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The 50 Greatest Kansas Scandals & Controversies

50 PHOTOS9:43 a.m. CST Jan. 3, 2014

In March 2011, Wichita’s police chief was on the defensive after his officers were shown on two videos pulling Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau over for speeding and not giving her a ticket. In one of the videos Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau was pulled over for driving 18 miles over the 30 mph limit, and in the other she was accused of driving 13 mph over. The Wichita Eagle, which posted the videos on its website, reported that during both stops the Wichita senator told officers she knows the police chief and other city officials. During a stop on Oct. 7, 2009, Faust-Goudeau showed an officer a Police Department “challenge coin” and said Police Chief Norman Williams gave it to her and told her to “use it” if she had to.

In August 2009, U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins offered encouragement to conservatives at a town hall forum that the Republican Party would embrace a “great white hope” capable of thwarting the political agenda endorsed by Democrats who controlled Congress and President Barack Obama. “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope,” Jenkins said to the crowd. “I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.” Jenkins, a Topeka Republican who was in her first term in Congress, later apologized for her word choice. The phrase “great white hope” is frequently tied to racist attitudes permeating the United States when heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson fought in the early 1900s. Reaction to the first black man to reign as champion was intense enough to build support for a campaign to find a white fighter capable of reclaiming the title from Johnson.

“Don’t Drop the Soap,” an adult-themed board game based on life in prison, began being sold out of the Kansas governor’s mansion in early 2008. The game, a creation of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ then 23-year-old son John, includes five tokens representing a bag of cocaine, a handgun and three characters: wheelchair-using “Wheelz,” muscle-flexing “Anferny” and business suit-clad “Sal ‘the Butcher.’ ” Players must survive several levels of life in prison in hopes of reaching parole in order to win. The game’s adult humor came under fire from such groups as the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, but Gov. Sebelius remained supportive of her son’s venture. “Kathleen and Gary are very proud of their son John’s creativity and talent,” spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said. “He began this game as a class project at the Rhode Island School of Design, and he’s now turned into an entrepreneur.”

Pop star Madonna released her coffee table book “Sex” in October 1992, drawing strong reactions from across the world for the book’s nudity and pornographic images. The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library’s decision to carry the book was challenged but eventually upheld. The library’s decision to stock the controversial book and “Sexual Intelligence,” a book by “Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrall, would be recalled in 2009 when a similar debate centered on four sex books at the library.

Paul R. Hess was a rising political star and chairman of the Kansas Senate Ways and Means committee in the 1980s. But he really made headlines when he took his sons and fled to Egypt in 1985 while facing theft charges and a custody battle with his ex-wife, Anne Schroer. Schroer hired a private detective in 1985, who located her children in Cairo, and Hess later served prison time for forgery and securities fraud. Schroer said she came from a wealthy family but Hess “pretty much cleaned us out” and at one point after their divorce she went to a convent of nuns in Paola to solicit help in feeding her children. Schroer, who now lives in Berryton, says Hess, who now lives in Washington, still owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid child support for their three sons. Online directories show that Hess is living in Kenmore, Wash., north of Seattle. A listing of his address on the real estate website Zillow describes it as a 9,400-square foot, 18-bedroom, 9.25-bath “Santa Fe/Taos/Puebla-style Hacienda on 5 acres” complete with “10,000 sq ft garden; 25 fruit trees; gazebo; 2 large sculptures; tennis court with basketball hoop; cabana with fireplace and grill along creek.”

During a committee hearing in March 2011, Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, said that deploying sharpshooters in helicopters to kill wild pigs had proven effective. So effective, in fact, he suggested the same strategy might be used to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in Kansas. “Looks like to me, if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a (solution) to our illegal immigration problem,” Peck said. Several Hispanic groups, state lawmakers and Gov. Sam Brownback all called on Peck to apologize for his suggestion, which he did the next day. “My statements yesterday were regrettable,” Peck said. “Please accept my apology.”

