Beatty To Face Trial in January DETROIT, MI (Michigan Radio) - Kwame Kilpatrick's former chief of staff will go to trial on January 5th. The trial date was set at a hearing today in Detroit.

Christine Beatty has rejected plea offers from prosecutors, and chosen instead to go to trial.

But first there will be months of motions from both sides about what evidence can be admitted in that trial.

Beatty's lawyer Mayer Morganroth says he expects much of the evidence to be centered on text messages

"And that's one of the motions that will be heard," he said. "Regarding the admissibility of text messages, the federal storage communication act, all kinds of privileges, such as attorney-client privilege, some of those might be. And authentication."

Beatty first got into legal trouble after the Detroit Free Press published text messages that seemed to show that Beatty and her former boss had lied under oath in a whistleblower's lawsuit © Copyright 2009, Michigan Radio