Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym Worthy's decision to charge Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff with separate counts of perjury Monday was noted in Leelanau County.

Leelanau Prosecutor Joseph T. Hubbell said while it appears Worthy has a good case, it’s not certain that she will gain a conviction against Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty, who also face separate counts of obstruction of justice, misconduct in office, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Hubbell, who with assistant prosecutor Doug Donaldson successfully prosecuted a perjury case against Faye Robyn Onon in 2006, said the standard for similar prosecutions changed in 2004.

O’Non was found guilty in August 2006 of perjury in a capital case and influencing, intimidating or bribing a witness based on testimony she provided during the double-murder trial of her son, Matthew Onon, in March 2005. She is currently serving a 3- to 15-year prison sentence with the Michigan Department of Correction.

Hubbell said the Michigan Supreme Court changed the rules for what constitutes “perjury” in a 2004 ruling. He said a false statement made in trial had to be material to the case, prior to 2004, when the Supreme Court ruled in a case on appeal in 2004 that any false statement willfully made during testimony in a trial was enough to pursue a charge of perjury.

Even though the standard has changed, Hubbell said prosecutors still have to get the conviction.

“You still have to prove the statement was false. You still have the burden of proof, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person lied while on the stand,” he said.

To Hubbell’s recollection, the successful prosecution of Onon on the perjury charge was the first one in county history. A review of Leelanau Enterprise editions going back to 1958 did not yield any results as well.

In the case of Kilpatrick and Beatty, the two are alleged to have lied on the stand during a “whistleblower” lawsuit about the firing of deputy police chief Gary Brown in 2006 and their alleged romantic relationship. Worthy, in a press release issued Monday, said she began a full and earnest investigation into the matter after a series of articles was published in the Detroit Free Press in January. The articles showed information obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request for text messages sent between Kilpatrick and Beatty in 2007. The messages show the pair had a romantic relationship, which both had denied under oath during the whistleblower lawsuit. The messages also show the two discussed firing Brown during the lawsuit, something they both denied doing during testimony as well.

Hubbell said Friday he didn’t think Worthy had much choice about whether to prosecute. “It’s a tough decision, it involves a number of considerations,” he said. “She said she was going to do what the law requires, not politics. She is in a tough spot.”

Still, Hubbell said getting a perjury conviction will be difficult. “She has to prove there was a romantic relationship, beyond what is included in those messages. That will be tough to prove,” he said.

In press reports from last week, Kilpatrick said there is no proof he sent the text messages in question.