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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN, BUT THIS PRE- ELECTION STORY SOUND CONTRIVED! I AM ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF LAST MINUTE REVELATIONS.
Manoogian Mansion Witness Has Criminal Background
Cox Fires Back After Allegations He Was At Manoogian Mansion Party
POSTED: Monday, July 26, 2010
UPDATED: 9:37 am EDT July 27, 2010
DETROIT -- Local 4 Defenders have obtained a signed affidavit from a man who says he was hired to work security at the rumored-but-never-proven Detroit Manoogian Mansion party.
Watch: Defenders: Manoogian Mansion Witness Goes On Record
Watch: Defenders: Rumored Party Witness; Cox's Response
Tamara Greene, a dancer known as Strawberry, was rumored to have been at the alleged party thrown by former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in 2002.
On April 30, 2003, Greene was in a car with her boyfriend on Detroit's west side when a gunman opened fire on their vehicle, killing Greene and wounding the boyfriend.
Kilpatrick has publicly denounced the party, saying, “It never happened.”
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox also investigated the rumors and concluded that the party had “all the earmarks for an urban legend.”
But the sworn testimony in the affidavit claims that the witness was at the party, and that the witness saw Cox there.
“I attended a party at the Manoogian Mansion in Detroit, Michigan, in 2002, at which I witnessed Kwame Kilpatrick, Bernard Kilpatrick, and Mike Cox in attendance … Myself and others at my motorcycle club were hired to work security at the party,” the affidavit reads.
There are also statements that read the witness saw exotic dancers performing lap dances.
“I witnessed female exotic dancers present at the party who were performing for various persons in attendance, including Kwame Kilpatrick … I saw Mike Cox getting a lap dance from one of the female exotic dancers while he was present at the party,” a line reads.
The witness also states he saw Kilpatrick’s wife, Carlita, arrive to the party unannounced and assault Greene.
“During the party, Kwame Kilpatrick's wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, arrived unexpectedly and observed Tamara Greene performing a lap dance on Kwame Kilpatrick … I then saw Carlita Kilpatrick punch Tamara Greene, causing Tamara Greene to fall onto a coffee table and to break the coffee table. Carlita Kilpatrick then grabbed a table leg from the broken coffee table and struck Tamara Greene once with the wooden table leg.”
"Finally someone coming forward and saying, 'Yes, I was at the party.' Kwame was there, Bernard was there and Tammy Greene was there and she took a severe beating at the hands of Carlita Kilpatrick," said Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma, who is representing Greene's family in a $150 million wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Detroit.
Yatooma's lawsuit claims Kilpatrick and high-ranking police obstructed the investigation into Greene's unsolved slaying because it would reveal the truth about the never-proven party.
"I have no reason at all to believe that he is not giving us absolute honest to God's truth, and he swore to it. He swore under oath," said Yatooma.
Carlita Kilpatrick and Bernard Kilpatrick are expected to give depositions in the Greene lawsuit in August.
They have asked a federal judge to quash a request to depose them. Their attorneys said they will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights during the deposition and Carlita Kilpatrick will use her spousal privileges against providing information against her husband.
To read the full story, click here.
Cox, who is running for governor of Michigan, said the timing of the testimony is a move to negatively influence his campaign.
"It is absolutely ridiculous. Here we have 800,000 people without jobs and we have a last minute shot to try and influence an election and try to get more money out of the city. After eight years?" Cox said. "If there was a witness wouldn’t we think that Kym Worthy would find a witness? That the state police would have found a witness? Gary Brown and researching his lawsuit would have found a witness."
Yatooma said the timing is not political and has nothing to do with the elections. He said it's the federal courts that schedule the dates of the depositions, and that's why this affidavit is coming out now.
Cox said he won't be put back by the accusations.
“It’s not a surprise, absolutely not a surprise. I’m a big boy, I’m a Marine, I can’t take some shots. And at the end of the day, I’ll let the people decide,” Cox said. "I think people know that I can stand up. I’m a 21-year prosecutor and I’ve had cops that have stood up for me, and I’m pretty confident that ,at the end of the day, people will make the right choice."
