DETROIT, MI -- Kwame Kilpatrick lowered his head in silence in a long pause before addressing the court during his sentencing hearing Thursday.
The former mayor did so several times during an emotional statement addressing the judge, the people of Detroit and his family.
Stripped of the impressive suits he'd been known for as Detroit's charismatic and defiant mayor, Kilpatrick, wearing a khaki prison uniform, choked up several times as he apologized, not necessarily for the specific crimes he was convicted of committing, but for the troubled state of the city he once led.
Kilpatrick's voice quivered at times, saying the air of confidence he wore through his years as mayor and afterward was often misinterpreted as arrogance.
"That was false confidence," he said. "The pressure of this job -- and I've watched it eat up man after man -- is enormous."
He said he grew up wanting only to someday become mayor, and that he hated the job six months into his first term.
He said trying to restore faith and hope in a city with no money "was the hardest thing that you can imagine."
"It was this pride, yes, and this ego that took over... I tried to wear that on my shoulders and on my sleeves," he said. "I really, really, really messed up with that... The people here are suffering, they're hurting... I accept full responsibility for it."
Kilpatrick told U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds that he respects, but disagrees with the jury's guilty verdict in his racketeering and extortion trial.
He said he disagrees with the specific crimes of which he was convicted, but that he wishes he would have acted differently.
"I would never put any contractor or any friend before anybody else in the city of Detroit," he said.
He apologized to the people of Detroit, specifically for failing to help the city endure the recession in the years that led to its bankruptcy filing.
"I want the city to heal," he said. "I want the city to prosper. I want the city to be great again. I want the city to have the same feeling it had in 2006 when the Super Bowl was here... when everybody felt like this was their town. I've been a tremendous problem in getting that to happen since that point...
"'I'm ready to go so the city can move on."
Kilpatrick's attorneys asked that he be sent to a federal prison in Texas, near Dallas, where his family lives. (Update: the judge obliged.)
His family was not in the courtroom. Kilpatrick said he didn't want to subject them to more pain.
"They all have forgiven me. I just hope that one day I can forgive myself," he said. "... I just want people to know that I'm incredibly remorseful for the condition of the city.
"For all the people who feel that I let them down tremendously, for all the people who's faith and hope I destroyed, for all the people who are living under siege... I'm sorry to you."
Edmunds was preparing to rule on his sentencing at 12:45 p.m.
Live blog here.
Update: "His remarks this morning certainly show more awareness than I had seen along the way," Edmunds said as she prepared to hand down the sentence.
Update 1:10 p.m.: Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years prison.
Follow MLive Detroit reporter Khalil AlHajal on Twitter @DetroitKhalil or on Facebook at Detroit Khalil. He can be reached at kalhajal@mlive.com or 313-643-0527.
Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2013/10/kwame_kilpatrick_at_sentencing.html
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