Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was among 70 people who had their prison sentences overturned by President Trump on Wednesday morning, just hours before the president’s term ended.
Commuting was long sought by Kilpatrick, 50, who served nearly seven years of a 28-year sentence for crimes of public corruption for which he was convicted in 2013.
As a result of President Trump’s decision, Kilpatrick will be released from prison sooner.
Seventy-three other people, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, received pardons from the president.
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Kilpatrick, a Detroit native and Democrat, was a representative of the state of Michigan from 1997 to 2002 before serving as mayor of Detroit from 2002 to 2008.
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The former mayor’s downfall began when the Detroit Free Press ran text messages between him and his chief of staff that seemed to show that he lied during a police whistleblower’s trial while denying a case between the two. He resigned his position in 2008.
Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison in 2013 after being convicted of conspiracy, extortion, fraud, extortion and tax crimes related to overthrowing contractors and rewarding his allies. The government called the scheme “Kilpatrick company”.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is sitting in a Detroit court. The disgraced ex-mayor is scheduled to be released from prison after commuting by President Trump on Wednesday morning. (Associated Press)
He maintained his innocence and has fought his sentence ever since. However, all of its resources have failed over the years.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied its original appeal of its conviction and sentence in 2015, according to Detroit’s WDIV-TV.
He filed another motion in 2017 to overturn his prison sentence, which was denied by a district court judge, the station reported.
He later asked Trump for presidential pardon and leniency on a blog in 2018.
“By the grace of God, I received His forgiveness through Christ Jesus. I pray that you will receive the forgiveness / mercy opportunity of the President of the United States as well,” he wrote on the Free Kwame Project website, according to FOX 2 of Detroit.
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In 2019, he was again denied by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to reports. The US Supreme Court has even refused to hear your case, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Last year, rumors spread that he would be released sooner and would be allowed to live in home confinement in Georgia, the newspaper reported.
In November, State Representative Karen Whitsett and her family members said Kilpatrick would be released – after alleging in May that he would be out due to the coronavirus. Both never happened.
In a February letter to President Trump, the Ebony Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating mass incarceration, argued that Kilpatrick’s long sentence was not appropriate for his crimes.
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Kilpatrick was jailed in a low-security prison in Louisiana and was originally scheduled to be released in January 2037, before Trump’s commutation order was announced on Wednesday morning.
Brie Stimson and Louis Casiano of Fox News contributed to this report.