Website hawks T-shirts to fund Kwame Kilpatrick freedom effort

A new website is peddling "#FreeKwame" T-shirts for $19.95 to fund an effort to get former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick out of prison.

The shirts are for sale on freekwameproject.com, which claims Kilpatrick was "over-charged and over-sentenced" in a public corruption case.

The website includes inspirational blog posts that Kilpatrick apparently penned last month.

"Stop trying to impress people with your style, swag, intellect, money, pride, ego, resume, outward appearance, job, career, or whatever," he wrote. "God made you in His image, and after His likeness. And He expresses Himself through you Every Day. HE loves You! Make the decision today that being You is good enough." Kilpatrick was sentenced in 2013 to 28 years in federal prison for running a host of corruption crimes, including bribery, extortion and fraud. He won't be eligible for release until 2037.

The website says it was created to fight Kilpatrick's wrongful conviction. It supports a legal defense fund set up by his family members called the Freedom and Justice Trust.

Kilpatrick may have made some mistakes, the website says, but he does not deserve to be locked up for nearly three decades.

"Kwame maintains that he is Not-Guilty of any of the charges for which he was convicted, and is passionate about getting his story, his perspective, and The Truth about what happened in Detroit to the world," the site says.

An email message the Free Press sent through the website was not returned late Monday.

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Kilpatrick's attorney, Harold Gurewitz, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kilpatrick has a mounting pile of debts. They include $852,000 in restitution to the City of Detroit stemming from the text message scandal that the Free Press broke, triggering his eventual downfall; $1.5 million in restitution to the Detroit water department stemming from his 2013 conviction, and $195,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid taxes.

Additionally, the federal government says Kilpatrick owes $552,862 for accepting private jet travel to Vegas, golf outings, Prince tickets and massages from an investor who was trying to close a $117-million deal with the city's pension funds.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Kilpatrick in 2012 over the pension-related perks, but he never responded, triggering a default judgment. Kilpatrick recently said he doesn't remember the case.

"Defendant has no recollection of the facts of this case, nor does he recall receiving any other documents relating to this matter," he wrote from prison in an April 16 letter.

In other Kilpatrick news, a GoFundMe.com page was launched May 10 by a woman who appears to be creating a film about him. Racquel Shelby wrote that Kilpatrick was framed.

"The goal of this film is to set the record straight and redeem a crippled legacy that would have went on to change the world," she wrote on the page called "The Framing of Kwame Kilpatrick."

The page seeks to raise $750,000. As of Monday night, no money had been donated.

Contact Ann Zaniewski: 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AnnZaniewski. Staff writer Tresa Baldas contributed to this report.