Former Detroit Mayor to Be Sentenced Thursday

Kilpatrick convicted of 24 counts of bribery, extortion, racketeering, fraud and tax evasion.

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will learn his fate Thursday when a federal judge sentences him on 24 counts of bribery, extortion, racketeering, fraud and tax evasion.

A jury convicted him in March after a trial that lasted more than five months.

Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds to sentence Kilpatrick, 43, to at least 28 years in prison. "Kilpatrick's crimes put him at the very top of the most significant municipal corruption cases in this country in decades," U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade wrote in a sentencing memo. "City government essentially became up for grabs for the right price."

Kilpatrick's lawyer, Harold Gurewitz, asked Edmunds to limit the sentence to no more than 15 years, citing good work done by Kilpatrick as a legislator and a mayor, despite the convictions.