The eldest son of Sicilian immigrants, Joseph Aiuppa quickly rose through the ranks of the Chicago Mafia. During the early 1930s, he operated a furniture manufacturer, Taylor & Co., a front company for the illegal manufacture of slot machines. Struggling for decades to find a reason to arrest Aiuppa, federal authorities finally got their chance in September 1962. FBI agents in Kansas searching the mobster’s car found 563 frozen doves. It is illegal to carry more than two dozen doves outside of hunting season. Prosecuted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, Aiuppa was sentenced in 1966 to three months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The trial and guilty verdict led to Aiuppa’s nicknames: “Doves,” “Mourning Doves” and “Joey Doves.”

In April 2008, Topeka Unified School District 501 had three black school board members. But, according to one of those three, only two wanted to be black. “All I know is Patrick (Woods) thinks he’s white,” board member Betty Horton told The Capital-Journal in an interview after a board meeting on April 17. “That’s it. Print it. Patrick married white. He thinks he’s white.” Woods and Horton had recently differed on an early childhood plan. After hearing about her comments the next day, Woods said he didn’t want to “dignify that kind of sophomoric and immature notion with a response — that notion that you aren’t who you are.” “I’m proud of who I am,” he said. “Proud to be a young black man, a father, a husband, all those types of things.”

Following a bipartisan agreement in the House on education spending in 2006, Alan Rupe, an attorney for school districts which had sued the state for more money, called the plan weak and vowed a legal fight. The response from House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, was a colorful one. “Alan Rupe can shove it up his ass. You can quote me on that,” Mays told The Capital-Journal. Rupe’s response was likely an honest one: “I won’t be going hunting with Doug Mays anytime soon.”

Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan was sued for sexual harassment in 1982 by Marcia Tomson Stingley, who worked in the attorney general’s office. Running for governor in the mid-1980s, Stephan denied the allegations but agreed in 1985 to settle the case for $24,000 and a promise to keep terms secret. However, the agreement was subsequently divulged to the media. Stingley sued for breach of contract, and a federal jury awarded her $200,000. Stephan later faced perjury charges and filed for bankruptcy but was re-elected attorney general.

In 2009, the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library’s board of trustees was asked by a library patron to restrict minors’ access of four sex-related books. The books – “Sex for Busy People,” “The Lesbian Kama Sutra,” “The Joy of Sex” and “The Joy of Gay Sex” – had upset library patron Kim Borchers, who represented a group called Kansans for Common Sense Policy. Public meetings on the matter drew large crowds and heated discussions. Ultimately, the board of trustees decided against turning the page, opting instead to keep the four books available to minors. Photo: Jerie Lee Tucker holds a sign outside the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library along with other members of The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property to support restricting access to sex-related books (Topeka Capital-Journal).

In 2008, Richard Blevins, a former state fire inspector, pleaded no contest to sexually soliciting a 13-year-old girl. Blevins was the husband of a secretary for Washburn University President Jerry Farley. In a May 19 letter written on Washburn letterhead to Wabaunsee County District Court Judge Gary Nafziger, Farley said he had known Blevins for more than 10 years and that the “highly public and humiliating exposure of the allegations has had a very punishing effect on Richard.” He added in his letter, “I urge you to consider placing Mr. Blevins on probation as the sentencing grid indicates instead of a prison term.” Farley’s use of WU stationery drew the ire of members of the Washburn University Board of Regents, including Topeka Mayor Bill Bunten. Farley argued that he wasn’t speaking for the university, that the letter “was purely personal. Despite Farley’s plea, Blevins was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

As the Kansas Board of Education debated the teaching of intelligent design in the state’s public schools during May 2005, a “concerned citizen” by the name of Bobby Henderson wrote a satirical letter to the board. “I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel,” Henderson wrote. “We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.” In the letter, Henderson satirically argues that his theory of creation should be taught alongside intelligent design in Kansas schools. Henderson’s letter quickly went viral, becoming an international symbol and means for mocking creationism and intelligent design. Followers of the FSM, who often refer to themselves as Pastafarians, have used the satirical monster to challenge the teaching of intelligent design elsewhere in the U.S. Photo: A drawing of the Flying Spaghetti Monster “creating a mountain, trees, and a midget” by Bobby Henderson.

