Monica Conyers facts for kids

Monica Ann Conyers (Esters, October 31, 1964) is an American politician in Detroit, Michigan. Elected to the Detroit City Council in 2005, she was elected by its members to serve as president pro tempore of the council for the four-year term.

Background

Monica Ann Esters was born in River Rouge, Michigan, on October 31, 1965. She had four brothers and one sister. She grew up with her mother in west Detroit and attended Henry Ford High School. Her father had a record for breaking and entering. One of her brothers was imprisoned for robbery, and another for weapons violations. Esters graduated from high school and went to college, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary Education and Political Science from Bennett College. She also completed a master's in Public Administration from Central Michigan University. Conyers later attended the University of the District of Columbia School of Law and received a Juris Doctor.

Career

Monica Conyers worked as a teacher for mentally challenged teens. She was selected for jobs in administration and became a vice administrator for Detroit Public Schools. Conyers got more involved with politics. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

In 2005, Conyers ran and was elected to a four-year term on the Detroit City Council. At that time, all candidates ran at-large, meaning they had to attract a majority of votes across the city. She was elected by other members to serve as president pro tempore, and Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. was elected to serve as President of the City Council.

In 2008 a turbulent time for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick ended with his resignation at midnight on September 19, 2008. At that time council president Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. succeeded him as mayor of Detroit until a special election could be held. In keeping with the city charter, Monica Conyers advanced from president pro tem of the city council to president.

The special election for mayor was held on May 5, 2009. Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. ran for the office, but he was defeated by Dave Bing. Conyers initially wanted to investigate whether the city charter guaranteed her being able to keep the position as President of City Council. She learned that it did.

But after learning that the council's legal analyst position was that Cockrel had rights to return to the position of Council President, she decided not to contest the changes. She returned to president pro tempore for the remainder of her term.

Positions and votes

Conyers has sometimes made headlines for breaking with her colleagues in the Michigan Democratic Party and the city council (which consists entirely of Democrats). She was critical of the party for running ads in a mayoral race in Flint, Michigan. During the lengthy legal and political crisis of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Conyers was the only member of council to vote against a resolution demanding that he resign.

Bribery conviction

On June 16, 2009, the United States Attorney's Office said that two Synagro Technologies representatives had named Monica Conyers as having received bribes from the company totaling more than $6,000, paid to influence passage of a contract with the City of Detroit. The information was gathered during an FBI investigation into political corruption in the city, and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was also named in the probe.

Conyers was given a pre-indictment letter, and offered a plea bargain deal in the case. On June 26, 2009, she was charged with conspiring to commit bribery. She pleaded guilty. On March 10, 2010, she was sentenced to 37 months in prison, and also received two years of supervised probation.[Need to address bribery/corruption case]

She served her time at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was released from prison after 27 months on December 21, 2012, and began supervised probation. She was admitted to a residential re-entry program in the Detroit area. She was released to home confinement in the Detroit area on January 25, 2013. Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Ed Ross said Conyers earned 108 days of credit for good behavior, and she was released from federal custody officially on May 16, 2013. To fulfill the work requirement for her parole, Conyers worked part time as a cashier for an auto parts store and as a ticket agent at the Greyhound Station.

Personal life

On June 4, 1990, Esters married John Conyers, a long-serving Congressman from Detroit. She was 25, and he was 61. They had two sons together, John James Conyers III and Carl Edward Conyers.

In October 2015, the Detroit Free Press reported that Conyers had filed for divorce in Wayne County Circuit Court from September 3, 2015, after 25 years of marriage. The filing cited "a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved." In 2016, the divorce action was ended and the couple remained married, until his death in 2019.