Kwame Kilpatrick wants $24K in public funds for appeal

DETROIT, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick filed a request for a second lawyer for his appeal of corruption charges, an expense that would cost taxpayers $24,000.

Kilpatrick, who was convicted of racketeering and other charges in March, was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

His attorney, Harold Gurewitz, filed the request Friday in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals for a second lawyer to help review more than 12,000 pages of trial transcripts and legal research, to the tune of $80 an hour for 300 hours.

“Counsel can provide this court, as directed, updates to indicate whether the 300 hour estimate in this motion is accurate or whether less or more time may be necessary and the reasons for such variance,” Gurewitz wrote in the filing.

Kilpatrick's defense has so far cost more than $800,000 of taxpayer money: $748,000 for five lawyers, $19,238 for a private investigator, $2,400 for a jury consultant, $7,215 for an accountant and more than $36,000 for transcripts.

The former mayor, 48, was found guilty on 24 counts of racketeering, extortion, mail fraud, tax evasion and others, for "a pattern of extortion, bribery and fraud" that encompassed the top tier of Detroit officials. He is serving his sentence at a medium-security federal prison in El Reno, Okla.