By Allan Lengel Deadline Detroit DETROIT — Federal prosecutor Mike Bullotta loaded up with plenty of ammunition and never stopped firing away Monday afternoon during a forceful closing argument in the Kwame Kilpatrick corruption trial. Standing in front of a lectern, before jurors, he said Kilpatrick turned the mayor’s office into “a private profit machine”…
By Allan Lengel Deadline Detroit DETROIT — When you serve on the Detroit City Council and one of your employees at city hall tells you the FBI is here to see you . . .well, your mind starts racing. You figure the agents aren’t there to talk about the Tigers’ prospects. President Pro-tem Gary…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com DETROIT — After 4 1/2 months and about 80 witnesses, the prosecution in the federal trial of the ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick rested Thursday morning, opening the door for the defense to begin calling witnesses in what’s expected to take less than two weeks. But things didn’t go so great for…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com DETROIT –– Four Detroit-area police officers are facing federal charges of public corruption following an FBI probe. Details of the charges, which were unclear this morning, will be available today when the federal complaints are unsealed. The FBI declined to comment on the Highland Park Police Department case, other than to…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com DETROIT — A 36-year-old Ohio woman is suing the FBI and other federal agencies, saying she was removed from a flight in Detroit on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, manhandled, strip-searched and thrown into a dirty cell for more than four hours, the Detroit Free Press reports. Shoshana Hebshi,…
By Allan Lengel Deadline Detroit DETROIT –– He was son of Joseph Zerilli, Detroit’s top mobster. Anthony Joseph Zerilli, who went by the nickname “Tony Z,” followed his dad’s career path, rising to top spot in the local Mafia before heading to prison in 1974 for his hidden interest in two Las Vegas casinos. When…
By Allan Lengel Deadline Detroit DETROIT — He was Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s good buddy, his confidante, his favorite city contractor. But Bobby Ferguson managed to turn off many in Kilpatrick’s inner circle. Contractors and city officials — including Victor Mercado, the head of the water department — complained about Ferguson. Even Kilpatrick’s sister, Ayanna, found…
By Allan Lengel Deadline Detroit DETROIT — On Thursday, Derrick Miller finally talked about the much anticipated payoff in the bathroom — something out of an episdoe of “The Sopranos.” Miller, a former close friend who was in Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s administration, testified at Kilpatrick’s federal trial that the then-mayor asked him to get…
