One of the enduring mysteries from the presidential administration of Donald Trump is why he chose on his final day in office to commute the sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Kilpatrick, a Democrat, had been sentenced to 28 years in prison for essentially using City Hall as a criminal enterprise, steering millions of dollars to friends and himself from the poorest city in America. He was also a convicted perjurer who lied about having an affair with his chief of staff and then fired cops to try to cover it up.
And he's been tied for more than a decade by rumor to questions surrounding the murder of exotic dancer Tamara 'Strawberry' Greene. The case is the subject of a new nine-episode true crime podcast. Listen wherever you get podcasts.
Trump, not known for silence, has never said why he chose Kilpatrick for a sentence commutation.
For his part, Kilpatrick has credited billionaire Peter Karmanos for petitioning Trump on his behalf and getting his sentence slashed by about 20 years.
"I dropped to my knees, I thanked God, and I promised Him that I would stay faithful to Him," he told Deadline Detroit in a 2021 interview when he was released from federal prison. "And I went to sleep."
Catch up on stories of Kwame's misdeeds in office and why they led some to tie him in their minds to the unsolved murder of Tamara Greene in the podcast below.
"He's always been that guy," Kilpatrick said about Karmanos petitioning for his release. "I believe when Pete came out I think it helped jump-start a lot of other people to say, hey, this is wrong. Pete was a major catalyst for the Kushners and the Trump administration."
Newsweek noted that in 2020, Karmanos, co-founder of Detroit-based Compuware, called Kilpatrick's sentence a "modern-day lynching." He said he had personally delivered Kilpatrick's clemency request to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser.
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