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Ex-Detroit Mayor Freed After 14 Months in Prison

By | Fox News

JACKSON, Mich. – Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was released from prison Tuesday after serving 14 months for violation probation in a 2008 criminal case.

Kilpatrick was escorted by his brother-in-law and his attorney into a Cadillac Escalade waiting outside the prison doors in Jackson, Mich., shortly after 6 a.m., MyFoxDetroit.com reported.

"I am beginning anew. I am looking forward. I have new dreams and aspirations. I have a new hope," Kilpatrick said in a statement released to the media.

The 41-year-old Kilpatrick is free on parole but still faces a federal corruption trial that could send him back to prison. He was given 24 hours to leave the state plans to re-join his family in the Dallas-area.

He had been in prison since May 25, 2010. He will be supervised for the next two years in Texas.

Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and resigned from office in 2008 after he lied at a civil trial to cover up an extramarital affair with his chief of staff. The lawsuit cost Detroit $8.4 million.

The ex-major's federal trial on fraud, tax crimes and a racketeering conspiracy is scheduled to start in September 2012. In an 89-page indictment filed in December, the government described a pay-to-play scheme in which Kilpatrick and his father, Bernard, took kickbacks and bribes to steer city business to certain contractors, MyFoxDetroit.com reported.

Bernard and Kwame Kilpatrick have pleaded not guilty, and Bernard is not in custody.

People charged with felonies typically aren't granted parole, but the U.S. attorney's office did not object to Kilpatrick's release.

The democrat served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 1996 to 2001 and was minority floor leader from 1998 to 2000. He was elected mayor of his hometown in 2001 and served from 2002 through his September 2008 resignation.

Kilpatrick spent 99 days in the Wayne County Jail and in early 2009 joined his wife and three sons in a Dallas suburb where he worked as a salesman for Texas-based Covisint. State Corrections officials said Kilpatrick wanted to return to Texas on his release.

Covisint is a subsidiary of Detroit-based software company Compuware Corp.

Click here to read more on Kilpatrick’s release and to read his statement at MyFoxDetroit.com.