Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his wife, Laticia Maria McGee, are building a new life and crowdfunding donations to support it, despite owing the city restitution.
BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported on the couple’s announcement of McGee’s pregnancy, one week ahead of the anniversary of her husband’s prison release in January.
Since then, Kilpatrick and McGee launched a fundraising site on Plumfund.com to ask the public for $8,000, as they recently celebrated the birth of a baby boy named Kyng. They also invited an $800,000 donation to assist with the costs of purchasing a new condo.
On June 15, Kilpatrick excitedly posted the announcement of his newborn son on Instagram.
According to MLive.com, the campaign was updated on Wednesday with no references to the gated community that had been previously linked. The $800,000 goal, as well as references to “general contributions” of $8,000, have also been removed.
Kilpatrick was serving a 28-year federal prison sentence for 24 felonious acts of public corruption charges, including racketeering, bribery, and extortion. However, outgoing president Donald Trump commuted his sentence on January 20, 2021.
Although his prison sentence was commuted, the former politician still owes the City of Detroit restitution of $2 million for his crimes, Fox 2 Detroit reported. But it is unclear how much of the restitution has been paid.
Anjali Prashad, prison protection lawyer and federal prosecutor of Prasad Authorized, said if Kilpatrick succeeds in obtaining the cash from the online fundraiser, federal authorities will intervene, according to Fox 2 Detroit.
“They are going to garnish your wages, they are going to take your social security, they are going to take your own home,” Prashad said.
She continued, “The federal authorities will deal with this as one thing often called substantial sources,” she mentioned. “A substantial resource is mainly, you win the Lotto, you get an inheritance, you get $800,000 (in) donation(s) for whatever reason. It is a substantial resource, which the United States of America can then lay claim to.”