Associated Press
DETROIT, Mich. — A female officer who is dating Detroit’s recently fired police chief was previously romantically involved with the married and current acting chief, and she has the text messages to prove it.
David Robinson, a lawyer for Lt. Monique Patterson, said Wednesday that he has more than 100 text messages sent to her in 2009 and 2010 from her boss, acting Police Chief Ralph Godbee, including messages that show the two had romantic “rendezvous.”
He said Patterson ended her relationship with Godbee when she started dating Warren Evans last year.
Godbee, in a statement released by Mayor Dave Bing’s office, referred to the texts as of a “personal nature” sent to a “colleague.”
“This is a personal challenge that I must work through with my family and myself,” Godbee said. “I ask the media and public to respect my family and the effort to resolve this privately.”
Last month, Mayor Dave Bing unexpectedly fired Evans after little more than a year on the job. Among the reasons he cited was Evans’ romantic relationship with a subordinate, Patterson, and the alleged preferential treatment Evans gave her.
Bing said in a strongly worded statement Wednesday that he wasn’t considering firing Godbee for having an affair with a subordinate, and that Godbee will still be among those considered to run the department on a permanent basis.
Evans’ lawyer, Mark Zausmer, said Wednesday that he approached Deputy Mayor Saul Green “a couple of weeks ago” to disclose the existence of the text messages in the hopes that Bing might “repair the damage done with a hasty termination based on bad information.”
“We proposed a solution that we thought was a good one for everybody,” Zausmer said.
Copyright 2010 Lakeland Ledger Publishing Corporation