Judge to ex-mayor: Time to pay the piper

Oh Kwame !
serves this jackass right , he like a few mayors before him , was nothing but a crook , a thief and a big fat thug Who thought he could get away with everything .
With all he has done he should gladly pay the 1 million , it would be better than the 9 million he paid out in bribes !



the Freep
It's called a do-over. A mulligan. An oops-let's-try-this-again play.
The mistake the court made last February was trusting former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to get out of jail, move to Texas and begin paying the city the $1 million he owed in restitution. (The prosecutor didn't trust him, but that's Kym Worthy's job. After all, she got him convicted of perjury.)

All Judge David Groner did Wednesday was treat Kilpatrick like the convicted felon he is. Groner made clear that Kilpatrick could not be trusted. He made clear that the last bit of special treatment Kilpatrick got, whenever it was, was the last special treatment he would get.

And as nice as Groner was to Kilpatrick's attorney, uber-barrister Willie Gary, and as patient as Groner was sitting through endless irrelevant testimony about how Kilpatrick and his wife spent money, Groner's bottom line was: "Let's count the money" that should have gone to the city.

The tally? More than $319,000 -- now due in 90 days. Groner also made clear that the former mayor will pay the city all of the discount restitution he owes, stemming from an $8.4-million whistle-blower lawsuit settlement that never should have happened.

You will get no more details here. Groner's comments will be all over this newspaper, our Web site and television.

But what you will get here is a sigh of relief that Groner did what should have been done in the first place. When a politician becomes a felon, he is no longer a politician. He is no longer royalty. He is no longer to be afforded a wink and a nod. The former mayor now has deadlines. And he has duties. He must reach out and touch his probation officer in Michigan, instead of Texas, by phone every week.

Kilpatrick walked into the courthouse as the arrogant young politician, still acting like da mayor. He walked out, a convicted felon with no more special privileges. It was a fitting irony that he found no car waiting at the sidewalk and had to walk back inside to wait for a ride to the airport.

If Kilpatrick had just paid the restitution, all of it, a year ago, instead of flaunting his luxurious lifestyle in Texas (the mansion, the SUVs, the hundreds of dollars spent at car washes and Chick-fil-A), Detroit might already have been a distant memory for him. If Kilpatrick truly wants Detroit to leave him alone, then he should leave Detroit alone.

Maybe now, he'll just write the check.