Detroit mayor's texts ordered released

DETROIT, July 14 (UPI) -- A Michigan state judge Monday ordered hundreds of previously unseen text messages written by the embattled mayor of Detroit to be released.

Attorneys for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, were fighting to keep the text messages, written on city-issued pagers, from being introduced into evidence and released to the public during their corruption case. They claim th messages were illegally obtained.

But State District Court Judge Ronald Giles disagreed and granted a prosecution motion to enter the messages into the record, The Detroit News reported. When the texts will be released is to be determined. Some of the messages have been obtained and published by the media.

Text messaging is at the heart of the allegations against the Kilpatrick and Beatty, with prosecutors saying they orchestrated secret payments to gain the silence of police department whistle-blowers who possessed allegedly incriminating text messages sent between the pair.