T. Berry, a former Detroit Police lieutenant who investigated the Greene homicide case, said he agrees with Cox.
“I think it’s ludicrous. I think it's phony baloney," he said.
The witnesses name is not being revealed because he said he fears for his life and has already received death threats.
A police report was filed in Dearborn, asking for police protection for the witness.
Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad confirmed that a report was filed Monday, but "because of the sensitive nature of the report" he could not comment on it.
Local 4 has learned a little more about the new witness.
He is a 35-year-old man with a checkered background and extensive criminal history.
1996: He pleaded guilty in Oakland County for breaking and entering and weapons charges.
1997: He was found guilty in Wayne County for attempted arson.
2001: He was found guilty of a weapons charge and possessing marijuana.
Local 4 has learned the Detroit Police Department arrested the witness multiple times between 1997 and 2004.
In June 2004, the witness was arrested on a felony warrant during a traffic stop and was taken back to the 12th precinct, where he, according to police "acted like he fainted" and was transported to the hospital.
Four months later, he filed a report saying police kicked him, broke his fingers, dragged him to a scout car and brought him to the hospital and when he woke up, he was back in his prison cell.
If the witness is found to have given false testimony while under oath, he could face up to two years in prison. |
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Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:18 pm |
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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN, BUT THIS PRE- ELECTION STORY SOUND CONTRIVED! I AM ALWAYS SUSPICIOUS OF LAST MINUTE REVELATIONS.
Though last minute revelations may be suspect, and I don't have an opinion about this "witness," I don't like Cox's conclusion the party had “all the earmarks for an urban legend.” I believe there was a cover-up in the Detroit Police Department involving an allegation that Kilpatrick's wife assaulted Tamara Greene at the party. The links for these articles are no longer good. I also have the PDF files for the two exhibits mentioned.
Michigan Department of State Police
Supplemental Incident Report 0024
Original Date: Tue, May 27, 2003
Supplementary Date: Tue, Apr 12, 2005
Incident No.COC-0000026-03 (CC)
File Class 48000
Interview Douglas Gaylord Bayer
Exhibit 12
02-29-2008 Affidavit of Lt. Alvin Donald Bowman
Monday, March 3, 2008
Ex-police official believes Greene killed by Detroit cop, court record shows
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- A former homicide lieutenant who investigated the death of exotic dancer Tamara Greene said in a sworn affidavit he suspects the woman was killed by a member of the Detroit Police Department.
Lt. Alvin Bowman also said in the affidavit he is aware of links between Greene and "high-ranking city employees" and an unnamed associate of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Bowman gave the deposition in a federal lawsuit brought by Greene's family against the city of Detroit, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and other city officials.
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Greene's family alleges that top city officials interfered with the investigation of Greene's April 30, 2003, drive-by killing for political reasons. City officials deny the allegations.
Greene's name has been linked to a long rumored but never substantiated party at the mayor's Manoogian Mansion.
Bowman, who alleged in a separate lawsuit that he was transferred out of homicide for attempting to investigate Greene's killing, said in a Feb. 29 affidavit, "I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer."
Bowman was awarded $200,000 in a jury trial against the city.
Deputy Chief James Tate, a spokesman for Detroit police, could not be reached for comment this morning. James Canning, a spokesman for the mayor, declined comment, citing ongoing litigation.
Mayer Morganroth, the Southfield attorney representing the city and the mayor in the Greene civil lawsuit, today described the Bowman allegations as "garbage."
"It's ridiculous," Morganroth said of the party allegations. "Find a person who was there. Find a person who knows anything firsthand."
Greene was shot about 18 times with a .40 caliber weapon -- the kind issued to Detroit police -- while sitting in a parked vehicle, Bowman said in the affidavit.
Bowman believed Greene was the target of a contract killing, partly because the shooter had ample opportunity to shoot the male passenger in the vehicle, but did not do so, he said.
"In the course of our investigation, I learned from the Michigan State Police that they possessed a telephone record linking Ms. Greene to high-ranking city employees not long before her murder," Bowman said in the affidavit.
"I also learned that Tamara Greene danced for and was employed by an associate of Mayor Kilpatrick."
