DETROIT, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- The owner of a failed cargo airline sued by Detroit pension boards that invested $30 million wants to question the imprisoned Monica Conyers.
Donald Watkins, a lawyer in Alabama, has filed a lawsuit of his own, saying that Conyers, the wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers and a former member of the Detroit City Council, and other officials involved him in a "pay-to-play" scheme that included a $100,000 contribution to former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's legal fund, The Detroit News reports. He says the pension funds were responsible for the failure of his airline, Trade Winds.
Conyers is serving a three-year term in the federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va. Watkins asked a federal judge Thursday to order her to submit to a deposition.
He made a similar application to question DeDan Milton, a former Kilpatrick aide now in a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
Watkins said that in addition to the Kilpatrick contribution Detroit officials demanded that he allow the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to use his plane for free and make political contributions to pension board members' re-election funds.
