Kilpatrick cleared of bail bond violation

DETROIT, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- A Michigan judge has ruled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick did not violate the conditions of his bail bond by visiting his sister last weekend.

State District Court Judge Ronald Giles, who last week ordered the embattled mayor locked up for violating an earlier bond in a related official corruption case, ruled against the state attorney general in the latest case, the Detroit News reported Tuesday.

Kilpatrick was charged with assaulting two officers of the court last month in an incident witnessed by the mayor's sister. Kilpatrick posted bond to avoid jail on the charge, but Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox filed a complaint saying Kilpatrick had violated the terms of his bond by seeing a witness, his sister Ayanna Kilpatrick.

"I don't see a violation," Giles said in his ruling.

Kilpatrick attorney James Thomas told the News the mayor came into contact with his sister during a family dinner that his mother, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., was having at her home.