Worthy hires extra staff for mayor's case
Ten temporary workers to cost cash-strapped Wayne County $400K for five months.
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has hired 10 temporary employees -- seven attorneys and three investigators -- to help cover the extra work generated by the criminal investigation and prosecution of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Worthy said Wednesday.
The extra hires will cost the county $400,000 for the five months between May and September, county officials said. The total cost will depend on how long the Kilpatrick prosecution lasts and how long Worthy needs to keep them onboard.
Worthy's prosecution of Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty on perjury and other felony charges related to the text message scandal -- already controversial because of the nature of the case and the high office Kilpatrick holds -- is stirring further controversy due to its expense as the county faces a $33 million budget deficit and the possible layoffs of more than 100 employees.
"Where are they going to get the money from to transfer to her?" asked Commissioner Ed Boike Jr., D-Taylor. "This is just an awful lot."
Commissioner Bernard Parker, D-Detroit, said he does not consider the Kilpatrick prosecution more important than the prosecution of a suspect for a violent crime against a Wayne County citizen. "It is a highly visible case, but it is a perjury case -- not first-degree murder," Parker said.
But another member of the Wayne County Commission, former state Sen. Burton Leland, D-Detroit, said Worthy should get every penny she needs.
"The sooner we get rid of this mayor, the better," Leland said. "We are in the toilet, and I would like to save this city before we get flushed down the toilet."
Worthy said she is being as fiscally responsible as she can in prosecuting the case and said Kilpatrick's lawyers are responsible for some of the additional costs she will incur because they pushed back the date of Kilpatrick's preliminary examination by more than three months.
Worthy, who announced charges against Kilpatrick and Beatty on March 24, said she had expected the trial to be held within 91 days. "None of us can understand why their (preliminary) examination was stretched out to Sept. 22," she said.
Marcus Reese, a spokesman for Kilpatrick's defense team, was surprised Worthy would attribute some of the cost of the case to the mayor's lawyers.
"It's a tragedy that ... the citizens of Detroit have to cope with a prosecutor who is diverting every resource imaginable not to fight rising crime all over Wayne County but to go after the mayor and ensure her re-election," Reese said.
The charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury and official misconduct relate to a police whistle-blower trial in 2007. Worthy's investigation began after pager text messages published in January pointed to a sexual relationship between Kilpatrick and Beatty and possible perjury about the nature of their relationship and circumstances surrounding the removal of Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown when they both testified in that civil case last year.
Other records released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press show Kilpatrick and Beatty signed a secret deal to keep the text messages under wraps as part of the city's $8.4 million settlement of police whistle-blower lawsuits.
Worthy's office continues to investigate possible charges against other city or police officials.
She assigned five staff prosecutors to the Kilpatrick case and recently confirmed the hiring of former Michigan Supreme Court Justice and federal judge Patricia Boyle as a temporary contractor to help with appeal issues.
On Wednesday, she confirmed the hiring of nine additional contractors. Not all are working directly on the Kilpatrick case but all were hired as a direct result of the case, she said. For example, two of the five staff attorneys assigned to the Kilpatrick case came from Worthy's homicide unit and some of the temporary contractors Worthy hired are doing the homicide work those attorneys would perform if they were not busy with Kilpatrick.
Two of the contractors are retired prosecutors hired on a part-time basis, four are full-time private attorneys and three are full-time investigators, she said.
Worthy and Ficano's officials disagreed Wednesday about whether the money for the contractors is in addition to Worthy's regular $42.5 million budget -- as Worthy said -- or included in that figure, as Ficano said. Vanessa Denha-Garmo, a spokeswoman for Ficano, said Worthy's original budget projected a $600,000 surplus and the $400,000 for temporary contractors was taken from that.
The contracts did not have to be submitted to the Wayne County Commission for approval -- and were not -- because they were considered temporary employee hires within the scope of an approved budget, Denha-Garmo said.
Ficano said Wednesday he recently asked Worthy and other county elected officials to cut their budgets by 10 percent, citing reduced tax revenues due to declining property values and cuts in grants from the state and federal governments.
"There will definitely be new layoffs," said Ficano, who said up to 170 positions may have to be cut in departments under his direct control.
At the same time, "we've worked with Kym to try to make sure she has all the resources she feels she needs," Ficano said.
County Commissioner Moe Blackwell, D-Detroit, who chairs the public safety and judiciary committee, said Worthy should not divert resources from prosecuting murders and other crimes "more heinous" than the accusations the mayor faces and he doesn't support an extra budget allocation to prosecute the mayor.
"Is this case big enough and is it worth taking resources away from other departments?" Blackwell asked. "Maybe she should have thought about some of these issues before bringing the charges."
Commissioner Ilona Varga, D-Lincoln Park, who represents part of the city of Detroit, said the Kilpatrick case is important and Worthy deserves extra resources despite the current budget crunch.
"Whatever she needs from me, I will give," Varga said. As politicians, "people look up to us and we need to be held accountable."
