Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of 24 federal corruption charges, including racketeering, extortion and bribery, according to reports from NBC News, and cnn.com.
This concluded a trial "in which prosecutors said he presided over a breathtaking profit machine that turned City Hall into 'Kilpatrick Incorporated.'"
Kilpatrick, who was the Detroit mayor from 2002 until his resignation in 2008, was found guilty on 24 of 30 counts in federal court, facing up to 20 years in prison.
The jury found Kilpatrick sought to enrich himself through bid rigging, extortion, and using non-profit funds to help himself. Prosecutors said the defendants were "working together to abuse Kilpatrick's public offices, both his position as a state representative as well as his position of mayor of Detroit, to unjustly enrich himself - including yoga lessons, golf clubs and camp for his kids- and through a pattern of extortion, bribery and fraud," CNN reported.
In September 2008, the ex-mayor pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice stemming from his efforts to cover up an extramarital affair. He also pleaded no contest to charges of assaulting a police officer who was attempting to serve a subpoena on a Kilpatrick friend in that case.
Kilpatrick, a Democrat, was just 31 when he was elected mayor in 2001. His tenure was defined by allegations of cronyism, nepotism and out-of-control spending, coinciding with the continued decline of the city itself.
Contractor Bobby Ferguson also was found guilty on Monday of racketeering and extortion. Kilpatrick's father, Bernard Kilpatrick, was found guilty of a single tax count and not guilty on two others charges, according to WDIV in Detroit.
Detroit's current mayor, Dave Bing, and NBA Hall of Famer said in a statement that "we can finally put this negative chapter in Detroit's history behind us," calling for a renewed commitment to transparency and ethics in city government.
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