Yesterday there were closing arguments in the restitution hearing for the former Mayor of Detroit, Kilpatrick. He stopped stopped paying the agreed upon restitution on time ($6K/mth), claiming that his income had changed. Of course the County Prosecutor did not see it that way and thus began a very bitter and heated, yet thoroughly entertaining restitution hearing. It was revealed that Kilpatrick had received a $240K "loan" from Detroit Area businessmen, including the owner of the company at which he currently works, a $50K gift from the owner of the Ambassador Bridge (who is working with the Mayor's mother -the local congresswoman- to prevent a competing bridge from being established. It also came out that despite at one point claiming to only having $6 left in his accounts at the end of the month, Kilpatrick was spending thousands of dollars on tithes, plastic surgery for his wife and was even having other people pay his restitution. He's also under FBI investigation.

So now in addition to asking for an order for Kilpatrick to pay up, the prosecutor is also asking for a finding of probation violation.
Probation Violation Claim

There was one argument that Kilpatrick's attorneys made which was both simple and quite audacious. They pointed out that the order of restitution ordered Kilpatrick to pay $6K/mth and that (according to them) after 6 mths the restitution amt shall be adjusted to reflect 30% of his gross income.

The Court Order didn't say WHO should do the adjustment so Kilpatrick took it upon himself to adjust his restitution amount because as he earnestly claimed on the stand, he was eager to obey the Court's mandatory order.



Here's a question for any legal minds. Do the attorneys have a point? Is the order sufficiently vague enough to allow the probationer to make adjustments without first checking with the Court and/or State? The judge who will rule on this is the same judge who issued the original order.

Court Order