DETROIT, MI – After Mayor Dave Bing

picked up petitions to run for re-election Thursday

, Sam Riddle decided to throw his own hat into the ring.

Riddle, a longtime political consultant who once ran for mayor of Flint and recently spent time in prison for corruption, said he also has started gathering signatures for a potential Detroit mayoral run.

“If Mayor Bing has the gall to pick up petitions, I have the guts pick up petitions, I'll do the same,” said Riddle on Friday.

“I think that, for better or worse, I certainly have name ID in Detroit… You would have to overcome obvious negatives, but there’s also a lot of positives because I've worked in the community at a very grassroots level.”

Riddle was released from home confinement in January after a prison stint. He pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy in a bribery case involving former Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers.

He said that if he were elected, he would fight for federal aid and for voting rights and that his criminal history would help him keep the city from falling back into patterns of corruption.

“I went to jail,” Riddle said. “I wallowed in a cesspool of corruption. I believe that background helps me.”

He compared his candidacy to technology companies and banks hiring former hackers to assist with security and development.

"If you don't trust me because I just came out of prison, don't vote for me," he said.

"Detroit deserves moral leadership with integrity. Certainly those of us who have wallowed in that cesspool are in the best position to make sure it doesn't happen again.

“… It starts innocently enough. A free lunch here, a free lunch there, and before you know it, you're involved in pay-to-play.”

Riddle, like Bing, said he isn’t yet absolutely certain that he’ll run.

If he does, he said his campaign would target single mothers and focus on his 40 years of public and private sector experience.

Bing on Thursday picked up his petitions just as mayoral candidates Lisa Howze and Tom Barrow filed their signatures with the City Clerk’s office.

They face stiff competition.

The early frontrunners in the race have been Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon and former Detroit Medical Center CEO Mike Duggan. Former Detroit Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon and State Rep. Fred Durhal, Jr. are also running.

Follow Khalil AlHajal on Twitter @DetroitKhalil or on Facebook at Detroit Khalil. He can be reached at kalhajal@mlive.com or 313-643-0527.