The Spotlight’s Red Glare

Two weeks ago, the Pitch reported on the legal troubles faced by Kansas Rep. Patricia Kilpatrick. Specifically, several of her landlords had filed lawsuits seeking back rent, various businesses had sued seeking damages for unpaid bills, and Kilpatrick had passed bad checks and been arrested for shoplifting (“Deficit Spending,” June 15).

News of the Overland Park Republican’s problems traveled fast. The Kansas City Star followed up with its own report a week later, and Kilpatrick called in to the KMBZ 980 show of afternoon personality Jerry Agar to defend herself on June 20. Her June 22 hearing in front of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission for campaign finance violations was jammed with so many reporters that it looked like Angelina Jolie had brought baby Shiloh to Topeka for a visit.

As it turned out, Kilpatrick’s year in the Legislature wasn’t merely instructive on how not to behave as a state representative. Kilpatrick had, after all, been a key figure in one of the Legislature’s highest-profile accomplishments: passage of Jessica’s Law, which cracks down on sex offenders, mandating 25-year sentences for first-time child predators and life terms for third strikers.

That means Kilpatrick has been on the scene in a spectacular media explosion involving Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Attorney General Phill Kline, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, and Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison. Also there was Mark Lunsford, the father of the law’s 9-year-old namesake, a Florida girl murdered by a sex offender.

If for no other reason than this being Fourth of July week, the Pitch figured a celebration of the political fireworks was in order.

First, a history lesson.

Kilpatrick was the sole sponsor of Jessica’s Law in Kansas. In February, she stood with Kline and Lunsford at the Capitol, urging legislators to pass her bill. On May 8, they did, voting overwhelmingly in favor.

On May 9, Kline’s office issued a press release saluting the Legislature and encouraging the governor to sign the law. Kline made sure that he received his share of the kudos, heaping praise on himself for helping create the Cyber Crimes Task Force and lauding the work of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and local law- enforcement agencies.

“We have sent a clear message that Kansas will not be a safe haven for predators,” Kline said in the statement. “Jessica’s Law reinforces that stance by providing one of the toughest laws in the nation in terms of protecting our children.”

Kline’s confidence that Jessica’s Law was “one of the toughest laws in the nation” seemed to grow a bit shaky, however, after O’Reilly butted into the debate on the May 23 episode of The O’Reilly Factor.

O’Reilly took issue with a provision that gives judges freedom in sentencing the offenders, ripping Sebelius for supposedly championing a weak bill. O’Reilly called Kansas’ version of Jessica’s Law “a hoax” and “a three-card monte,” according to a transcript.

“The governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius — she does a big dog-and-pony show saying how tough she is to pass this law, and it is a farce,” O’Reilly told his viewers. “And everybody in the country and Kansas should know it. And this woman is not being honest and not looking out for the kids.”

O’Reilly had his civics — and his timeline — wrong. Sebelius can make recommendations to the Legislature but can only sign or veto laws if the Legislature puts them on her desk. And the “dog-and-pony show” had yet to happen.

Less than 24 hours after O’Reilly’s premature rant, Sebelius signed Jessica’s Law at the Johnson County Courthouse.

Joining her for the ceremonious photo op were Kline, Morrison and Kilpatrick.

Contacted by the Pitch, Sebelius’ press secretary Nicole Corcoran defended the governor’s role in passing Jessica’s Law — and blamed the Legislature for inserting a provision that gives judges discretion in sentencing. “Vetoing the bill because of it [the provision] was certainly not an option the governor would take,” Corcoran wrote in an e-mail.

Corcoran told the Pitch that neither O’Reilly nor his staff had contacted the governor’s office prior to his initial attack. But they did afterward — and O’Reilly’s focus shifted from the governor to the Legislature when Kline appeared on the June 6 Factor.

On the show, O’Reilly quizzed Kline about how Kansas, with a Republican-dominated Legislature, could possibly pass a version of Jessica’s Law that gives judges the ability to impose shorter sentences.

Kline blamed a House committee of “moderate liberal Republicans and Democrats,” saying they “gutted” the bill.

