Former Detroit Mayor must live lavishly, his lawyer says

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Kwame Kilpatrick is living large because, his lawyer says, he has to.

Kilpatrick's attorney, Daniel Hajji, made the claim in an impassioned 14-page motion filed with the state Court of Appeals late Tuesday in an effort to postpone the ex-Detroit mayor's Friday probation-violation hearing in circuit court -- one that could eventually land him behind bars.

Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner will arraign Kilpatrick for failing to pay $79,011 toward the $1 million he owes in restitution by last Friday's deadline. Kilpatrick and his lawyers say he doesn't have the money, despite his plush lifestyle in a tony Dallas suburb and $120,000-a-year sales job for Covisint, a Compuware subsidiary.

"The clientele he must establish a rapport with are likely to be the privileged and the affluent," Hajji said in the motion. "Burgers and beer at the local bar is not going to be sufficient."

Imagine that.