Ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Hit with Another Civil Lawsuit

DETROIT (WJBK) - The hits keep coming for Kwame Kilpatrick.

Two weeks before his prison release, the former Detroit mayor has been slapped with another civil lawsuit. Some of Kilpatrick's notorious friends are also named in the suit.

"We're forthright people. We're truthful and we're honest, and for them to take advantage was unfair," said Macomb County Public Works Commissioner  Anthony Marrocco. "I was very upset, and I decided we were gonna go after them."

Marrocco is coming after Kwame Kilpatrick, aide Derrick Miller, contractor Bobby Ferguson and ex-water chief Victor Mercado as well as a host of companies involved in the repair of the 2004 sewer collapse at 15 Mile and Hayes in Sterling Heights.

The project cost Macomb County $54.5-million.
The county is now saying they were overcharged by a whopping $25.5-million.

"Detroit kept us off the project - they didn't want us there at all," said Morrocco."They kept me in the dark and they kept insisting this is what the cost of the job was."

The commissioner says they had long been suspicious of the massive expense of this project. Then when the federal indictment came down they knew they had a case.

That was when the county hired an independent engineer who determined the project should have cost $29-million.

"There's indictments here that allege that Ferguson was paid money for never appearing on this project. That money had to be charged somewhere. It was charged to the taxpayers of Macomb County," said Attorney Lawrence Scott.

Homeowners and business owners suffered in other ways, as well, in the area of the sewer collapse, which took a year to repair.

"It was very hard. We lost almost 50 to 75-percent of business," Sterling Woods Liquor Store owner Nick Yaldo told FOX 2.

"It was the worst thing I think that happened to the whole community," said Halina's Hair Salon owner Halina Paluch.

Paluch has owned the salon near the sinkhole site for 20 years, and she's disgusted by the latest allegations against Kwame Kilpatrick and his cohorts.

"They should pay for it . If they did that , that's theft," said Paluch.