Instead, it is alleged that much of it went to "personal expenses" for Kwame, his wife, Carlita, and to their longtime thuggish crony, Bobby Ferguson, to "refurbish the offices of Ferguson Enterprises." The indictment says the state budget office was unaware of what was really happening.

However, according to the Gongwer News Service, state officials had suspicions. Don Gilmer, then Gov. John Engler's budget director, noticed that after half the grant had been spent, Kilpatrick had never provided proper documentation. When he failed to provide it, Gilmer refused to release the second half of the grant money.

Good for Gilmer. But ... why didn't he, or other Engler administration officials, sound an alarm and start asking what KK did with the money? Why didn't anyone in Lansing demand an accounting? If they had, it might have saved a lot of people, mainly in Detroit, millions of dollars and a lot of heartache in the years that followed.

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