A just-released court memo in the bribery case of Troy’s fired city manager lays out a trail of ethical breaches worse than previously known — a record of theft and double-dealing so egregious that federal prosecutors compared the hi-jinks at Troy City Hall to the era of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

While Detroit's nemesis is serving an 28-year prison sentence, former Troy City Manager Brian Kischnick faces sentencing on a bribery charge Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Although Kischnick’s attorney argues he should serve 26 to 37 months behind bars, the new 51-page memo from prosecutors says he should get roughly double that — 55 months.

The government's lawyers cite a litany of offenses not fully revealed when Kischnick pleaded guilty last fall, including much more extensive pay-to-play scheming with a major city contractor, the apparent extortion of an apartment complex owner to gain years of free use of a $1,200-a-month unit and rental furniture at no cost, thousands in free restaurant meals and costly wines, as well as repeated efforts to involve key city employees in demands for costly freebies, envelopes stuffed with cash and blatant demands for more.

"Kischnick was a rapacious manager who eventually came to treat the pockets of contractors, business owners and others attempting to do business in the city as his own and request cash bribes, free meals and alcohol and eventually free housing and amenities for over three years, totaling over $50,000," the report says.

The report, sent as a sentencing memorandum to U.S.District Judge Nancy Edmunds, says Kischnick’s behavior was so brazen and nakedly self-serving as to suggest he had a “god complex.”

Ominously, it says Kischnick doesn’t seem remorseful, a concern that judges often take into account when giving stiffer than expected sentences. Prosecutors used their document to remind Edmunds that Kischnick — who once held one of Michigan’s best jobs in local government, receiving annual pay and benefits topping $200,000 — seemed unwilling to fully own up to his guilt, even when directly questions by the judge last fall.

"Kischnick would not even admit to the Court that the City received at least $10,000 in federal funds during each year of the span of his illegal conduct, when Kischnick knew full well then and now that Troy had received, for example, $1.9 million in 2015 and $2.9 million in 2016. Kischnick himself knew that because he included that information" in annual budget messages to the City Council, the prosecutors say.

The threshold of dollars is instrumental in proving corruption cases. By law, any theft or bribery involving government services that receive $5,000 or more in federal funds justifies having the FBI investigate, and it justified federal authorities bringing charges.

The report concludes that not only should Kischnick get the considerably longer prison sentence than was tentatively agreed to in his plea bargain, but that Kischnick can never be trusted again with a government job, anywhere.

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Troy's elected officials fired Kischnick in March of last year but not for anything amiss at city hall. Instead, he was terminated at an emergency City Council meeting, called on a Sunday following Kischnick's arrest in Clawson late on the previous Friday night, after he was seen repeatedly shoving to the ground his date, a woman who'd been his executive secretary and who sources said was his girlfriend.

Well before that, however, the council had learned about many of Kischnick's ethical breaches, short of criminal violations, thanks to a lengthy internal investigation by the city's former labor lawyer. The lawyer's report detailed behavior at city hall that elected officials said was highly undesirable, from Kischnick's demands that his girlfriend's family receive free pool passes and yoga classes to his improper use of a city-owned Jeep Cherokee despite his receiving a monthly car allowance of $420.

Yet, a majority on the City Council — including Mayor Dane Slater — voted to keep the report secret. Slater and the majority also castigated lawyer Craig Lange for suggesting that they release Lange's report to the news media and the public. The majority instead issued their own one-page report that said Kischnick remained a valued city employee who had promised to improve.

At that point, Lange resigned, telling the Free Press he could no longer work with Kischnick or for the city. It took the whistle-blower actions of a key city employee, followed by an FBI investigation and secret recordings of conversations between Kischnick and the city's primary paving contractor — DiLisio Contracting of Clinton Township — to uncover the exchanges of cash, the free $3,500 driveway poured at Kischnick's home and numerous costly nights out for which Kischnick demanded that others pay.

Mayor Slater and other members of the Troy City Council received copies of the prosecutors' memo Saturday. Slater said Sunday in a text that he preferred not to comment until Kischnick is sentenced.

Council Member Ellen Hodorek, reached Sunday night, said the report made her feel physically ill.

"It validates what I was always concerned about but didn't know for sure," Hodorek said. Regarding the need for the city to monitor Kischnick's conduct, she said: "I called this out then and when I was re-elected I called it out again. I was in the minority and now here I am."

Kischnick's defense attorney — Royal Oak lawyer Anjali Prasad — on Friday filed her own memo to the judge. Prasad argues that her client should be found guilty only of accepting in bribes and other improper gifts totaling less than $10,000 — roughly one fifth of the prosecutors' sum of more than $50,000.

Although Kischnick's own testimony revealed that he repeatedly asked the city's main paving contractor for $15,000, but his lawyer prominently notes that he didn't receive it.

For that reason and others, Kischnick's attorney says her client should serve a prison term of no more than the "advisory guideline range of 27 to 33 months." She says that corresponds to "an actual loss amount of $9,478.60, which includes Mr. Kischnick’s receipt of $3,000 in cash, and $2,978.60 in meals and alcohol, between December 2017 and March 2018, as well as a $3,500 driveway in 2015."

The defense attorney's memo further says that the government's lawyers shouldn't be allowed to ask for the stiffer sentence at Thursday's sentencing. The prosecution "should be precluded from merely offering its version of events to the Court" because the government "never presented live testimony on the purported relevant conduct (and therefore) failed to carry its burden of proof on the allegation."

Contact: blaitner@freepress.com