As you may or may not begin to guess, I have been assigned to the South Eastern Michigan region for the boss’ domination inquisition, so I tend to notice a lot of what’s going on in and around Detroit. It’s not necessarily fair, but I’m suffering as much as you are…

Anyways, Detroiters are well aware of the Kwame Kilpatrick Saga, and while I sometimes think that he’s being treated unfairly, the bottom line is this: Kwame Kilpatrick is no evil genius. For that matter, Kwame Kilpatrick is no genius. Evil remains to be seen, but the bottom line is that the path to hell is paved with good intentions and bad ideas, and I’m sure Mr. Kilpatrick has had plenty of both of those.

Going back several years, Kilpatrick plead guilty to various perjury charges stemming from his attempts to cover-up an affair he had been having with his aide. Cheating is one thing, but misusing city assets to cover it up is just plain stupid: there’s going to be accountability at some point. I’m going to decline the opportunity to rant on that at this time, but the bottom line is he eventually admitted his guilt, accepted the terms of a plea bargain which included a minimal jail term of 120 days, and $1 million in reparations. He did his time, and he even got permission to move out of state to work for a Detroit based company’s location in Texas. Fine, whatever.

Then he began to shoot himself in the foot.

The first key to being an evil genius is to be low key: avoid drawing attention to yourself.

Early in his post jail days, Kwame stopped paying the $6,000 per month reparations, claiming that he could only pay $6 per month after his bills, legal fees, and other expenses. He filed paperwork requesting that the amount be lowered so that he could make ends meet. This is reasonable.

Let me amend that: This is reasonable if:

1. You aren’t making $200,000 per year in your new job.
2. You didn’t move into a large exclusive home in a gated community.
3. You and your spouse aren’t driving new expensive sport utility vehicles.
4. You aren’t paying for your spouse’s expensive cosmetic surgery procedures.
5. You didn’t accept loans and gifts from businessmen you were associated with in excess of $200,000.

By these things, it is completely unreasonable to state that you can only afford to pay $6 per month for your restitution. The only thing that Kwame did is draw attention to himself by complaining and filing the paperwork stating that he couldn’t afford to make those payments properly. But it didn’t end there…!

Having put himself in the spotlight, Kwame then tried to hide his financial status by not cooperating with the courts while they were trying to properly determine his financial status. No court in the world would make a ruling without evidence or information to weigh with regards to a legal motion. Kwame stated he could only pay $6, the court needed to confirm that. He had to have known from the moment he filed the motion that the court was going to request the information, so why did he refuse to cooperate?

The second key to being an evil genius is that if attention does get focused on you, make the attention go away as quickly as possible.

If Kwame had fully cooperated at the start of his quest to get his restitution lowered, the motion might have been denied, but it wouldn’t have snowballed. The denial might have stirred the waters a bit, but ultimately the status quo might not have changed at all. No one would have cared, the media wouldn’t have made a big deal, the spotlight would have moved on. Instead, Kwame kept fighting the fact finding investigations and requests for financial information, and attempted to conceal his family’s finances. In court he feigned ignorance of details he should reasonably know. The only thing these actions did is draw more attention to himself, and his refusal to cooperate with terms that he previously agreed to.

Bad move. No sign of intelligence there.  At all. With leadership like that, it’s no wonder Detroit fell to the lows it’s now trying to climb out of. Great work, Kwame!

The only time that a lie might have actually have helped him, Kwame told the truth! In today’s sentencing hearing, Kwame made an impassioned plea to the judge to let him continue with his probation, saying that he wasn’t thinking about his commitments when he got out of jail, only how he could buy his family’s love and respect back. In my estimation, he should have told the judge that he was a compulsive liar, and that he needs to get treatment. This would have forced the judge to order a psych evaluation prior to sentencing, which no doubt would have determined that Kwame is not of sound mind, and needs regular psychiatric care he couldn’t reasonably get in prison. Result: Kwame would have court ordered treatment while on parole in the care and presence of his friends and family.

My verdict: Kwame Kilpatrick is not an evil genius.

By the way, to all those that claim that there’s a racist conspiracy working to “break Kwame down”: wake up. Kwame did this to himself. If he had just kept his mouth shut, paid his $6,000 per month like the court ordered, he could have continued living the high life without anyone in the courts ever raising an eyebrow. He brought this upon himself, foolishly. No racism was involved. You don’t have to have a conspiracy against you to be stupid.