Kwame Kilpatrick Says He Shouldn't Have to Pay $1.6 Million in Restitution

Kwame and Carlita Kilpatrick in happier days.

We haven't heard the last of ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is serving a 28-year-sentence in a federal prison in Oklahoma.

On Tuesday, his attorney Harold Gurewitz, filed an objection in federal court to prosecutors' request that Kilpatrick pay $1.6 million in restitution in his federal case.  

Gurewitz writes that the government has not "presented an adequate basis for this court to determine" an amount of loss to the city. He's asking that the judge reduce or eliminate the restitution. 

WDIV reports:

At his original sentencing, Kilpatrick was ordered to pay the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department over $4.5 million based on what he collected in a fraud scheme that included kickbacks for Kilpatrick. During a federal appeal in August 2015, it was ordered that Kilpatrick's restitution to DWSD be recalculated.

"The Sixth Circuit held that the restitution calculation was erroneous and should have been based more specifically on DWSD's loss, rather than on Kilpatrick's gain," a court document said. "The consensus among our sister circuits compels us to conclude that a district court may not use the defendant’s gain to approximate the victim’s loss unless the government establishes such a correlation that the defendant’s gain can act as a measure of -- not substitute for -- the victim’s loss."

Prosecutors then adjusted their request to $1.6 million in restitution based on the difference between two bids for a specific city contract. Federal authorities say the bid was rigged. Gurewitz writes that there was no evidence that the company that won the bid in any way artificially or fraudulently inflated the contract or failed to deliver services. 

"It is, therefore, respectfully suggested that this case now becomes an instance in which the process by which to attempt to determine restitution is too complicated and time consuming to pursue the specter of restitution as part of Mr. Kilpatrick’s 28 years custodial sentence," Gurewitz writes.

The U.S. Attorney's Office didn't immediately respond to a call and text for comment. 

In the end, it all may be moot because Kilpatrick may never be able to afford any significant repayments.