In January 2012, Gov. Sam Brownback hosted Republicans from 13 legislative committees at Cedar Crest at seven gatherings which Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor investigated for possible violations of the Kansas Open Meetings Act. Taylor, a Democrat, began investigating the dinners after receiving a KOMA complaint from The Topeka Capital-Journal and the Kansas Press Association. In a decision released after more than six months of investigation, Taylor’s office said the legislators acted out of “ignorance” and recommended they receive more KOMA training.

Kansas Congressman Jim Ryun purchased a Washington townhouse in 2000 from a nonprofit organization that had close ties to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who became embroiled in a federal ethics shake-up. After a Washington Post report in 2006, Democrats began questioning whether the Republican had received a sweetheart deal on his townhouse, where he lived while in Washington. Real estate records showed he bought the home for $19,000 less than its sale price from two years earlier, despite escalating property values in the nation’s capital. Its appraised value shortly ballooned to $764,000. Ryun denied any wrongdoing, claiming the house required immediate repairs, which explained its low price and ballooning value after the repairs were made. Ryan remained in Congress until losing to Nancy Boyda in 2006.

While she has said she personally opposes abortion, former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, currently the federal health and human services secretary, has long supported abortion rights. That conflict made headlines in an April 2009 confirmation hearing when Sebelius was questioned about campaign contributions she had received from Wichita physician George Tiller. Prior to Sebelius’ confirmation hearing, Operation Rescue uncovered a $200,000 “personal contribution” from Tiller to the ProKanDo political action committee to defeat Sebelius’ Republican opponent in the 2002 governor’s race. In written answers to senators’ questions, Sebelius initially said she received $12,450 from Tiller between 1994-2001, while serving as Kansas insurance commissioner. She later amended her answers to note an additional $23,000 in contributions in 2000-2002 from Tiller or his clinic to a PAC she formed. Tiller was one of the few providers of late-term abortions in the U.S. before being killed in May 2009 by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder.

In April of 2014, Topeka City Councilman John Campos II was charged with one felony count each of making a false writing and interference with a law enforcement officer. A petition calling for his removal from the council indicated an officer issued a citation to Campos on March 31 for speeding and operating a motor vehicle without proof of insurance. On April 3, Campos went to the city’s legal department to ask that the citation for failing to have insurance be dropped. He presented a proof of insurance card which, according to police, was fraudulent. In the weeks prior to his arrest, Campos had differences with his peers of both the city’s and county’s governing bodies.

Former Shawnee County District Attorney Robert Hecht’s compensation from fees he was paid for handling appeals and from his salary more than doubled from his first year to his last year, a Kansas attorney general’s investigation showed. Hecht’s compensation from salary and appellate fees in 2001 was $111,167 compared to $244,384 in 2008, the four-page report issued by deputy attorney general Barry Disney said. Disney, head of the attorney general’s criminal litigation division, examined Hecht’s billings for doing legal work on Shawnee County criminal cases in Kansas appellate courts. In June 2009, the attorney general’s office declined to file criminal charges against Hecht following a five-month investigation.

At the end of the 1994 legislative session, Rep. Richard Alldritt, D-Harper, accused Rep. Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, of trying to blackmail him into voting for a budget bill. Alldritt said Neufeld had threatened to call his wife and tell her that Alldritt had been observed in “a compromising position” with two female lobbyists in a Statehouse lounge, something Alldritt said wasn’t true. Neufeld acknowledged making the call but said he wasn’t trying to blackmail Alldritt. Neufeld never went to trial. A 4-3 Supreme Court majority said whatever had been said to whom, because it had occurred on the House floor or nearby, couldn’t be used as evidence in a criminal trial because of the speech or debate clause. That left no evidence upon which to prosecute Neufeld. The court’s majority opinion suggested that the speech or debate clause gives legislators broad protection so that they feel free to speak or write their minds on behalf of their constituents.

