Another person close to former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has fallen.
Longtime fundraiser for the “hip hop mayor” Emma Bell pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Detroit to tax evasion, admitting that she received more than half a million dollars from various campaign fundraisers and never reported the money to the IRS, federal authorities said. Bell has agreed to cooperate with the feds for a lower sentence.
Bell described the last year of her life as hell, according to the Detroit Free Press. “After all of this time, I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s a lot of pressure on you,” she said of her guilt plea.
The statutory maximum sentence Bell is facing runs up to ten years in prison or a fine of $500,000, or both, but, because of her cooperation, prosecutors are recommending the sentence be lowered to 18 months, according to an FBI press release.
The guilty plea is more bad news for Kilpatrick, who faces a host of public corruption charges in federal court.
Last month, Derrick Miller, 41, a Kilpatrick confidante who worked as the city’s Chief Administrative Officer, pleaded guilty to corruption and tax charges and agreed to cooperate and testify for the feds against Kilpatrick.
