Detroit Uncovered Latest developments
Tamara Greene vs. ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, City of Detroit, et al.
To date no one has been charged in the murder of Tamara “Strawberry” Greene and the existence of a party in the fall of 2002 at the mayor’s residence has been strongly denounced by all including ex-Michigan Attorney General, Mike Cox, a Republican, whose speedy investigation called the party “an urban legend.” Yet the Greene family through their Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma remains undeterred and on Sept. 21, 2006 filed suit in federal court against Kilpatrick, the city of Detroit, the police department, and others on two counts:
· Count I – Violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments (Rights of Access to Courts) Pursuant to Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
· Count II—Conspiracy to Violate Plaintiffs’ Constitutionally Guaranteed Right of Access to Courts
“We have him by the testicles,” was a colorful pun said by Yatooma in an August 2010 interview for the Detroit Free Press http://www.normanyatooma.com/detail_inTheNews.php?id=836 regarding his almost five-year-long civil case against deposed ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a twice convicted felon, and now the focus of a new 52-count federal indictment. http://www.freep.com/article/20101215/NEWS01/101215008/1321/Feds-Kilpatrick-dad-and-aides-extorted-bribed-took-kickbacks
In 2006 Yatooma filed a federal civil lawsuit on behalf of the family of Tamara Greene, a woman said to have danced at a rumored-but-never-proved wild party at the official residence of the mayor—the city-owned Manoogian Mansion in the fall of 2002. In April, 2003, just six months later the dancer was found murdered in a vicious drive-by shooting on the Northwest side of Detroit (ironically just 3 blocks from where the author grew up).
After a contentious deposition in July 2010, in which Kilpatrick refused to answer some questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, Yatooma expressed renewed confidence in winning his suit against the city for botching the investigation into the woman’s subsequent murder.
To many observers the Tamara Greene case is merely the tip of the iceberg in a culture of corruption endemic in the city of in Detroit dating back 40 years which became even more accute during the six years Kwame Kilpatrick was mayor of the city (2002-08). http://www.freep.com/article/20101216/NEWS01/12160473/1321/Detroit-corruption-probe-time-line
Yet Atty. Yatooma is confident. “Whether he tells the truth, whether he lies, whether he pleads any amendment — I can’t help myself — we have him by the ‘texticles’,” Yatooma said. “We absolutely positively have text messages here that he can’t run from,” Yatooma said, referring to <a href=“Kilpatrick’s text messages with former lover and Chief of Staff Christine Beatty” http://www.theinsider.com/news/1292823_More_Text_Messages_Revealed <a/>that forced Kilpatrick to resign and landed him in prison.
New developments in the Tamara Greene case include the identity of the elusive second dancer (or perhaps even a third dancer since the second dancer fled to Atlanta, Georgia” http://www.normanyatooma.com/detail_inTheNews.php?id=357 shortly after the death of Greene on April 30, 2003 and was later found murdered by the same type of Detroit Police Department-issued weapon, a 40-calibre Glock, according to the affidavit of Lt. Alvin Bowman, http://www.clickondetroit.com/download/2008/0303/15478989.pdf
Bowman, the original investigating officer who “asked permission to go to Atlanta to investigate the death of this second dancer [“Nikki”] to check out what the [Michigan] State Police told him, and that’s when he was taken off the case.” Bowman said in his affidavit for the Greene case, “I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer.” Later Bowman won a $200,000 jury award against the City of Detroit for wrongful termination. http://www.zimbio.com/Kwame+Kilpatrick/articles/OVxfAS2NwvY/Political+Talk+Cox+Manoogian+Mansion+sounds
Tamika Ruffin, who also danced with Greene in her deposition, said she got $1,000 to perform at a drug-fueled party at the Detroit mayor’s mansion and saw Kwame Kilpatrick’s wife attack a woman who was giving the then-mayor a lap dance, according to court documents a lawyer released in November. At that hearing U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen ordered Yatooma to file an unsealed response to efforts by Kilpatrick and the city to dismiss a lawsuit by the family of Tamara Greene. http://detnews.com/article/20101119/METRO/11190437/Judge-orders-unsealing-of-file-in-Greene-case
According to Yatooma’s Third Amended Complaint, [add link] obtained from the attorney for purposes of this news article, “Tamika Ruffin gave a deposition in which she said guests got marijuana and cocaine at the 2002 party, and 10 police officers attended.” To corroborate these facts <a href=“Joe Thomas, Chief of Police of Southfield, Michigan an adjacent suburb northwest of Detroit openly admitted that he was personally invited to the Manoogian mansion party” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfMnRvBEmlc<a/> in Oct. 2002, but declined to attend.
Ruffin’s testimony corroborated the facts which most Detroiters and other observers following this case have known for years regarding unsolved murder case of Tamara Greene.
In the fall of 2002 Kilpatrick’s wife, Carlita, entered the party at the Manoogian mansion while the residence was still undergoing renovations for the newly-elected mayor, saw Greene giving her husband a lap dance and began punching her, according to Ruffin’s deposition. “Carlita Kilpatrick then began hitting Greene with a table leg or piece of lumber,” Ruffin was quoted as saying.
Since this is a civil and not a criminal case, Yatooma does not have to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of proof required is a preponderance of the evidence which means that a party will win if they can show that it is more likely than not that their contention is true.
Mrs. Kilpatrick’s attorney has already stated in court filings that Detroit’s former first lady will likely assert her 5th Amendment rights to avoid incriminating herself.
Wayne State University Law Professor Peter Henning says Carlita Kilpatrick is taking a risk in doing that.
