Watch CBS News

Detroit Seeks $10M From Former Federal Monitor

 The City of Detroit wants a federal judge to order a woman who served as monitor overseeing police compliance with two federal consent decrees and three firms she worked for to repay more than $10 million.

Attorneys representing the city wrote in a motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit that a personal relationship between Sheryl Robinson Wood and ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick amounted to unethical conduct by the monitor.

Wood quit the monitor's job in July 2009 after text messages revealed that relationship.

Kilpatrick resigned as mayor in 2008. He's serving prison time stemming from a separate court case.

Detroit's police have been monitored since 2003 for use of force and how it treats crime suspects and prisoners.

Does the city have a case? WWJ and Fox 2 Legal Analyst Charlie Langton thinks so.

"The judge in the case is going to have to take a look at whethere or not there is any undue influence, unetheical conduct -- whethere or not somebody from the city, perhaps Kwame Kilpatrick, was trying to get something over this federal monitor," Langton said.

Langton says,  if that's the case, then the federal monitor did breach her contract.

Mayor Dave Bing's office has not commented on the case.
  
(Copyright 2010 WWJ Radio.  All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.