Appeals court upholds former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrik's conviction

Kwame Kilpatrick will not be leaving federal prison any time soon.

A federal appeals court rejected the former Detroit mayor's appeal of his conviction on charges of public corruption Friday.

The decision does contain some good news for the former mayor; the appeals court rejected a lower court order requiring Kilpatrick to pay $4.5 million in restitution.

FOX 2 Problem Solver M.L. Elrick won the Pulitzer Prize covering Kilpatrick for the Detroit Free Press with reporter Jim Schaefer, and has an update of the Friday.

Kilpatrick is serving his sentence in federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma. There still isn't much to celebrate because inmate 44678039 is still looking at 22 more years behind bars.

In 2013 Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts of public corruption, with his friend, city contractor Bobby Ferguson convicted on 11 of 19 counts.

Kilpatrick's camp had argued that the extortion and bribery counts should be thrown out because of the way the trial was conducted. Kilpatrick said he had a lawyer that had a conflict of interest and that FBI agents and others were allowed to present testimony that should have been excluded.

They also contested the $4.5 million in restitution to the city was improper. The restitution element appears to be the only appeal aspect Kilpatrick was successful with.

He still may have to pay something, The judges at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said that even if his arguments about the lawyer and the agents' testimony did happen, he still had a fair trial and the evidence was "overwhelming."

Elrick spoke to Kilpatrick's attorney who said the next step would be to ask the judges to review Friday's decision and reconsider. He then can ask the entire circuit court to review it as a mega-panel.

He then would have a short time to appeal it to the United States Supreme Court.