Curt Schneider, a Democrat from Coffeyville, was elected attorney general of Kansas in 1974 after serving as assistant attorney general under Vern Miller, who ran for governor the same year. Four years later, Schneider opted to forego a gubernatorial run in 1978 after photographs surfaced, indicating he was involved in an extramarital affair during the summer of 1977. He instead chose to seek re-election in 1978. Schneider’s stint as attorney general was short, ending in an electoral defeat to Republican Bob Stephan that year.

The 2002 resignation of Topeka Municipal Court Judge Neil Roach came almost a month after Shawnee County District Attorney Robert Hecht filed a civil lawsuit against Roach, Topeka and its Municipal Court asking a Shawnee County District Court judge to oust him from office, alleging that for 2 1/2 years he failed to comply with a state law that required him to report Topeka’s court traffic records to the state’s central depository. “I was appointed to serve as a judge and am proud of my record,” Roach wrote in his resignation letter. “I was not appointed to solve computer problems, and the documents gathered in response to the pending litigation reflect the many attempts my staff and I made to get technical assistance.” Hecht contended Roach failed to report to the state as many as 10,000 “major offenses,” such as convictions for driving under the influence, reckless driving and driving on a suspended license. State law requires all Municipal Court judges to keep records of every case where a person is charged with violating state or local laws regulating the operation of motor vehicles. Each judge then must forward records to the Kansas Driver’s License Control Bureau for cases where there is a conviction or a forfeiture of bail or bond.

A former radio personality and congressional candidate, Phill Kline was elected Kansas Attorney General in 2002. His strong anti-abortion views during his single term would draw national attention and eventually cost him his law license. When he began investigating illegal abortions in 2005, Kline requested the medical records of nearly 100 women. In December 2006, he charged abortion provider Dr. George Tiller with dozens of misdemeanors, all of which would later be thrown out. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in the autumn of 2013 that Kline had committed nearly a dozen violations of attorney general rules during his abortion investigations. The court suspended his law license. “Ultimately, we unanimously conclude the weight of the aggravating factors–i.e., Kline’s inability or refusal to acknowledge the line between overzealous advocacy and operating within the bounds of the law and his professional obligations; his selfish motives; and his lengthy and substantial pattern of misconduct–weigh more heavily than the mitigating factors and merit his indefinite suspension,” the court wrote.

During the summer of 1991, the family and congregation of Reverend Fred Phelps began a now-infamous anti-gay crusade by picketing Gage Park, soon spreading their message across the city and into the statehouse. For the first year of the Phelps campaign, the common response from most in Topeka was to ignore the Westboro Baptist Church. That changed in the fall of 1992 when Joan Hamilton campaigned for Topeka district attorney with the intent of prosecuting members of the Phelps family for any crimes they committed. Originally considered an unlikely contender for the position, Hamilton won the election. An untested criminal defamation law, which had been on the books since 1970, was Hamilton’s first tool in prosecuting the Phelps group, but a federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional. Hamilton’s next move proved more successful. In March 1995, she charged Fred Phelps and five members of his congregation with several counts, including assault and battery, following street scuffles the year before. Westboro members were acquitted on nine charges but convicted on three. Hamilton’s tactics were regarded by some, including those within the Phelps legal team, as heavy-handed but represented the city’s first concerted effort to prosecute the notorious Phelps group.

When David Wittig, right, was 31 years old, he was touted as one of Wall Street’s young stars by Fortune magazine. Twenty years later, in 2006, he sat locked in a federal prison. Wittig, along with fellow Westar Energy executive Douglas Lake, left, was facing charges of conspiracy and circumvention of internal financial controls. After a nearly seven-year legal saga, the federal charges were dismissed in August 2010. Wittig was later awarded $36 million in an arbitration settlement from Westar, along with $3.1 million in legal fees and $2.7 million in stock compensation.

Dave Johnson was a 59-year-old director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigations when, in 1989, he resigned following criticism over a racist joke he had made. While talking with reporters about the arrest of two people – one white, one black – for a triple homicide in Topeka, Johnson used the N-word. In his letter of resignation, Johnson admitted using the word but claimed it was taken out of context. ”I am sure you are aware that my performance has not indicated that I am a racist,” he wrote.

