Christine Beatty
Encyclopedia
Christine Rowland Beatty (born May 1970) served as the Chief of Staff
from 2002 to 2008 to Detroit
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
.
In January 2008, Beatty resigned amid an emerging political
-sex scandal
and criminal charges of perjury
related to a whistleblower
trial for lying under oath
about their extramarital affair
and that they sought to mislead jurors
when they testified
that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief
Gary Brown. Kilpatrick has already plea
ded guilty September 4, 2008, to two felony
obstruction of justice
charges, and was sentenced to four months in jail
on October 28, 2008. She was offered several plea bargain
s from Wayne County
Prosecutor
Kym Worthy
--one for as little as 150 days of prison time—but she has refused. Beatty was a respondent in a $25,000 settled slander lawsuit
initiated by two other police officer
s.
On December 1, 2008, Beatty agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts, serve 120 days in jail, pay $100,000 in restitution, and be on probation for five years. She was sentenced and began her jail term on January 6, 2009.
and was voted its "most-popular student" in 1988 and was a Majorette. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Howard University
and a master's degree from Wayne State University
.
She married Lou Beatty and they have two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 2006. Beatty recently has suspended her status as a student of Wayne State University Law School
as a condition of her probation. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-06-kilpatrick-aide_n.htm
, brought about by two police officers that claimed to have been slandered in the media by the trio.
The lawsuit stems from a 2004 incident in which the two police officers pulled Beatty over for speeding. Beatty was irate at being stopped and bluntly asked the officers, "Do you know who the fuck I am?" when the officers came to the vehicle. While stopped, Beatty called Police Chief Bully-Cummings to have the officers called off, which the officers allege they were ordered to do. When reports of the incident started to surface in the media, Beatty, Kilpatrick and Bully-Cummings all claimed that the traffic stop was some type of "set-up" to harass Beatty.
The parties in the law suit entered into mediation which recommended a settlement of $25,000 which was rejected twice by the Detroit City Council.
The attorney for the officers said "The mayor has been exposed and I may want more money for my clients now," after it was revealed through text messages that Kilpatrick and Beatty were involved in a sexual relationship that both denied under oath.
The lawsuit was settled for $25,000 and the attorney for the officers said of the officers,"They don’t want to be embroiled in this whole [text messaging] scandal."
In January 2008, The Detroit Free Press examined more than 14,000 text messages
exchanged between Beatty and Kilpatrick on their city issued SkyTel pagers between September–October 2002 and April–May 2003. The dates are of importance because they encompass the time periods of the alleged Manoogian Mansion
party and the ouster of Gary Brown respectively.
Beatty and Kilpatrick, both married to other people at the time, did discuss city business. However, many of the series of messages described not a professional relationship but an extramarital sexual relationship between the two, often in graphic detail. The text messages further described their use of city funds to arrange romantic getaways, their fears of being caught by the mayor's police protection unit, and evidence the pair conspired to fire Detroit Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown.
In an August 2007 trial, Kilpatrick and Beatty both denied that they had a sexual relationship or that they fired Brown while under oath.
Beatty resigned as mayoral chief of staff stating "I believe that it is clear I can no longer effectively carry out the duties of chief of staff." She did not indicate if she would resign from her position of the Detroit Medical Center
board of directors.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy began an investigation of perjury charges after the Detroit Free Press
revealed the existence of text messages which supported allegations that Kilpatrick and Beatty lied under oath about an extramarital affair during a lawsuit brought by Detroit police officers.
The investigation ended with Beatty being charged with seven felonies
consisting of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice. The charges carry a maximum sentence of five to fifteen years in prison.
On March 16, 2009, Beatty was released from Wayne County Jail having served 69 days of her sentence.
Chief of Staff
The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
from 2002 to 2008 to Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick is a former mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Kilpatrick's mayorship was plagued by numerous scandals and rampant accusations of corruption, with the mayor eventually resigning after being charged with ten felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice...
.
In January 2008, Beatty resigned amid an emerging political
Political scandal
A political scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt, or unethical practices...
-sex scandal
Sex scandal
A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about possibly-immoral sexual activities being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with movie stars, politicians, famous athletes or others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the...
and criminal charges of perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
related to a whistleblower
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
trial for lying under oath
Oath
An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...
about their extramarital affair
Affair
Affair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity of a temporary duration, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romantic affair.-Political affair:...
and that they sought to mislead jurors
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
when they testified
Testimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. All testimonies should be well thought out and truthful. It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on a Bible when taking an oath...
that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief
Chief of police
A Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
Gary Brown. Kilpatrick has already plea
Plea
In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a civil or criminal case under common law using the adversary system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a criminal defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response to a criminal charge, whether that...
ded guilty September 4, 2008, to two felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
obstruction of justice
Obstruction of justice
The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of interfering with the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other officials...
charges, and was sentenced to four months in jail
Jail
A jail is a short-term detention facility in the United States and Canada.Jail may also refer to:In entertainment:*Jail , a 1966 Malayalam movie*Jail , a 2009 Bollywood movie...
on October 28, 2008. She was offered several plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
s from Wayne County
Wayne County, Michigan
-History:Wayne County was one of the first counties formed when the Northwest Territory was organized. It was named for the American general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It originally encompassed the entire area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, as well as small sections that are now part of northern...
Prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
Kym Worthy
Kym Worthy
Kym L. Worthy is the current prosecutor of Wayne County, Michigan. She is the second African-American to serve as a county prosecutor in Michigan, the first one being Stuart Dunnings III in Ingham County, Michigan which includes Lansing...
--one for as little as 150 days of prison time—but she has refused. Beatty was a respondent in a $25,000 settled slander lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
initiated by two other police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
s.
On December 1, 2008, Beatty agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts, serve 120 days in jail, pay $100,000 in restitution, and be on probation for five years. She was sentenced and began her jail term on January 6, 2009.
Personal life
Beatty, who was born Christine L. Rowland, graduated from Cass Tech High SchoolCass Technical High School
The Cass Tech Technicians football team is a high school football program in Division 1 Public School League, representing the prestigious Cass Technical High School in Detroit, MI. Cass Tech High School has long been recognized nationwide for its extraordinary football program dating back to its...
and was voted its "most-popular student" in 1988 and was a Majorette. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
and a master's degree from Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
.
She married Lou Beatty and they have two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 2006. Beatty recently has suspended her status as a student of Wayne State University Law School
Wayne State University Law School
Wayne State University Law School is located in the City of Detroit’s Cultural Center, and is one of the schools of Wayne State University. It is one of two public law schools in the state of Michigan. The Law School has educated and trained lawyers since 1927, and its 10,000+ alumni serve as...
as a condition of her probation. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-06-kilpatrick-aide_n.htm
Slander suit
Beatty was named in a slander lawsuit, along with Kwame Kilpatrick and police chief Ella Bully-CummingsElla Bully-Cummings
Ella M. Bully-Cummings became the first female police chief of Detroit, the tenth-largest police force in the United States, when Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick appointed her on November 3, 2003....
, brought about by two police officers that claimed to have been slandered in the media by the trio.
The lawsuit stems from a 2004 incident in which the two police officers pulled Beatty over for speeding. Beatty was irate at being stopped and bluntly asked the officers, "Do you know who the fuck I am?" when the officers came to the vehicle. While stopped, Beatty called Police Chief Bully-Cummings to have the officers called off, which the officers allege they were ordered to do. When reports of the incident started to surface in the media, Beatty, Kilpatrick and Bully-Cummings all claimed that the traffic stop was some type of "set-up" to harass Beatty.
The parties in the law suit entered into mediation which recommended a settlement of $25,000 which was rejected twice by the Detroit City Council.
The attorney for the officers said "The mayor has been exposed and I may want more money for my clients now," after it was revealed through text messages that Kilpatrick and Beatty were involved in a sexual relationship that both denied under oath.
The lawsuit was settled for $25,000 and the attorney for the officers said of the officers,"They don’t want to be embroiled in this whole [text messaging] scandal."
Text-messaging scandal
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...
exchanged between Beatty and Kilpatrick on their city issued SkyTel pagers between September–October 2002 and April–May 2003. The dates are of importance because they encompass the time periods of the alleged Manoogian Mansion
Manoogian Mansion
The Manoogian Mansion is the official residence of the mayor of Detroit, Michigan. It is located at 9240 Dwight Street in the Berry Subdivision Historic District, on the city's east side, backing up to the Detroit River. It was built in 1928 for $300,000, but the owner lost the home during the...
party and the ouster of Gary Brown respectively.
Beatty and Kilpatrick, both married to other people at the time, did discuss city business. However, many of the series of messages described not a professional relationship but an extramarital sexual relationship between the two, often in graphic detail. The text messages further described their use of city funds to arrange romantic getaways, their fears of being caught by the mayor's police protection unit, and evidence the pair conspired to fire Detroit Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown.
In an August 2007 trial, Kilpatrick and Beatty both denied that they had a sexual relationship or that they fired Brown while under oath.
Beatty resigned as mayoral chief of staff stating "I believe that it is clear I can no longer effectively carry out the duties of chief of staff." She did not indicate if she would resign from her position of the Detroit Medical Center
Detroit Medical Center
The Detroit Medical Center, located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has more than 2,000 licensed beds, 3,000 affiliated physicians and over 12,000 employees. The DMC is the affiliated clinical research site for medical program at Wayne State University...
board of directors.
Criminal investigation and charges
Wayne CountyWayne County, Michigan
-History:Wayne County was one of the first counties formed when the Northwest Territory was organized. It was named for the American general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It originally encompassed the entire area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, as well as small sections that are now part of northern...
Prosecutor Kym Worthy began an investigation of perjury charges after the Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...
revealed the existence of text messages which supported allegations that Kilpatrick and Beatty lied under oath about an extramarital affair during a lawsuit brought by Detroit police officers.
The investigation ended with Beatty being charged with seven felonies
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
consisting of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice. The charges carry a maximum sentence of five to fifteen years in prison.
Conviction, sentencing, and jail time
On December 1, 2008, Beatty admitted lying under oath and was sentenced to 120 days in jail. She will also be on probation for five years and, during that time, will have to reimburse the city of Detroit $100,000, if she is capable of doing so. On January 6, 2009, she began her sentence at the Wayne County Jail.On March 16, 2009, Beatty was released from Wayne County Jail having served 69 days of her sentence.