Crime

Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick not getting out of jail after all

May 26, 2020, 10:22 PM by  Violet Ikonomova

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Kwame Kilpatrick back when.

Kwame Kilpatrick's brother-in-law said the disgraced ex-mayor would soon be released. State Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Detroit) claimed she had been promised so by Donald Trump himself. A Pontiac pastor with Ebony Magazine's charitable arm said both the White House and Kilpatrick had assured him of it, while another representative with the group said Kilpatrick was already out, in quarantine in a hotel.

Someone, somewhere, appeared to have been, at minimum, misinformed. Because Kwame Kilpatrick is staying at his Louisiana prison.

Late Tuesday night, the Federal Bureau of Prisons put an end to rumblings about the release of the former mayor, who is seven years into a 28-year sentence for public corruption.

"On Tuesday, May 26, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reviewed and denied inmate Kwame Kilpatrick for home confinement," the agency said in a statement. "Mr. Kilpatrick remains incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution-I in Oakdale, Louisiana."

And so the purported promise of release was said to have merely been a request, the latest in a long string of failed bids for freedom. 

Kilpatrick was said to be slated for home confinement as a result of a coronavirus outbreak at the Oakdale facility, where at least 100 prisoners and staff have tested positive for Covid-19 and seven have died.

State Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo (D-Detroit), who this winter hand-delivered a letter to Trump urging Kilpatrick’s early release, said she was stunned by the Tuesday development. “I can’t make sense out of this,” she said. “I’m extremely disappointed.”

Gay-Dagnogo said she was told by Kilpatrick’s family that he was already approved for home confinement, and then reached out to a White House representative she’d been working with to confirm. She said the representative, Ja'ron Smith, deputy assistant to the president on domestic policy, did not respond, but reacted to the text with a heart.

“Thankful for the leadership of @POTUS and AG Barr in keeping the public safe while protecting inmates during COVID-19," Smith tweeted Friday with an article about Kilpatrick's release. "Several thousand nonviolent inmates have been released to home confinement.”

"Somebody changed their mind," Gay-Dagnogo said.

Of Kilpatrick’s family, she said, “They would not make this up. This has been so stressful. I was writing the follow-up letter when my sister was in the hospital (with Covid-19) and for them to have the level of relief that he’s finally out … they were just so grateful.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment Tuesday night. 

Something seemed amiss in the way the news rolled out Friday. Kilpatrick's immediate family remained silent and did not respond to media inquiries. And the U.S. Attorney's Office, which is typically notified of high-profile defendant releases, said it hadn't heard anything.

Detroit Rev. W.J. Rideout, a Kilpatrick advocate, said he spoke on Friday to two people who said they had knowledge of the alleged release. 

Rideout said he was also surprised by Tuesday's news.

"I really am. I'm like, 'Wow.' Why give him that kind of hope and then snatch it back from him and his family? He was going to live with his mom, and then they were going to reach back to Trump for a commutation to resolve it all together so he'd be free."

"I'm very disappointed that they played with Kwame's heart and mind," he said, adding that he still is hopeful Trump will set him free. 

At least 2,500 prisoners — 1.5 percent of the federal corrections’ departments nearly 171,000 prisoners — have reportedly won early release since Attorney General William Barr two months ago ordered more be let out in response to the pandemic.

The Bureau of Prisons previously said it prioritizes inmates for release if they’ve served at least half their sentence. Kilpatrick fell short of that threshold, as did Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and his campaign manager Paul Manafort, who were both freed earlier this month.



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