Morganroth said Attorney General Mike Cox investigated the party allegations and ruled it an urban legend. A .40 caliber Glock is a gun frequently used by drug dealers, not just police officers, he said.
The mayor is embroiled in a controversy over $8.4 million in city settlements paid to three other former Detroit police officers who filed whistle-blower suits alleging they were retaliated against for reporting or investigating matters related to the party and/or alleged wrongdoing by the mayor and his police bodyguards.
The mayor signed a secret agreement as part of the settlements requiring that text messages exchanged in 2002 and 2003 between him and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty be kept under wraps. The text messages, disclosed by the media in January, point to an affair between Kilpatrick and Beatty, and possible perjury after both testified at a whistle-blower trial last year. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is investigating.
Bowman alleged both former Detroit Police Chief Jerry Oliver and current Chief Ella Bully-Cummings gave "an unexplainable amount of attention" to the Greene case, with Oliver on numerous occasions requesting the file be sent to his office for review.
"On each occasion, the file was returned … with reports missing from the file," Bowman alleges in the affidavit.
Under Bully-Cummings, the file was prematurely sent to the "cold case" file, despite the fact the killing was less than a year old and was being actively investigated, he said.
Another officer on the homicide squad, Sgt. Marion Stevenson, said her case notes on the Greene murder "were erased from her computer hard drive" and "her zip storage files disappeared from a locked cabinet inside the police department," Bowman said.
"The members of my squad and I were aware or otherwise believed that the file was given to cold case and that I was transferred because neither Mayor Kilpatrick not his Chief of Staff Christine Beatty wanted there to be an investigation of the Manoogian Mansion party," Bowman alleged.
The lawyer representing part of Greene's family, Norman Yatooma, also filed in court a Michigan State Police report of an interview with an emergency medical technician who said he witnessed a disturbance at Detroit Receiving Hospital in the fall of 2002 at which he was told "the mayor's wife had beat down some b----."
A prominent feature of the Manoogian Mansion party rumor has been the allegation that Kilpatrick's wife, Carlita, arrived at the party and assaulted an exotic dancer.
Douglas Bayer, described in a Michigan State Police report as an EMT with the Detroit Fire Department, said he arrived at the hospital on a call and "observed a large crowd in the reception area who were causing a commotion." He said the crowd of about 20-25 people included blacks and whites, males and females, some well-dressed, and "two individuals had Secret Service-type earpieces."
On the way out of the hospital, Bayer asked a group of EMT workers outside the hospital what the commotion was about and was told it related to an assault on a woman by the mayor's wife, the police report stated.
You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or pegan@detnews.com.
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Source:
http://detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080303/METRO/803030423
Court records: Ex-cop thinks stripper was killed by Detroit officer
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 3, 2008
It’s a mystery that never had a definitive answer, the story of a Detroit stripper known as Strawberry who was killed in a hail of gunfire while sitting in a car with her boyfriend in the predawn darkness of April 30, 2003.
Since then, Detroit police and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have combated persistent rumors and lawsuit allegations that Tamara Greene was killed because she danced at a wild party at the Manoogian Mansion.
Despite repeated denials by the mayor and a state investigation that dismissed the claims as an urban legend, the story has persisted and is being fueled by fresh allegations raised by a former homicide detective as part of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Greene’s 14-year-old son, Jonathan Bond.
In a 10-page affidavit filed Friday in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, former Lt. Alvin Bowman says he believes Greene, 27, was killed by a Detroit cop and that police officials derailed his homicide investigation.
“I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer,” Bowman said in the document.
Detroit police spokesman James Tate declined to comment on Bowman’s allegations Monday, citing the pending federal litigation.
Southfield lawyer Mayer Morganroth, who is defending the city in the federal suit, scoffed at the allegations.
“The Bowman affidavit is a little less than idiotic and more than absurd,” Morganroth said. “And there’s nothing in it that hasn’t been said before.”
Morganroth said no one has ever produced evidence that a Manoogian party occurred or that Greene was there. He added that the pending suit has little chance of success.
