Prosecutor: Put former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in prison

DETROIT — Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick should be sent to prison for two to five years, a prosecutor recommended Monday, urging that his probation be scratched and suggesting a receiver be appointed to hunt for hidden assets.

Keeping Kilpatrick on probation would only be a reward for his "lies, deceit and fraud," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a court filing ahead of a Tuesday hearing at which a judge will decide his sentence.

But defense attorney Michael Alan Schwartz said "any period of incarceration" is "incompatible with his continuing to be employed." Kilpatrick now lives in the Dallas area and works for medical software company Covisint.

"His job requires that he travel to a number of cities within the United States," Schwartz wrote in the filing. "He must meet with prospective customers and travel to their sites in order to achieve sales of his employer's product.

"One cannot accomplish such travel while being locked up in a correctional institution; neither can one expect an employer to pay a salary or other remuneration to an employee who is incarcerated and thereby unable to perform the functions of his job."

The former mayor has been making $3,000 monthly payments toward the $1 million restitution he was ordered to pay the city, but prosecutors have long claimed that he could afford to give more.

Kilpatrick has been on probation since his release from jail in 2009 for obstruction of justice and assault, all related to a text-message scandal that revealed an affair with his chief of staff and destroyed his political career.

Circuit Judge David Groner will determine Kilpatrick's punishment on Tuesday after ruling earlier that the former mayor violated his probation from a 2008 criminal case by failing to report all assets and failing to meet other conditions. Groner signaled that some time behind bars was likely when he told Kilpatrick on April 20 to get "your affairs in order."

After a series of hearings, Groner said Kilpatrick violated probation by failing to surrender nearly $23,400 in tax refunds and a share of cash gifts from two people. And the failure to disclose $240,000 in loans from prominent businessmen was another probation violation, the judge said.

Worthy said it's not a time for light treatment.

Kilpatrick "has learned nothing and unless he is punished for his conduct, he will have been taught nothing by this court," she said in her filing.

Mike Paul, a spokesman for Kilpatrick, said the former mayor has paid more than $140,000 in restitution, adhering to his monthly payment schedule.

"Mr. Kilpatrick should be allowed to return home to Texas to continue working and paying his restitution over the next four out of five years, like the court originally stated," Paul said in an e-mail. "Treating him differently than others paying restitution in the system in Detroit is both unfair and unjust."