There was a brief love fest at the Kwame Kilpatrick trial today in downtown Detroit.
The gang was back after a two week break, the result of defense attorney Gerald Evelyn falling ill on Oct. 29 while cross examining a prosecution witness. He was taken away by ambulance, and told reporters he had a cardiac issue and had chest pains and was seeing double.
Kilpatrick walked in the courtroom at about 8:55 a.m., five minutes before the start up of the 24th day of trial, and gave Evelyn a warm handshake-half hug. Then he walked over to warmly greet his dad, Bernard, who is also on trial.
Then U.S. District Judge Nancy G. Edmunds said to Evelyn, who represents co-defendant Bobby Ferguson: “So nice to see you.”
Evelyn (pictured to right in photo) began to apologize for causing the delay, but Edmunds interrupted and told him there was no need to apologize.
She then told jurors: “Mr. Evelyn is doing much much better.”
Evelyn then picked up where he left off, cross-examining a prosecution witness, Thomas Hardiman Sr., president of A & H Contractors and a former official for Lakeshore Engineering, which did business with the city.
Evelyn began by asking Hardiman how he was doing. He said he was fine, then asked the attorney how he felt, to which he responded: “I’m better, thank you for asking.”
Before Evelyn began his cross, the judge had to address the invisible elephant in the room: One of the four defendants in the case, Victor Mercado, the former head of the Detroit water department, was no longer sitting at the defense table.
That’s because he decided to plead guilty.
The judge instructed jurors that “Mr. Mercado is no longer a part of this trial. I instruct you are not to speculate as to the reasons for the absence of Mr. Mercado.”
Some legal observers say it’s likely the jury heard about the guilty plea, and they speculated that it could hurt the other defendants -- who include Kilpatrick, his father Bernard Kilpatrick and the ex-mayor’s friend, Bobby Ferguson, a contractor.
The judge did not ask whether any jurors heard anything about Mercado.