“Whenever a witness asserts the 5th Amendment, there’s this idea that where there’s smoke there’s fire. And that there must be something else going on here. Whether that’s in fact the case, it certainly would put Mrs. Kilpatrick under a great deal more suspicion as to what happened with regard not only to the party, but the events after that,” said Henning.
Several City officials and Kilpatrick, who resigned in 2008 and now are in state prison for lying in another civil case, have denied such a party took place. They also have denied quashing the investigation of Greene’s death including confiscation of all computer, text, hospital and police records associate with this case.
Regarding such interference by city officials a Detroit EMS worker, Cenobio Chapa has won a multimillion dollar lawsuit against Detroit for unlawfully being fired when he spoke of a party at the Mayor’s mansion. http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19781854/detail.html However, the default judgment entered in his favor in June 2009 was subsequently set aside. Mr. Chapa’s case was dismissed by the Oakland County Circuit Court in November 2010. A motion for reconsideration is pending.
Ruffin further corroborated Chapa’s testimony of a party and violent fight in 2002 and said Greene stayed at her home several months after the party. Ruffin said during that period, the Mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick repeatedly called Tamara’s cell phone and threatened her with serious bodily harm.
Kilpatrick attorney James Thomas said at the November hearing that Ruffin “has a closed head injury, her memory was not very good on the details, and she lied during her deposition,” claims partially verified by the Detroit Free Press. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/11/closed-head_injuries_kwame_kil.html
Larry Dubin, a University of Detroit Mercy law professor, said it is not up to the public to decide who is credible: “The jury will be the judge of whether they’re telling the truth.” As Dubin points out, a jury ultimately may determine Ruffin’s credibility — if the case gets that far.
“The wild party and unlawful assault by Carlita Kilpatrick were all the motivation the obviously corrupt Kilpatrick required to cover up the investigation into Greene’s murder,” Yatooma wrote in the brief. “After all, who would notice just one more unsolved homicide into the City of Detroit?” The real and actual homicide figures in Detroit have long been the subject of obfuscation and deceit by Kilpatrick’s disgraced former Police Chief, Ella Bully-Cummings, so that the city formerly known as “the murder capital of America” won’t look so bad when it comes to crime statistics. http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/125438/121684.html?1198684158
When asked is Atty. Yatooma worried that Judge Rosen may dismiss his civil case against the City on grounds of insufficient evidence due to the recent occurrences that federal officials have canceled the trial date in the Greene lawsuit family lawyer Norman Yatooma said the move is merely a scheduling issue. With the holidays approaching and parties arguing over whether the city should be sanctioned for destroying Kilpatrick’s computer, Chief U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen indicated he likely would hold a hearing on the city and Kilpatrick’s motions for summary judgment early next year. “That Jan. 4 trial date is not plausible,” Yatooma said. “The court has made no indication the (summary judgment) motion will be granted, denied or anything at all.”
In a recent hearing on the case on Dec. 7, a federal magistrate ordered the City of Detroit to locate new evidence in a lawsuit involving slain dancer Tamara Greene said to have danced at a rumored but never-proved party at the Manoogian Mansion in Oct. 2002.
Magistrate Judge Steven Whalen gave city attorney John Schapka seven days to find two external hard drives labeled “Mayor’s backup” that were created by a city computer specialist from ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s home computer. http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101207/NEWS01/12070311/Judge-orders-Detroit-to-dig-up-data-from-ex-mayor-s-computer&template=artsemantics&server=MOC-WN0478
Whalen also ordered Schapka to search for one or more CDs containing files the city downloaded from Kilpatrick’s city computer before Kilpatrick’s hard drive went missing.
Yatooma also wants Whalen to sanction the city for failing to turn over Kilpatrick’s e-mails for a nine-month period surrounding the rumored party and Greene’s death. The city says its e-mail system automatically destroyed those years before the suit was filed.
In the new 52-count federal lawsuit filed Dec. 15, against ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father Bernard Kilpatrick, and aides, city contractor Bobby Ferguson, former water department chief Victor Mercado, and former top aide Derrick Miller, are targeted in a landmark public corruption investigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO statute) on multiple counts of extortion, bribery, and fraud.
The author’s of the Detroit News article wrote: “It is vitally important to hold those public servants accountable when they exploit the power and resources of their position for personal benefit at the expense of their constituents.” http://www.freep.com/article/20101215/NEWS01/101215008/1321/Feds-Kilpatrick-dad-and-aides-extorted-bribed-took-kickbacks
Yoko Ono said that “true artists are prophets” If so, for in Feb. 2008 I wrote an article on a hit-rap song about the Tamara Greene case—“Detroit rapper: Our mayor’s a murder,” http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=56845 Detroit-based rapper, “The Virus” predicted the fall and imprisonment of the pathological narcissist, mayor Kilpatrick almost 3 years to the day. In one of his lyrics The Virus rhapsodizes:
I can’t believe what I’m seeing, I’m watch’n the headlines, man these allegations go’n get me some fed[eral] time.
I’m mad! I got to do someth’n quick [shotgun cock sound] or maybe I could tell the truth, then they know I ain’t sh–!
Gotta make her disappear dog, no exceptions, find out where she lives and conceal the weapon …
Accountability?—Indeed along with justice, this is exactly what Yatooma is seeking for Tamara Greene’s three orphaned children—ages 17, 14 and 9; to hold ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his corrupt cronies, and all of the Detroit city officials complicit in the cover up of the mayoral mansion party in 2002 which led to the brutal death of a young mother struggling to work, go to school, start her own business, and raise her children in the unforgiving mean streets of Detroit.
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