Detroit ex-mayor’s pal wins release

DETROIT – A Detroit contractor who got millions of dollars of city work through extortion will be released early from prison, a judge said Thursday, mainly because a corrupt ex-mayor was granted an extraordinary break by former President Donald Trump.

It “would be inequitable” to keep Bobby Ferguson behind bars after Trump shortened the sentence of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his longtime partner in crime, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds said.

Ferguson has served eight years of a 21-year federal prison sentence. Kilpatrick had served more than seven years of a 28-year sentence when he was released in January in one of Trump’s final acts in office.

“Mr. Kilpatrick’s release undermines the balance the court attempted to achieve at sentencing,” Edmunds said. “(Ferguson) was not an elected official. ... He was a single-minded crony of the mayor’s, whose only apparent goal was to enrich himself at others’ expense.

“He achieved that goal through threats and intimidation, primarily focused on the business expectations of his targets,” the judge said. “But he was not the driver of the bus; that was Mr. Kilpatrick.”

In 2013, Ferguson was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, extortion and bribery. Kilpatrick, Detroit mayor from 2002 to fall 2008, was convicted of the same crimes and more.

Evidence at trial showed $73 million of Ferguson’s $127 million in revenue from city work came through extortion.