claimed he saw Kilpatrick and his bodyguards at Detroit Receiving Hospital, where an injured woman was taken. Chapa claimed that he saw an injured woman brought to the hospital by three plainclothes police officers in the autumn of 2002, and heard the woman say she had been attacked by Carlita. Chapa also said that he ran into medical technician Doug Bayer, and had told him about what he had seen; Bayer had previously told State Police of such an encounter. Whistleblower trial In 2003, a civil lawsuit was filed against Kilpatrick by ex-bodyguard Harold Nelthrope and former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown. The officers claimed they were fired because of an internal probe into the mayor's personal actions and that the firing was a violation of the whistleblower law. The trial began in August 2007 with Kilpatrick and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, both denying they were involved in an extramarital affair. In his testimony, Kilpatrick expressed anger about claims of an affair between him and Beatty and under oath said: The trial ended on September 11, 2007, after three hours of jury deliberation, with a verdict awarding the plaintiffs $6.5 million in damages. In an angry speech in front of City Hall, minutes after the verdict was read, Kilpatrick blamed the "wrong verdict" on white suburbanite jurors. He also stated, "There's race in this, and we run from it in this region. And I think it's impossible for us to move forward as a region without confronting it head-on. But I don't want what has happened in the past 24 months to be erased by what has happened in the last two days." Kilpatrick vowed to appeal the verdict. However, weeks later, during stalled settlement negotiations, he quickly approved an $8.4 million settlement upon learning of a motion by Mike Stefani, Nelthorpe and Brown's attorney, that contained evidence that Kilpatrick and Beatty had perjured themselves in their deposition and trial testimony. The City Council voted to pay the $8.4 million to Nelthorpe and Brown, and a third former officer who filed a separate lawsuit against Kilpatrick. The City Council was not made aware of the text messages or a confidentiality agreement to keep them private when Kilpatrick and city lawyers requested the council to approve the $8.4 million settlement. The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and the City Council sued under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act