A criminal affidavit says Shawnee Mayor Michelle Distler filed a Kansas Open Meetings Act complaint under someone else’s name. Then, when questioned about it, investigators noted “several major discrepancies” in Distler’s timeline for filing the complaint.
Distler faces one felony count of perjury related to the incident, which occurred in early March, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit redacts the name of the individual whose name Distler used when filing the complaint, but Distler referred to him as a “watchdog for the city of Shawnee” to investigators.
The complaint stemmed from an email chain involving Distler, at least four Shawnee city councilmembers and other unidentified individuals on Saturday, March 7.
Distler told investigators that once two people on the email chain responded she felt it had violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act. She said she feared making the complaint under her own name “because of the people involved.”
A criminal complaint filed in the case includes a list of more than 30 witnesses. Four Shawnee city councilmembers are named on that witness list: Eric Jenkins, Mike Kemmling, Kurt Knappen and Tammy Thomas.
According to the affidavit, the man whose name Distler filed the complaint under did not find out about it until receiving an automatically generated confirmation in his own email.
Investigators searched Distler’s home in Shawnee in late June, recovering several electronic devices, including a MacBook Pro, an iPhone and the iPad Distler admitted was used to file the complaint.
Distler told investigators during that June search that she had already gone to Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe and “told him everything because I was trying to be upfront and say this happened and, you know? Messed up and …”
In a later July interview between investigators and Distler and her attorney, investigators noted “discrepancies” in the details of the timeline Distler described in submitting the complaint and the electronic record created by the complaint once it was filed.
Namely, Distler said she submitted the complaint around 10 a.m. on the morning of March 7, but an electronic record generated by the complaint said that it was submitted at 4:45 p.m.
Furthermore, the email chain that Distler said prompted the complaint did not end until around 3:33 p.m. that day.
Read the entire criminal affidavit below:
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