Affidavit alleges obstruction
The federal suit charges that the mayor, then-chief of staff Christine Beatty and police execs scuttled the investigation so no killer would be found, preventing the family from finding who was behind her death.
In the affidavit, Bowman laid out how he says Detroit police executives, including then-Chief Jerry Oliver and his successor, Ella Bully-Cummings, sabotaged him.
He said reports were removed from the homicide file, files were deleted from homicide computers and the file itself was locked up so Bowman couldn’t get it. Eventually, he said, he was transferred out of homicide because he had asked too many questions.
Bowman said Greene worked for an associate of the mayor, but he didn’t say whom. He also claimed in the affidavit that State Police obtained telephone records linking Greene to high-ranking city employees shortly before her death.
Bowman won a $200,000 verdict from a Wayne County Circuit Court jury in October 2005 after he said he was demoted because he refused to drop the case. Bowman, who had asked for $1.8 million, eventually left the force.
Greene died at 3:40 a.m. April 30, 2003, while sitting in her car with her 32-year-old boyfriend on Roselawn at West Outer Drive. The killing was never solved. The boyfriend was wounded but survived.
Bowman said Greene took about 18 bullets in the attack.
Bowman said he believes a Detroit cop killed Greene because of the large number of bullets that hit Greene and the .40-caliber shell casings found at the scene. Detroit police use .40-caliber Glock pistols.
After the first hail of bullets, Bowman said, the white Chevrolet TrailBlazer from which the shots were fired circled back for another pass, but the boyfriend wasn’t shot at, prompting Bowman to conclude Greene was the only target.
Reaction to the document
Birmingham lawyer Norman Yatooma , who represents Greene’s son in the suit, said no one is in a better position to talk about the shooting or how the investigation was ruined than Bowman. “What more do you need?” he said.
A spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who concluded in June 2003 that the party was an urban legend, defended Cox’s five-week probe. Rusty Hills said Monday that Cox and State Police interviewed more than 120 witnesses and reviewed 10,000 pages of records.
“If anybody has any evidence, we’d love to see it,” Hills said. “But for the last five years, there’s been no evidence.”
But the Free Press reported that State Police investigators later complained Cox had impeded their probe by denying some of their subpoena and search warrant requests, and by excluding them from Cox’s interview of the mayor.
In the affidavit, Bowman said the Greene investigation inexplicably drew a lot of attention from Oliver and He said Oliver asked for the file repeatedly and sent it back with reports missing.
Oliver responded Monday that he never requested the file, never saw it and never had a conversation about the Greene case. He said he did not know Bowman.
“His statements are inaccurate,” Oliver said.
After Bully-Cummings became chief, Bowman said, she summoned him to a meeting with other police brass, said she was aware of the connection between the Greene probe and the mayor, and “due to the nature and sensitivity of this case, that this case was not to be discussed outside her office.”
He said a police executive put the homicide file in a combination-locked safe that he couldn’t access.
Bowman said that while he was on vacation, the Greene case was transferred to the cold case squad, even though it was less than a year old. He said the officer in charge of that unit told him the Greene case was “a hot potato” that wouldn’t be investigated for fear of retribution because of Greene’s link to the Manoogian party.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490 or ashenf@freepress.com. Staff writers M.L. Elrick, Jim Schaefer and Ben Schmitt contributed to this report.
Find this article at:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080303/NEWS01/80303045 |
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Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:29 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Excellent point and I totally agree. I think Cox did not do a thorough investigation into the party and probably did so for political reasons. I just find it hard to believe this affidavit and find the story hard to believe. |
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Wed Jul 28, 2010 12:45 pm |
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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:40 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Records could discredit witness in Manoogian party case
BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Comments (6) Recommend Print E-mail Letter to the editor Share Facebook Twitter FarkIt Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine Buzz up!
Wilson Kay Jr., the only person known to have claimed being at a rumored-but-never-proved Manoogian Mansion party in 2002, was ordered held in a psychiatric clinic as a danger to himself and others in a 2000-01 criminal case, court records show.
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The court file on the marijuana and drug case contains a two-page document from Aurora Healthcare Inc. saying that Kay “is not mentally stable and is not ready for discharge/released to the community.”
