As Kwame Kilpatrick campaigns for Republicans, feds accuse him of lying about his address

Just hours before he spoke at a Republican function, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was accused of being dishonest again — this time about his address.

Specifically, federal prosecutors allege in a new court filing that Kilpatrick — who pleaded guilty to perjury in the text message scandal that drove him from office — is pretending to live in Georgia to thwart efforts to collect nearly $832,000 in restitution owed from his public corruption case.

The allegation surfaced shortly before Kilpatrick took the stage at the Oakland County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner in Novi, where, according to GOP organizers, the ex-mayor was to talk about his repentance and redemption.

Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, painted a different picture of Kilpatrick in federal court records, portraying him as an untruthful debt dodger who still owes taxpayers nearly $1 million.

"The Government strongly suspects he simply seeks to delay the inevitable, and only waste time and resources," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Nathan wrote in a filing that surfaced shortly before Kilpatrick's scheduled speech at the Lincoln Day dinner.

"Although Kilpatrick has claimed a residence in Georgia, the address he claims to be his residence is listed for sale and appears to be staged or vacant," Nathan wrote, maintaining Kilpatrick really lives in Novi, and that his Georgia home is listed for sale at $499,000.

Here's why Kilpatrick's address is important to the government.

Earlier this year, investigators discovered roughly $6,700 in cash that it says it found while searching for assets to pay off the ex-mayor’s debt to taxpayers. The government wants to keep the money, but Kilpatrick says it's not entitled to it.

Moreover, Kilpatrick maintains he doesn't owe any debt to the federal government, and has requested a hearing in Georgia to resolve the matter. That's where the ex-mayor says he has lived since 2021, when former President Donald Trump commuted his 28-year prison sentence and set him free — a favor that Kilpatrick, a lifelong Democrat, appears to be paying back by campaigning for Trump in Michigan.

Prosecutors allege Kilpatrick has been living here for months, and says it has returned mail to prove it. For example, it says mail from the U.S. Attorney's office to Kilpatrick's address in Georgia has either been returned, or forwarded and re-routed back to Michigan.

"In addition, Mr. Kilpatrick was recently photographed in the Detroit area attending public events in March and June, and his address for court mail is directed to Northville, Michigan," wrote Nathan, who included pieces of returned mail in her court filing, along with photos of Kilpatrick's vacant Georgia home and a Metro Times article about Kilpatrick's $807,000 home in Novi, topped with this headline: Kwame Kilpatrick's wife buys enormous house in Novi despite former mayor's unpaid restitution.

Kilpatrick, meanwhile, steadfastly maintains he owes no debt.

"I don't believe I owe the government any monies," Kilpatrick has argued in a past court filing. "I believe treasury funds and other money are exempt from garnishment."

According to the federal government, Kilpatrick still owes $831,913.70 for crimes he was convicted of more than a decade ago, including bribery, extortion and fraud. His last restitution payment of $150 was made in March.

Kilpatrick's restitution matter is before U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who has not shown him much mercy over the years: She locked him up for 28 years — one of the stiffest public corruption sentences in U.S. history — and has lambasted him multiple times for, as she sees it, living large while ignoring his debts and refusing to acknowledge responsibility for his crimes.

"(Kilpatrick) has a history of spending his money on a lavish lifestyle rather than paying off his obligations. (He) has only made a little over $5,000 in payments towards his restitution obligation in this case. Yet, as recently as 2022, (Kilpatrick) and his wife sought to raise $800,000 to purchase a residence in a gated, luxury community in Orlando, Florida," Edmunds wrote in an order last year, in which she denied Kilpatrick's request to end his supervised release early so he could travel more freely as a pastor.

Kilpatrick was freed 20 years early in 2021 after Trump granted him an early release, concluding he had paid his debt to society. Trump, however, did not erase Kilpatrick's restitution debt, which was once pegged at close to $4.8 million and was later reduced to $1.5 million.

Much of that has been satisfied by Kilpatrick's co-defendant and longtime friend, Bobby Ferguson — though the government is trying to collect it all and has even sought to seize funds held by PayPal and the fundraising website Plumfund to satisfy the debt.

In March, a federal court clerk in Detroit filed a writ of continuing garnishment to enforce the restitution judgment. It requires officials to keep and retain property that Kilpatrick has a "substantial" interest in, though Kilpatrick steadfastly maintains he owes nothing.

And his assets, he argues, are off-limits.

Moreover, he argues the government has failed to give him an accurate accounting of what part of the debt has been satisfied by Ferguson, who also was convicted of helping the mayor run a pay-to-play scheme out of City Hall by rigging bids and steering lucrative contracts his way.

"(T)here has been no accurate accounting … of the forfeiture amount that was taken from (my) co-defendant, Bobby Ferguson," Kilpatrick states in court filings. "And therefore, there has not been an accurate figure presented for 'credits applied' to the already arbitrary restitution amount."

Ferguson was sentenced to 21 years, but also got out early, after Trump commuted the ex-mayor's sentence. Judge Edmunds granted Ferguson a compassionate release, concluding it wouldn't be fair to keep him locked up when his "more culpable" co-defendant had been freed.

Ferguson and Kilpatrick were accused of running a criminal enterprise through the mayor's office by corrupting contracts, steering work to Ferguson and fostering a climate of fear in the contractor world. A main theme argued at trial was that if you wanted to do work in the city of Detroit, you had to include Ferguson or risk losing deals.

Kilpatrick's downfall began in 2008, when the Free Press published text messages that showed he lied during a police whistleblower trial when he testified that he did not have an affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, and gave misleading testimony about the firing of a deputy police chief. The ex-mayor still owes $852,000 in restitution to the city of Detroit stemming from that scandal.

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: As Kwame Kilpatrick campaigns for Republicans, feds accuse him of lying about his address