Cox denies wrongdoing in Kilpatrick investigation

In an interview with Tim Skubick, Michigan Attorney General and GOP candidate for governor Mike Cox responds to allegations that he disrupted the Michigan State Police investigation of an alleged party at Manoogian Mansion, the Detroit Mayoral mansion.

A Michigan State Police Detective testified under oath earlier this week that Cox refused to authorize investigators to speak to former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s wife, Carlita, and refused to issue additional investigative subpoenas in the case.

Cox talked to Skubick, who wears a lot of hats around the Capitol these days, including the hat of political analyst for Fox 2 in Detroit. In the interview, Cox tells Skubick he did not interfere with the investigation.

Skubick asked Cox, “But as a criminal investigator with a lot of experience, if you had a focus of an investigation of an alleged party, wouldn’t you want to talk to one of the people that is part of the allegation?”

Cox responded, “We did.”

Skubick then said, “You didn’t talk to the mayor’s wife.”

To which Cox replied, “Again, Tim, for us, the felony whether… there was bogus overtime given, whether they had sat on drunk driving cases were the much bigger deal… We can rehash this. It’s been seven years now, and no one’s come up with anything different. Now… you have a couple lawyers who want to get on TV and sell their practice who want to say that I’m corrupt. I’ll let the people decide that.”

Cox also says in the interview that allegations that infer he has been less than stellar in investigating criminal charges “get under his skin,” and that his “reputation” is more important “than being governor.”

Cox may have solidified a powerful 20 year record as a murder prosecutor before becoming the state’s top cop, but officials over at the office of Financial and Industry Services are wondering what happened to the more than a dozen criminal referrals for mortgage fraud their offices have sent to Cox since 2008. According to OFIS officials, no one knows what the status of those prosecutions is.

That tidbit has led East Lansing Democratic Senator Gretchen Whitmer — who is a declared candidate for the 2010 Democratic nomination for attorney general — to call on Cox to answer questions about the mortgage fraud cases as well as House Judiciary Chair Mark Meadows, another Democrat from East Lansing.

Cox spokespeople had never returned calls from Michigan Messenger asking about the fate of those cases.

The failure to prosecute those mortgage fraud cases have raised some eyebrows as Cox has appointed David Trott as chair of finance committee in his bid to become governor. Trott owns the state’s largest foreclosure law firm, Trott and Trott. He is a large donor to the state and national Republican parties, and even rented space to John McCain’s campaign for President in 2008.