Kilpatrick set to start jail sentence

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DETROIT, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is set to begin a 120-day sentence in a Wayne County Jail cell that has few perks, former inmates say.

The mayor, convicted on felony obstruction of justice charges in a political misconduct case, will occupy cell 14J-4 in a wing of the jail usually reserved for such high-profile inmates as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, The Detroit News reported.

Former inmates say the "Capias Unit" of the Wayne County Jail offers segregation from other inmates but not much else.

"Kwame is going to get a lot of privileges," one-time prisoner Donald Gist told the newspaper. "But it won't matter; he'll still be in jail."

In contrast to the opulent Detroit mayor's residence, the walls of the cell are stained and three small barred windows provide little light, the mattress is lumpy and meals are fed through a slot in the steel door, the News said.

"It smells like you'd expect: a bunch of sweaty guys who haven't taken a shower," John Roberts of Detroit, who spent a week in the jail two years ago for failing to pay child support, told the newspaper. "When you first go in, it makes you gag."