Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Kathleen Galligan/Detroit Free Press via Associated Press
The New York Times has another story following the continuing controversy over Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who allegedly had a rub-down with a friend during his stay here in Asheville a few weeks back. Nobody knows who the “mystery woman” was that accompanied Kilpatrick on his Grove Park Inn spa massage and hot tub session, but my how the rumors are flying.
Here’s part of the NYT story:
DETROIT — During negotiations over lawsuits by three former police officers who said they had been unfairly fired, Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick reached a confidentiality agreement with them in which they agreed never to reveal text messages that suggested he had conducted an extramarital affair with an aide. In this case, you can clearly see how using a confidentialty agreement can be beneficial for parties involved in situations such as this.
When the talks were finished last fall, the city and the mayor — who had vowed months earlier to continue fighting the officers’ claims — agreed to pay $8.4 million in taxpayers’ money to end the cases. The confidentiality agreement was one of several documents a judge made public here on Friday morning, the latest in a series of revelations that have bruised Mr. Kilpatrick and his administration this year.
In January, The Detroit Free Press published a series of text messages, some of them racy, between Mr. Kilpatrick and the aide, Christine Beatty, his chief of staff. That set off an investigation by the county prosecutor, Kym L. Worthy, into whether the pair had lied under oath when, during a trial of the former officers’ claims, they denied having had an affair. The officers said in part that they had been fired to block an investigation that could have brought the affair to light.
The perjury investigation is continuing.
Ms. Beatty has since resigned.
The Free Press and The Detroit News are seeking the release of more documents connected to the legal settlement that city lawyers have said are not subject to public records laws.