Judge Elsbeth Schafer, administrator of the Topeka Municipal Court, resigned in December 2004, mere months after Topeka Mayor James McClinton fired Matt Works as a judge pro tem. Schafer’s administration of the court became a topic of controversy through articles published by The Topeka Capital-Journal in September and October. During the latter month, the council learned the city was conducting an audit involving the court, where cumulative debt owed by lawbreakers was at least $4 million. Questions also were raised about whether Schafer’s husband and daughter received preferential treatment in the court. The firing of Matt Works in September 2004 came after Works drew criticism for dismissing a charge of driving on a suspended license against Malisa Nave, a relative of Councilman John Nave. The scandals led Mayor McClinton to create a new position – court administrator – who would be responsible for ensuring that the court runs effectively and efficiently.

After eight seasons, four bowl appearances, three bowl wins, 50 victories, 26 weeks in the Top 25, a national coach of the year award and one university investigation into his behavior, Mark Mangino took a financial settlement from KU and resigned as football coach at 5 p.m. Dec. 3, 2009, ending a coaching tenure that lasted longer than all but two in Kansas history. Whether Mangino was a good, tough coach or chronic abuser of his players largely depends who you ask. One player, defensive lineman Cory Kipp, said Mangino forced him to crawl on a hot AstroTurf field, leaving him with burns on his hands. Raymond Brown, a wide receiver, said Mangino taunted him for having an alcoholic father. Shortly after Brown’s brother had been shot, Mangino allegedly threatened to revoke Brown’s scholarship and send him back to St. Louis “so you can get shot with your homies.” The allegations against Mangino piled up in the months before his ouster, but so did defenses of the coach’s actions. “Mark did a great job,” athletic director Lew Perkins said on the day of Mangino’s resignation. “He did some things that needed to be done and I think the university and our football program is much better today than it was the day he took the job.”

Doug Wright, the son of former Topeka mayor Charles Wright, served as mayor of Topeka from 1983 to 1989 before narrowly losing a re-election bid to Butch Felker. Unlike most public officials, Wright’s moment of scandal came long after his time in office. He was charged in 2003 with felony theft stemming from the misappropriation of $114,245 from Vera Johnson, a great aunt he had power of attorney over. Wright served 10 months in prison and was disbarred. In 2009, a judge expunged Wright’s convictions of four felony thefts and a perjury count.

A teenager named Mike Coker began his career at the Topeka Zoo in the late 1970s answering visitor questions from inside a booth. The skills Coker gained as the “answer man” translated into public relations strengths, and in the decades that followed, he steadily rose through the zoo’s ranks. When a controversy over animal deaths pushed the zoo’s director out in 2001, Coker was thrust into the position. “He probably accomplished a lifelong dream of being a zoo director,” said Jesse Borjon, then board chairman of Friends of the Topeka Zoo. But inspection reports critical of animal deaths and lack of transparency in Coker’s own tenure spelled a similar fate as his predecessor. He retired in December 2009.

Richard Lee Knowlton was the Kansas Lottery’s information resource manager, in charge of its computer system for “scratch” ticket games, from 1992 until his resignation in March 2000. Knowlton, of Topeka, was charged in 2000 with tampering with instant-win tickets and manipulating computer files to steal nearly $63,000 from the Kansas Lottery. He pleaded guilty to 80 felony charges and admitted he had lied when he told news reporters he was conducting an investigation to show flaws in the lottery’s security. As part of the plea agreement, 160 other felonies and 28 misdemeanors were dismissed. Knowlton was fined $25,000 and sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years of probation.

