Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, lied about their relationship last summer during a police whistle-blower trial that has cost the cash-strapped city more than $9 million.

The false testimony potentially exposes them to perjury charges. This makes Tony Rezko’s connection to Barack Obama seem tame.

Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty denied in August that they had a sexual relationship. But a series of text messages show romantic banter as well as them planning - and recounting - sexual liaisons.

The messages are also at odds with the testimony that they did not fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown in 2003. Texts show Christine Beatty recalling the “decision we made to fire Gary Brown.”

The Kilpatrick-Christine Beatty relationship and Brown’s dismissal are central to the whistle-blower suit filed by Brown and Harold Nelthrope, a former Detroit police officer and mayoral bodyguard.

The cops accuse Kwame Kilpatrick of retaliating against them because of their roles in an internal investigation of the mayor’s security team — a probe that potentially could have exposed their affair.

The newspaper examined nearly 14,000 text messages - on Christine Beatty’s city-issued pager - covering two months each in 2002-2003.

Continue reading about the Kilpatrick scandal …