Auditors can’t find the former St. Louis circuit attorney to complete the state audit

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A state investigation of the office that handles criminal charges in St. Louis is being postponed because auditors cannot find former District Attorney Kim Gardner, Missouri Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said Monday.

Fitzpatrick said in a news release that auditors have been trying to contact Gardner for several months, including serving her with a subpoena. Her whereabouts remain unknown, he said.

“This is a pattern of behavior by Kim Gardner, who has shown no willingness to be transparent or accountable,” Fitzpatrick, a Republican, said in a news release. “She knows without a doubt that our audit is ongoing and that we want to talk to her about her tenure, but she has made no effort to comply with our requests or respond to our questions.”

Gardner, a Democrat who was first elected in 2016 to become the city’s first Black circuit attorney, resigned in May 2023. She was part of a movement of progressive prosecutors seeking a diversion for low-level crimes into mental health or substance abuse treatment. held the police more accountable and tried to release prisoners who had been wrongly convicted.

She was often criticized by Republican leaders who cited low homicide conviction rates, high turnover and other concerns. At the time of her resignation, Gardner was the subject of an impeachment attempt by Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Republican lawmakers were considering a bill that would allow Republican Gov. Mike Parson to appoint a special prosecutor to handle violent crimes, removing most of Gardner’s responsibilities.

Fitzpatrick said his predecessor, Democrat Nicole Galloway, first requested data from Gardner’s office in 2021 as part of a citywide audit requested by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Fitzpatrick served a subpoena on Gardner last year that resulted in some requested documents but not others, he said.

State auditors have contacted Gardner’s attorneys, made daily calls to phone numbers believed to be associated with her, contacted former colleagues and made several attempts to serve her a subpoena — all without success, Fitzpatrick said.

Calls from The Associated Press to cellphone numbers believed to be associated with Gardner went unanswered Monday.

Gardner frequently clashed with police and conservatives during her time in office. In 2018, she charged former Gov. Eric Greitens, then a rising star in Republican politics, with a misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an affair. The charges were eventually dropped. Greitens resigned in June 2018.

Investigation of the case led to the conviction of Gardner’s investigator, and Gardner received a written reprimand due to problems with the way documents in the case were handled.

In 2019, she banned nearly 60 officers from bringing cases to her office after they were accused of posting racist and anti-Muslim comments on social media.

In February 2023, a series of events culminated in her departure.

Bailey has filed a lawsuit seeking Gardner’s ouster, accusing her of failing to prosecute cases, file charges in cases brought by police, and consult and inform victims and their families about the status of the cases. Gardner said Bailey’s attack on her was politically and racially motivated.

Then 17-year-old Janae Edmondson, a volleyball player from Tennessee, was hit by a speeding car after a tournament match in downtown St. Louis. She lost both legs.

The driver, 21-year-old Daniel Riley, had been released despite nearly 100 previous bail violations. Critics questioned why Riley was free at the time of the crash.

Riley was sentenced in April to 19 years in prison for causing the accident.

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