Released from federal prison in January in a last-minute commutation by President Trump, Kilpatrick is living in the Atlanta area, changing careers to the ministry, and engaged to be married to a Detroit woman. He says he's done with politics.
KK: In 2014, I had an experience in prison through volunteers who came every week. There was a guy named Bruce Smith, he was from Yukon, Oklahoma. He asked me a question: Did I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? And I told him I did not. I was really depressed during that period of time, and angry, and he took the time to talk to me about it. And through that experience of talking with him, I know that I truly received the gift of freedom of liberty and salvation in Jesus Christ.
Where was that? What prison?
That was in the back of a prison chapel in El Reno, Oklahoma. And we're sitting in this back pew, and he and I were just sitting there talking. There was no lightning or thunder. I didn't kiss the feet of Jesus, but there was a definite change in my heart and in my mindset.
What were you feeling back then?
Condemned. Guilt-ridden. Angry. Depressed. Feelings of being a failure as a dad, my primary responsibility of being a husband and a father, that I let my family down. We all know the dramatic and traumatic statistics of Black men and the household and the lack thereof, the lack of involvement of so many Black fathers in their children's lives.
And so I became something that I absolutely despise and never experienced. I had both of my grandfathers, my father. Not only were they involved in my life, they were at every graduation. Every game. My grandfathers were at my college graduations. My law school graduation. So I never had that experience. And so, to be that person, it was the most profoundly horrible thing that I've ever experienced. I just couldn't rid myself of the shame and the guilt of that.
I wasn't mad at Detroit. I wasn't mad at the people that testified against me. I wasn't mad at the process. I was mad at me, and that was the perfect place that I had to be for the kind of experience that I had with the spirit of God.
There was this compelling spiritual energy that what he was speaking was true. He was just a guy, a volunteer. And my spirit was humble enough to receive it. When I went back to my unit that day, I was just different and I wanted to be different.
I took that commitment that I made that day very seriously. For the last three or four years, everybody was asking me about the Bible or "Can you write a letter to my girl? Can you talk to my mother on the phone? Can you pray for him?"
dude never learns
I didn't know him a Carliita divorced.
