DETROIT, July 9 (UPI) -- Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's wife mulled re-filing a lawsuit to keep her assets from seizure after a Texas judge said he lacked jurisdiction in the case
Carlita Kilpatrick -- who moved to the Dallas area when her husband began serving 18 months to 5 years in Michigan prison for violating his probation -- has not decided whether to re-file the case in Detroit after the federal judge in Texas said Texas was the wrong place to file, her spokesman, Mike Paul, told the Detroit Free Press.
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Means said he was "reluctant to wade" into the "uniquely local matter" of whether a county prosecutor in Detroit can go after the assets of Carlita Kilpatrick and her children to help repay Kwame Kilpatrick's $1 million restitution.
The restitution order stemmed from Kilpatrick's 2008 conviction for obstruction of justice related to a sex-and-text message scandal.
In April, Carlita Kilpatrick sued Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, alleging Worthy tried to seize assets belonging to her and the couple's three children to satisfy her husband's restitution order.
She alleged assets Worthy tried to seize included education funds set up for the children.
Means said in his order that no assets had been seized and that all restitution payments by the former mayor had been voluntary, The Detroit News reported.
The former mayor is to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Detroit on 19 felony fraud and tax counts related to his non-profit Kilpatrick Civic Fund.
