferguson was doing all that work at the


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sinkhole, then I suppose their theory was, why does he have to

get the mayor's help?

But this was a lie to you, and the truth is that

Ferguson didn't get to work at the site in late August. He got

there in mid September, September 14th, to be precise, and

Agent Paszkiewicz showed you that, she showed you the daily

field records from the DWSD when Ferguson first mobilized and

came to that site. And that was all three weeks after the

sinkhole first emerged.

But the defense presented you an alternative theory

with an altered document to make it seem like he was there

first. Now, take a look. The top document here is the

government's exhibit, is the real exhibit, and the defense

exhibit, the fake, the altered exhibit, is on the bottom. And

take a look at that tail right there, that tail where the four

is, and watch what happens. Somebody removed that date because

they didn't want you to see it.

THE COURT: Yes?

A JUROR: Can I see that again? I can't really see

in front of you.

MR. CHUTKOW: Oh, I'm sorry.

Everything lined up, but the date was missing.

Somebody made a mistake, though. They let that four hang over

the edge.

Next, somebody had to remove the ticket number from


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the real exhibit because they knew that if it wasn't removed,

someone like Agent Paszkiewicz or maybe the Inland folks would

be able to find it.

And, finally, there was one other thing that needed

to be altered to make it look like Mr. Ferguson had been there

when he claimed he did. The three on the top document, which

is the true document, you heard from Mr. Rozycki,

Walter Rozycki from Inland, he said that that date must have

been wrong, it says 3/23/04, March 23rd, '04, and that the

sinkhole hadn't happened until August, and so that was

obviously some sort of typo by somebody.

Look what happens when she moves it, the three

becomes an eight. So we're moving that top, that September,

the true date, September of 2004, and then just looping that

three into an eight, that fit their theory, and that's what

they passed off to you, and that would have been the evidence,

that would have been the record in this case if

Agent Paszkiewicz hadn't left the stand and known that there

was something wrong and hunted for the truth that she presented

to you later.

Now, you've heard from a number of convicted

businessmen and city officials who have told you about their

crimes with these defendants, and you've heard from others who

have not committed crimes but were compromised because of their

dealings with these defendants. That's the problem when you


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have a pay-to-play system. It corrupts the system. Everyone

gets compromised. None of this would have happened, none of

this pay-to-play would have happened if Mr. Kilpatrick hadn't

set it in motion, if he hadn't let Mr. Ferguson run rampage

through the contracting community with his endorsement and

support.

Now, as Mr. Thomas said, he talked about Lakeshore

and the fact that they got more city contracts over time. Did

their share of city contracts grow during the Kilpatrick years?

Yes. But ask yourself, when did it happen? It was only after

they agreed to Mr. Ferguson's extortionate demands, it was only

after they gave him $1.7 million in no-show payments. It was

only after they gave him $800,000 in bogus management fees.

Now, Lakeshore, it's a good company, but they paid a heavy

price for dealing with these defendants to get to the table.

They paid a price both financially and ethically.

Contractors who did not want to play the game in

this city, they stayed away. Honest businessmen like Odell

Jones did not have a chance or they went out of business.

This isn't about protecting the contractors. Who

are the real victims of this whole pay-to-play system? It's

the citizens, the people who pay the taxes, the people who pay

the water utility bills, the people who put Mr. Kilpatrick in

office. They're the ones who didn't get the best goods and

services for the lowest price, who didn't get honest


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government.

Now, you've been together for five months now and

you all come from different backgrounds, but you share a common

goal, to see justice done and to achieve a verdict. You were

selected together and you represent the community. You've sat

together, you've listened to the evidence, you've taken notes

and you've been very patient. It's now your time to work

together toward a verdict.

In your deliberations, keep an open mind, listen

thoughtfully to what each other has to say, be willing to be

persuaded. If you work together in good faith, you can reach a

decision that is wiser than any single person in this room.

You together represent the community and you together can do

what's right.

Throughout this trial it has become completely clear

that Mayor Kilpatrick and his accomplices, his partners, used

the public that he was elected to serve. Mr. Kilpatrick was

elected by the citizens of Detroit to represent their

interests, not the defendants', to look out for their welfare,

not his own wallet. He was not elected so that he could

quietly stuff a half a million dollars into his bank accounts,

so that he could make sure that Bobby Ferguson got $83 million

in city revenues, so that he could make sure that his father

was a middleman for deals with the city. He was entrusted to

act for the people of Detroit.


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Now, this isn't the first case of corruption in this

country, and it's not going to be the last. Mr. Evelyn, during

his closing, read from the Profiles of Courage, a wonderful

book by then Senator John F. Kennedy, who back in 1973,

President Kennedy's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, spoke

eloquently about the corrosive effects of corruption in a

commencement address that she gave at a women's college outside

Boston. Ms. Shriver had her own moral standing to speak on

these issues because of her commitment to public service,

exemplified by her founding of the Special Olympics.

Unlike Mr. Ferguson and his Detroit Three

Dimensional and Mr. Kilpatrick and his Kilpatrick Civi

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