It is now up to a federal jury in Detroit to weigh five months of trial testimony from more than 80 witnesses to decide the fate of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father and a former city contractor in the biggest corruption probe to face the city in decades, Reuters reported today. The nine women and three men on the jury were expected to begin deliberations tomorrow in the trial of Kilpatrick, his father Bernard Kilpatrick, and mayoral friend and city contractor Bobby Ferguson. In the case before U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, prosecutors have accused the three men of turning the mayor's office into "Kilpatrick Incorporated," extorting bribes from contractors who wanted to get or keep city contracts. Some contractors were forced to include Ferguson on jobs, even though he did little or no work, prosecutors said.