“There’s reason to be concerned,” Kline added, amping up the sex-offender fear factor. “And we need to do more in Kansas.”

O’Reilly still couldn’t figure out what had happened. He wanted to know why the bill was “gutted.”

Kline fingered legislators, claiming that they were afraid mandatory minimum sentencing would overcrowd prisons, and that they preferred treatment for sex offenders instead of lengthy sentences.

“The bill that we actually passed is a dramatic improvement over current Kansas law, which has been weak,” Kline conceded.

After his appearance with O’Reilly, Kline issued a much different press release than the one he had sent out in early May. This time, instead of encouraging the governor, Kline was calling her out.

“Although the recent passage of ‘Jessica’s Law’ has greatly strengthened Kansas law, the Legislature and governor wrongfully backed away from a 25-year mandatory minimum for raping a child and instead chose to allow a judge to have the continued ability to reduce the sentences of child rapists at their discretion,” Kline said in the release. “Next session, we will insist that this loophole be removed so that Kansas will send the clear message that a child rapists [sic] will, in all cases, be locked up.”

Corcoran again refuted Kline’s attack.

“I don’t think the governor could even begin to respond to something so far-fetched and so far from the truth,” Corcoran wrote to the Pitch, adding that Sebelius had repeatedly called on the Legislature to toughen sentences for sex offenders. (In her January State of the State address, Sebelius begged the Legislature “to double prison sentences for sex offenders who prey on children.”)

“The governor preferred the stronger bill and said so, however she can only take action on what the Legislature gives her,” Corcoran wrote the Pitch, before taking a swipe at Kline’s well-known pro-life crusades. “Maybe the attorney general could have broadened his focus this session to try and get this strengthened.”

But Kline was turning his attention to Morrison, the one-time Republican who declared himself a Democrat in order to challenge Kline this fall. As Kline’s campaign kicked off on June 12, House Speaker Doug Mays reportedly criticized Morrison’s absence on Jessica’s Law.

“Paul Morrison was AWOL when it came to the law, the most important law that we’ve enacted in a generation to protect the children and people of this state from sexual predators,” Mays told reporters. (Mays didn’t say how Morrison had been MIA, but he was referring to the fact that Morrison hadn’t testified on behalf of the law.)

So let’s recap.

First, Kline says that Jessica’s Law is “one of the toughest laws in the nation.”

Then he says that “moderate liberal Republicans and Democrats … gutted” it.

But then, Mays calls it “the most important law that we’ve enacted in a generation.”

Meanwhile, Kilpatrick, the sponsor of Jessica’s Law, has continued her spiral out of control.

On June 19, the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission accused Kilpatrick of breaking campaign finance laws. The Ethics Commission alleged that Kilpatrick had failed to report campaign contributions, expenditures and outstanding campaign debts. It also cited her for failing to keep receipts, invoices or other documentation to support any expenditures made by the campaign during the 2004 primary and general elections. A hearing was set for June 22.

On June 20, Kilpatrick called in to Jerry Agar’s radio show on 980. On the air, she claimed that the Pitch’s report was only 25 percent accurate.

Minutes after appearing on Agar’s show, Kilpatrick — who hadn’t returned numerous phone calls from the Pitch before our story ran — dialed up the paper.

Pressed for details on which 75 percent of the story was inaccurate, Kilpatrick said only that her ex-boyfriend hadn’t spent 90 days in jail for a domestic battery conviction as we’d reported. (Although the Johnson County Courts Web site says Nicholas Ryan Harms was sentenced to 90 days in jail, an official in the Johnson County district attorney’s office says Harms spent two days in jail.)

Of the litany of lawsuits filed by landlords and other creditors, the shoplifting arrest and the bad-check charges, she said, “You have the documentation accurate.”

Kilpatrick blamed her legal woes on domestic violence.

“He still tries to contact me,” Kilpatrick said of her ex. “He has continued to try to contact me. I felt it best not to put my personal life in print. That’s a very difficult thing to do, especially when you have children that you have to protect. And my personal safety and the personal safety of my children comes first and foremost.”

Kilpatrick said she’s never asked for favors or tried to get out of the debt. She claimed that she’s taking responsibility for her actions.

