New details in federal corruption case against former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

DETROIT (WXYZ) - Former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his co-defendants filed a flurry of legal documents Tuesday night, the deadline for motions in their upcoming federal trial on fraud and corruption charges.

Kilpatrick, along with his father Bernard Kilpatrick, long-time friend and contractor Bobby Ferguson, and former Detroit Water and Sewage Department Director Victor Mercado, are accused of bilking the taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the documents obtained by 7 Action News it was revealed that the prosecution is lining up to 500 witnesses to testify against Kilpatrick and his co-defendants.

The prosecution is also trying to lay the groundwork to get the infamous text messages admitted into evidence.

Among the arguments of prosecutors; the texts from each man contain distinct characteristics.

For example, prosecutors say Kilpatrick’s texts had the signature “Mayor” or “Mayor Kilpatrick,” and that Kilpatrick called his father “pops” and used nicknames when writing to his co-defendants.

Kilpatrick’s father, Bernard, had the auto-signature that ended each text with “Don’t sweat the small stuff and remember… it’s all small stuff.”

As for Ferguson, prosecutors say his texts were “characterized by misspellings, typographical errors and incorrect grammar.”

The trial is set for September.