More text messages revealed in Detroit mayor sex scandal

A series of often explicit text messages from Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's former chief of staff appear to show she had a long-term romantic relationship with the mayor and that he played a role in the firing of a police officer who sued the city.

The embarrassing messages between Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty from 2002 and 2003 appear in an 18-page document released Tuesday on the orders of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Colombo Jr. in response to a lawsuit by the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

The document was obtained from the computer of Michael Stefani, an attorney who represented three police officers in whistle-blowers' lawsuits against the city that were settled last year for $8.4 million. The text messages were taken from Beatty's city-issued pagers.

The messages could prove damaging to Kilpatrick and Beatty, who are accused of lying under oath in one of the lawsuits by denying they had an intimate relationship. They are charged with perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice. Both have denied wrongdoing.

The Free Press published some of the text messages in January. Wayne County prosecutors began the perjury investigation after those excerpts were released.

The document released Tuesday includes descriptions of sexual trysts, the frequent use of the N-word by the mayor and Beatty as a term of endearment, and discussions of marriage.