Ex-St. Louis prosecutor admits she misused public funds and avoids criminal charges

Kim Gardner resigned under fire last year after being elected as the city’s first Black prosecutor in 2016.

A former Democratic prosecutor in St. Louis admitted that she should not have used thousands of dollars of public money to retaliate after she was fined for mistakes in prosecuting a Republican governor, federal authorities announced Wednesday known.

Kim Gardner resigned last year amid criticism after being elected as the city’s first Black prosecutor in 2016. She will avoid federal prosecution for misuse of the $5,004 in public funds as long as she pays it back and follows other rules of a pretrial diversion agreement. She signed the agreement over the summer and it was finalized this month.

Gardner was part of a movement of progressive prosecutors who sought diversion to psychiatric or drug treatment for minor crimes, committed to holding police more accountable and pushed for the release of wrongfully convicted inmates.

She has been widely criticized by Republican leaders, who have cited low conviction rates in murder cases, high office turnover and other concerns. Before her turbulent term ended in May 2023, she frequently clashed with police and conservatives.

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In 2018, she filed invasion-of-privacy charges against former Gov. Eric Greitens, then a rising star in Republican politics, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an affair. The charges were eventually dropped. Greitens resigned in June 2018.

The review of the case resulted in the conviction of Gardner’s investigator, and Gardner received a written reprimand from the Missouri Supreme Court over issues with the handling of documents in the case.

That reprimand, which spared her law license, also came with a $750 fine and $4,254 in additional costs. Her lawyer at the time said any errors were unintentional and the result of the heavy workload during the Greitens investigation.

Then problems arose, the diversion agreement says, because Gardner directed her staff to write a series of checks for the $5,004 from a St. Louis District Attorney’s Office contingency fund to reimburse her for compensation, even though she was not entitled to the additional compensation. The city receives federal funding, and so the U.S. Attorney’s Office got involved.

“This is a just and fair result for a case involving a former public official and the misuse of public funds that meets just the minimum requirements of relevant federal criminal law,” U.S. Attorney Sayler A. Fleming said in a written statement.

Gardner’s attorney, Harvard professor Ronald Sullivan Jr., did not immediately respond to an email or phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a written statement that Gardner wanted to save the court’s time and resources by entering into the agreement.

“Although Ms. Gardner was prepared to vigorously defend any allegations that may have been made against her, she and the government agreed to end any dispute and terminate any investigation with the pre-prosecution diversion agreement,” he said in an email .

At the time of her resignation, Gardner was the subject of an attempted overthrow by Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. GOP lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow Republican Gov. Mike Parson to appoint a special prosecutor to handle violent crimes, stripping Gardner of much of his responsibilities.