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Kim Gardner’s Gone, But Investigations Into Her Tenure Continue | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

September 7, 2023

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click to enlarge RYAN KRULL St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner heads to court in April 2023.

Kim Gardner has been out of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office for four months — but St. Louis may not have heard the last word about her tenure. In fact, several investigations into Gardner’s actions and operations remain open, both state and potentially also federal.

Most publicly, staffers with the Missouri State Auditor’s Office have been at the Circuit Attorney’s Office downtown for much of July and August. A spokesperson for Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick tells the RFT that the audit began in June 2021 under Nicole Galloway. When Fitzpatrick came into office this past January, he encountered “numerous roadblocks from Gardner,” says Trevor Fox, the office’s director of communications. These roadblocks included her releasing documents so “heavily redacted to the point it was of no use” as well as refusing to release documents altogether.

However, new Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore has “fully cooperated” with the audit, according to Fox.

“For the first time in the course of the audit, staff from the Auditor’s Office have been allowed on site to do their work,” Fox said. “So the audit team has in fact done extensive field work for the audit, but the release date for the final report will likely be in 2024.”

Fox says there are six staff members from the auditor’s office working on the audit.

He adds, “If the audit team finds anything criminal in nature while performing the audit, they will notify local law enforcement and provide any relevant information to them.”

Gardner has not responded to requests for comment made through her family’s funeral home. Her former spokesperson says she does not know of anyone fielding Gardner’s media inquiries.

The status of a probe by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is more complicated.

When Gardner resigned in May, it put a stop to Bailey’s efforts to remove her from office. The AG’s three-month investigation had already turned up numerous revelations about the prosecutor’s office under Gardner, including prosecutors carrying caseloads that numbered in the hundreds and repeated failures to disclose evidence to defense attorneys.

Following the RFT’s revelations of Gardner being enrolled in an advanced nursing program, Bailey’s office made public that she was in clinicals while her subordinates had appeared in her stead at an April contempt hearing.

Bailey’s spokeswoman suggests they have found even more, although those files have yet to become public.

“Had the quo warranto process continued, the Attorney General’s office would have continued to vigorously prosecute the case against Kim Gardner,” says Bailey’s communications director Madeline Sieren. “And new findings would have come to light.”

Bailey pointedly continued pursuing the quo warranto case even after Gardner announced on May 4 that she would resign, though the process came to halt when she actually left office on May 16.

State law expressly requires that the circuit attorney “devote their entire time and energy to the discharge of their official duties.”

During Gardner’s time as circuit attorney, the office did prosecute two captains with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department for “double dipping,” or getting paid by unapproved secondary employers while also on the clock for the police department.

Last April, the Circuit Attorney’s Office charged officer Michael Deeba with felony stealing for working a secondary job at a north city manufacturing plant during hours that overlapped when he was on the clock for the SLMPD. In 2020, prosecutors in Gardner’s office brought similar charges against a different police captain, Perri Johnson, who worked security for Spire gas company, the advertising firm Osborn Barr and Saint Louis University during the same hours he was getting paid to work for the police department.

Johnson’s charges were dropped after he completed a diversion program with the Circuit Attorney’s Office. The case against Deeba seems to be headed to a similar outcome. His attorney, Brian Millikan, didn’t respond to the RFT’s request for comment, but a trial that had been scheduled for June didn’t happen. That same month Deeba entered a diversion program.

Terry Niehoff, a criminal defense attorney who made no secret of his disapproval for Gardner when she was in office, says that while he thinks Gardner’s enrollment in a nursing program is a “dereliction of duty,” he doesn’t see a criminal offense because she wasn’t getting paid.

However, Niehoff says that Gardner could still be facing criminal liability for something.

“I always assumed something is going to come. I just don’t know how long it’s going to take,” he says.

He intimated the U.S. Attorney’s Office might be giving her tenure a hard look, saying of the top public corruption prosecutor there, “Hal Goldsmith takes his time.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office does not comment on investigations — or lack thereof — as a matter of policy.

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

12 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

12 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

12 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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