Christine Beatty, ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s former top aide and secret lover, plans to take a job in Atlanta to make a new life with her two daughters.
“She’s sad that she has to move — she really loves Detroit — but she really had no choice,” her lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, said Thursday.
Beatty will be doing business consulting, he said.
“She’s not making much, but it’s a start and there may be more opportunities in the future,” Morganroth said, declining to name her new employer.
Beatty was helped by friends, sorority sisters and former classmates in the Atlanta area, he said.
Her notoriety and Kilpatrick’s ongoing turmoil in the courts — not to mention a moribund local economy — stymied Beatty’s job search around Detroit, Morganroth said. Beatty’s move was OK’d by Judge Timothy Kenny, who presided over her trial and now heads the criminal division of Wayne County Circuit Court.
“She does have a new job in Atlanta and is preparing to move down there,” Kenny said.
“Ms. Beatty will be relocating where she can make a fresh start with her children and a job” to support herself and start to pay down the $100,000 restitution owed to the City of Detroit, Kenny said.
Georgia authorities still must give final approval and agree to accept her as a probationer. Beatty received five years of probation at her sentencing in January 2009.
Beatty pleaded guilty to two felonies for lying under oath in a police whistle-blower case and served 70 days in jail. The lies were exposed when the Free Press published excerpts of her text messages showing that despite sworn denials, she and Kilpatrick were having an illicit affair.
Since her release from jail, Beatty could not find full-time work and made small regular payments toward her ordered restitution. Kenny and prosecutors have said that Beatty has presented no problems since her release from jail.
“Ms. Beatty’s been doing the best she can,” Morganroth said. “She just wants a new start.”
Source: Contact JOE SWICKARD: 313-222-8769 or jswickard@freepress.com