It also says that Wayne County Probate Judge Freddy Burton ordered Kay could be held for inpatient treatment.
Legal experts say the records raise questions about Kay’s claims in an affidavit that he saw then-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Attorney General Mike Cox getting lap dances at the party. Kay also alleged that the mayor’s wife assaulted a stripper there.
Cox said Saturday that Kay’s story is a lie and that Kay “is being used by others for political and financial gain.”
The affidavit, taken by lawyer Norman Yatooma, who represents the family of a slain exotic dancer in a lawsuit against the city and Kilpatrick, surfaced a week before the primary election in which Cox is a Republican gubernatorial candidate.
Kay is now a victim, Yatooma said. “He’s become a punching bag for the tri-county area. And he’s become a warning to others that might come forward.”
Yatooma said he did not know of Kay's mental history when he took a sworn statement from the self-described motorcycle club member on July 13 about attending the rumored party.
Yatooma said Kay, whose last known address was in Dearborn, showed no signs of mental problems and gave a consistent account to several people over a period of months.
Kay feared for his safety, Yatooma said, and now has dropped from sight -- missing a recent federal deposition, where he would have had to testify under oath and been cross-examined by defense attorneys in a lawsuit against the city filed by Yatooma on behalf of the family of Tamara Greene, an exotic dancer killed in a drive-by shooting several months after she purportedly danced at the party.
Attempts to reach Kay at a variety of current and previous addresses were unsuccessful.
The Greene family's suit claims the city and Kilpatrick sabotaged the investigation, preventing her killers from being brought to justice.
If Kay's testimony is key to Yatooma's argument, questions about Kay's credibility could tarnish the affidavit.
Veteran lawyers and experts said Kay's credibility could be challenged, but they did not fault Yatooma for not diving deeply into his past at this pretrial stage.
"Lots of witnesses have pasts; there is no such thing as a witness without a history," said Len Niehoff, who teaches ethics and evidence at the University of Michigan law school.
Detroit attorney Bill Goodman said even with a problematic past, such a witness and his account "still can bear some weight."
Goodman said a good lawyer may take a sworn affidavit from a crucial witness as backup in case his story changes.
Other witnesses have corroborated elements of Kay's account, Yatooma said. But Kay is the only person to claim to have actually attended the purported 2002 party.
Kay, who said that he and members of a motorcycle club worked paid security at the purported party, also said state Attorney General Mike Cox was there and received a lap dance. Kay's security claims were dismissed as ridiculous by former police officers, Cox and others.
Cox said Saturday that he didn't even know Kilpatrick in 2002 and that it is preposterous "to think that I was hanging out with him."
Cox, too, has questioned Kay's credibility, citing his criminal past.
Kay got probation after pleading no contest to a reduced charge of attempted arson in 1997. That court file contains letters he sent to judges pleading his innocence. Some letters are accompanied by detailed pencil drawings of motorcycles, signed "Willy Will."
As for the apparent leak of Kay's sworn statement, Kwame Kilpatrick's lawyer James Thomas called it: "gamesmanship ... timed just before the election."
Kay's lawyer from a past drug and gun case, Melinda Cameron, said she was aware that he "had a psychiatric history," but said he was able to stand trial in 2001.
In a bench trial before Wayne County Circuit Judge Brian Sullivan, Kay was convicted of the reduced charges of misdemeanor marijuana possession and carrying a concealed weapon, a felony. He got two years of probation.
Sullivan said there "had to be some facts to predicate" the 2000 psychiatric order, however "that condition was not present at the time of trial" in 2001.
Cameron said she is skeptical of Kay's Manoogian party claim, saying, "I don't see how that could be correct. ... The probability is slim to none."
Contact JOE SWICKARD: 313-222-8769 or jswickard@freepress.com
Court records show Wilson Kay Jr. was ruled to be mentally unstable in an unrelated case. Kay gave an affidavit in the Manoogian party lawsuit. (Wayne County Circuit Court)
A version of this story appears on page 7A of the Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010, print edition of the Detroit Free Press. |
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Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:34 am |
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