Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with exchanging romantic text messages with additional women in the scandal that has him fighting allegations that he lied under oath about an intimate relationship with his former chief of staff.
The Wayne County prosecutor’s office has determined that Kilpatrick sent and received text messages with "intimate or romantic content" to several women who were not his wife or former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, an investigator's report said.
The office was able to locate and identify the women, but did not not list their names, the report said.
The allegations led the prosecutor’s office to amend current charges against the 38-year-old mayor. The amended complaint was signed by a district court magistrate and changes a misconduct-in-office charge and a perjury charge.
The misconduct-in-office charge alleges that Kilpatrick authorized the city to prevent the release of text messages containing intimate or romantic messages to women other than his wife or Beatty.
'Desperation move'
The amended perjury charge accuses Kilpatrick of lying under oath about romantic or sexual relationships with Beatty "and or other persons not his wife."
The charges against Beatty were not changed.
A message seeking comment was left with Kilpatrick’s attorney, Dan Webb.
"It seems like a desperation move. It really doesn’t mean much," said Beatty’s attorney, Mayer Morganroth. "They’re trying to do whatever they can to make it appear like they’ve got something."
In January, excerpts of sexually explicit text messages were published by the Detroit Free Press that pointed to an extramarital relationship between Kilpatrick and Beatty. Those messages, left on Beatty’s city-issued pager, contradicted testimony the two had given during a 2007 police whistle-blowers’ trial.
Kilpatrick and Beatty were charged in March with perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice. Both deny the charges and face a preliminary examination in September.