DETROIT (AP) -- Scandal-plagued Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's staff is taking aim at a Washington, D.C., newspaper that published a photo purportedly showing him appearing in a red dress with a plunging neckline in a middle school play.
The Hill identified Kilpatrick as being one of eight boys wearing wigs and dresses in a grainy, color photo of a 1984 performance of "Little Annie" at Dwight Rich Middle School in Lansing.
But Kilpatrick spokeswoman Denise Tolliver denied that Kilpatrick was among those in the photo. Tolliver told The Detroit News for a Thursday story she showed the photo to Kilpatrick and he said the boy wasn't him.
"He said he didn't like the school, that he wanted to move back to Detroit, so to rebel he didn't participate" in activities, Tolliver said.
The newspapers reported Kilpatrick's name is in the playbill and some classmates and the director remember him in the play. The News reported Kilpatrick attended the school when living in Lansing while his mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who now represents Michigan in Congress, served in the state Legislature.
Hill reporter Betsy Rothstein said she received angry phone calls from Tolliver after the photo was published.
Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty face perjury, obstruction of justice and other charges. They are accused of lying under oath during a whistle-blowers' trial last summer when they denied being romantically involved.
However, excerpts of embarrassing and sexually explicit text messages left on Beatty's city-issued pager, and first published in January by the Detroit Free Press, contradict their testimony.
The whistle-blowers' lawsuit, filed by two former Detroit police officers, led to an $8.4 million settlement of that suit and another lawsuit filed by a third former officer.