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Suit by
slain
Detroit
stripper's
family
dismissed
By COREY
WILLIAMS
Associated
Press
DETROIT
- A
federal
judge
dismissed
a civil
lawsuit
Tuesday
that
claimed
the city
of
Detroit
and
ex-Mayor
Kwame
Kilpatrick,
a
convicted
felon,
impeded
a police
investigation
into the
shooting
death of
a
stripper.
U.S.
District
Judge
Gerald
Rosen
said in
his
opinion
that the
attorney
representing
Tamara
Greene's
three
children
failed
to prove
the city
or
Kilpatrick
interfered
with the
probe
into her
slaying.
Greene,
who
performed
under
the name
Strawberry,
was
rumored
to have
danced
in 2002
at a
never-proven
party at
the
mayor's
official
Manoogian
Mansion
residence.
She was
shot
multiple
times in
April
2003
while
sitting
with a
male
acquaintance
in a car
outside
her
Detroit
home.
The man
was
wounded
but
survived.
Rosen
agreed
with
lawyers
for the
city and
Kilpatrick
that
there
was "no
evidentiary
basis"
for a
legal
finding
that
Kilpatrick
obstructed
or
interfered
with the
investigation
into the
murder.
Kilpatrick
resigned
as mayor
in 2008
after
pleading
guilty
to
obstruction
of
justice
in state
court.
He
served
time in
a county
jail but
later
spent 14
months
in state
prison
for
violating
his
probation
in the
earlier
case. He
was
paroled
Aug. 2,
but
faces a
federal
corruption
trial in
2012 on
fraud,
tax and
racketeering
conspiracy
charges.
Rosen
said
lawyers
for
Greene's
family
seem to
believe
that
Kilpatrick
must
have
interfered
with the
murder
investigation
because
he
regularly
meddled
with top
police
brass
when he
was
mayor.
But the
judge
said
past
wrongs
don't
necessarily
fit new
cases.
Rosen
said
there is
a
"dearth
of
evidence"
connecting
Kilpatrick
or any
of his
allies
to any
interference
with the
homicide
investigation.
Kilpatrick
repeatedly
has
denied
interfering
with
Greene
case and
that
there
ever was
a party.
"For
what it
is
worth,
it seems
unlikely
that it
will
ever be
established
with any
degree
of
certainty
whether
this
rumored
party,
or
something
like it,
actually
took
place,"
Rosen
wrote.
"The
witness
accounts
produced
by
plaintiffs
lack
specificity,
rest to
some
extent
on
inadmissible
hearsay,
and
contradict
one
another
in
various
respects."
"On the
other
hand, it
seems
fairly
well
documented
at this
point
that
Defendant
Kilpatrick
kept an
active
social
calendar
during
his days
as mayor
of
Detroit.
Nonetheless,
whether
this
particular
party
occurred
at this
particular
locale
at this
particular
time is
likely
to
remain
an
unsolved
mystery."
The
court
gave the
Greene
family's
attorney,
Norman
Yatooma,
every
opportunity
to prove
his
case,
said
James
Thomas,
Kilpatrick's
attorney.
"There
was not
one bit
of
evidence,
after 41
depositions
and tens
of
thousands
of pages
of
discovery,"
Thomas
said.
"There
clearly
are no
facts,
and as a
result,
all
these
years of
speculation,
all
these
years of
wondering
now come
to the
culmination
that ...
the
decision
is there
is no
case.
"We're
happy
that, at
least at
this
stage
that
it's
over."
John
Schapka,
supervising
assistant
corporation
counsel
for the
city,
also
said
Yatooma
lacked
evidence
to
support
his
claim
that
Kilpatrick,
his
aides
and
others
interfered
with the
Greene
probe.
Yatooma,
who was
on
vacation
when
Rosen
released
his
ruling,
said he
already
is
working
on an
appeal.
"I'm
shocked.
I'm
disappointed.
I don't
understand
it," he
said.
"We
weren't
there
asking
the
judge
for a
check.
My young
clients
lost
their
mom. Let
them go
before a
jury of
other
moms and
dads and
let them
decide."
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