Judge rejects grand jury petition in WyCo

What’s going on in Wyandotte County and KCK?

A judge threw out a grand jury petition yesterday filed by agitator T.J. Reardon, citing signatures that were forged.
 
Reardon has long alleged that there’s corruption and misuse of public funds by the Unified Government and the Board of Public Utilities, and in October, he filed a petition to seat a grand jury to investigate his claims.

In November, the Unified Government and the BPU filed objections. So last Friday, Kansas Senior Judge Barry A. Bennington heard the case and ruled yesterday that only 399 of the 1,144 signatures were valid. But because the petition didn’t follow statutory form, he threw the whole thing out.

At last week’s hearing, the Unified Government’s attorney, Dan Crabtree called the petition a “fraud on the court.” He said 30 of the 102 pages were “cut, lifted and pasted” from Reardon’s successful 2008 grand jury petition. He also said some signatures had been “traced over in fresh ink.” Crabrtree presented a handwriting expert, who back up his claims.

Also of note, the judge told Reardon that there appeared to be evidence of a a possible felony against him, and he didn’t have to testify. But he did anyway.

On December 7, Reardon wrote on his Web site: “The facts remain that I tried to help bring the truth to light and certain people are angry that they will have to defend why they get hundreds of thousands in goodies, cash, tickets and favors while the poor people of Wyandotte County suffer. The truth will come out because even ten million lawyers cannot adultcrate it.”

After the jump, read the full judge’s order, the petition and Reardon’s statement.