That didn’t appear to be the case at the June 22 Ethics Commission hearing, though.

Showing up late for the proceedings, Kilpatrick found reporters and TV news crews crowded into the cramped boardroom.

The Ethics Commission presented the case against Kilpatrick: failing to report $5,098.73 in contributions and $3,320.25 in expenditures on her January 10, 2005, receipts and expenditures report; failing to record outstanding campaign debts owed to the Source ($3,743.09), the Record News ($2,179.51) and Sky Printing and Graphics (about $2,900); and failing to keep receipts, invoices and documentation of expenditures made during the 2004 election year.

Carol Williams, executive director of the Ethics Commission, testified that Kilpatrick had reported no contributions for the January 10, 2005, campaign finance report. However, numerous political action committees had reported making donations to Kilpatrick’s campaign, Williams said.

In response, Kilpatrick testified that either she lost her binder containing the records in a move or her abusive ex-boyfriend had possession of the binder.

Kilpatrick said she’d made a “freshman mistake” in not reporting her outstanding campaign debts. She claimed that she didn’t realize she had to list outstanding debts if they had been reported in previous filings. Her lack of detailed documentation was due, Kilpatrick claimed, to a “domestic violence situation.”

However, members of the Ethics Commission zeroed in on a discrepancy in Kilpatrick’s testimony: Kilpatrick admitted cashing and writing checks for her campaign, yet still put down $0 for contributions for the period and omitted more than $3,000 in expenditures.

One member asked Kilpatrick if she’d hoped the commission wouldn’t find out about the reporting problems. Kilpatrick dodged the question, saying her safety and the safety of her children came first. Because of the domestic violence, she said, “I operated in a fog” during the time she’d filled out her campaign finance report.

When former legislator and commission member John Solbach asked her how much she thought she should be fined, Kilpatrick said the fine should be minimal. She suggested $50 fine per violation because they weren’t intentional.

Commission members disagreed, however, ultimately fining her $1,000 per violation. She has 30 days to pay the $4,000 penalty.

Back on May 25, the last day of the legislative session, Kilpatrick announced that she wasn’t seeking re-election. She said she was going to work for the Florida-based Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation as director of government affairs.

However, in her post-Agar phone call to the Pitch, Kilpatrick said that is no longer the case. Asked about her departure, Kilpatrick gave a canned answer.

“There have been a couple of advantages to working with the sex predator issue, one being that there’s a lot of opportunities out there to make sure sexual predators are taken care of, not only in Kansas but around the nation,” Kilpatrick said. “And therefore, a couple of other opportunities have presented themselves because of that, and I have chosen to take the opportunities that are best suited for fighting this type of crime.”

Kilpatrick wouldn’t elaborate on those opportunities.

However, Mark Lunsford, the father of the murdered girl who inspired Jessica’s Law, tells a different story of Kilpatrick’s departure from his foundation.

“I hate the word fired,” Lunsford told the Pitch. “I like the word terminated. It just wasn’t working out.”

Lunsford, who was in Washington, D.C., to receive the Jefferson Award for Public Service and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service, spoke with the Pitch by cell phone. He explained that he had hired Kilpatrick and her business partner (whose identity the Pitch has been unable to confirm) in May. The pair worked the last two weeks in May and the first week of June before Lunsford terminated them.

Lunsford says he paid them $2,000 a week for three weeks. They were supposed to raise money for the foundation, but Lunsford says they were unproductive.

“It wasn’t so much her; it was him,” Lunsford said.

Of Kilpatrick’s legal troubles, Lunsford said, “I never knew about that stuff. After the stuff I read, I’d say that’d pretty much be the end of that [political] career.”

As far as the criticism of Jessica’s Law leveled by O’Reilly and Kline, Lunsford said he was unaware they were saying such things.

“That’s odd,” Lunsford said. “Everybody was telling me, ‘Oh yes, Mark. This is what we want.'”

When the Pitch recounted all of the sparks surrounding Jessica’s Law, Lunsford’s response basically summed up Kansas politics.

“I tell you, man. Some people will do anything around election time.”