In April 1978, Silvino Gomez was a supervisor at the Shawnee County fairgrounds when he was called into his employer’s office. Also in the office, according to court records, was Roland Hug, a member of the Shawnee Board of County Commissioners. According to Gomez, Hug asked another person, “What is that f-ing [racist slur] doing in the office?” Hug went on to call Gomez several other racial slurs and derogatory terms, at one point even raising his fist and threatening Gomez, asking “What are you going to do about it?” Troubled by the incident, Gomez began suffering from a series of physical and mental ailments he attributed to Hug’s outburst. Two physicians agreed that the incident had an effect on Gomez’s health, and Gomez sued both Hug and the county. Cuba-born attorney Pedro Irigonegaray represented Gomez in the case but a district court dismissed it. “It wasn’t denied that it happened, but the judge put it in writing that those were the ‘rough edges of society we have to deal with,'” Irogonegaray recalled in an interview with The Capital-Journal decades later. “We appealed and changed a state law.” Photo: Roland Hug, left, and his son, Jim, package bottles of Roland Hug’s Original Down Home Bar-B-Q sauce (Eric Bakke/The Capital journal)

Daniel C. Fitzgerald was a Kansas State Historical Society employee and author of several books, including “Ghost Towns of Kansas” and “Faded Dreams: More Ghost Towns in Kansas.” On March 28, 1995, property stolen from the state historical society was discovered for sale at an antique business in Shawnee County. Each volume bore historical society markings in four locations. On some books, marks indicating erasure or obliteration were found where stamps should have been, the document said. Fitzgerald pleaded no contest in Shawnee County District Court to reduced charges of attempted felony theft and presenting a false account, a misdemeanor, both linked to his work with the state historical society. In February 1995, Fitzgerald, who originally was charged with one count of felony theft, 60 counts of misdemeanor theft and one count each of theft by deception and presenting a false voucher, was sentenced to six months in jail for each count. The sentences were suspended, and Fitzgerald was placed on a year supervised probation and ordered to pay $5,642 restitution. In Atchison County, Fitzgerald was convicted March 27 of three felony thefts. Fitzgerald was sentenced May 12 to eight months on one count and six months on the other two counts, all to run concurrently. Photo: The Kansas Historical Society at 6425 S.W. 6th Avenue in Topeka (The Kansas Historical Society)

When Sam Cohen, owner of the Ramada Inn Downtown, announced plans in 1976 to add a 12-story tower onto the hotel, he had a lot in mind, including luxury apartments on the 11th floor and a glass-encased private club on the 12th What he didn’t envision is a battle with the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Though it was granted a waiver from city fire codes, the tower’s lack of a central alarm placed it in violation of state fire codes. Cohen’s battle with state fire officials lasted into the early 1980s. Photo: Topeka construction worker Steve Clemmons found a cage, hanging from a tower of guest rooms being built at the Ramada Inn Downtown, the perfect place to relax and enjoy his afternoon break (Chris Johns/The Capital-Journal)

An effigy of Mayor Joan Wagnon with her head inside a toilet seat was placed outside her office at city hall the night of the primary election in 2001. The items, with a sign saying “Flush Wagnon,” had been moved from the yard of a Topeka resident who used the display to show his displeasure with the mayor. Former Police Chief Ed Klumpp, who was deputy chief at the time, said Councilman John Alcala confessed that he, Councilman Jim Gardner and Shawnee County Commissioner Vic Miller had taken the display and moved it to city hall. The prank’s crudeness led to denunciations from some residents and area businesses. “I wouldn’t be surprised at such shenanigans from high school students, or maybe even some college pranksters,” resident Robert Miller wrote to The Capital-Journal. “But I do not expect the people I put my faith and trust in as our community leaders to conduct themselves in such an unprofessional manner.” Wagnon, the city’s first female mayor, lost the 2001 election. She is now the chairwoman of the Kansas Democratic Party.

A former employee and future business partner of Shawnee County Treasurer Rita Cline received a nearly $22,000 buyout when Cline terminated her contract in late 2002. Kate Carty served as Cline’s office manager at the White Lakes Center annex of the Shawnee County Treasurer’s Office for about a year and a half. County commissioners told Cline she didn’t follow proper county hiring procedures in hiring Carty. Shortly after Cline and Carty paid a franchise fee to buy a Comfort Keepers location, Cline says she informed Carty she would have to sever Carty’s employment contract. Cline and Carty agreed on Jan. 10, 2003, as Carty’s final day, and Cline agreed to buy out the contract for $22,915. Cline issued two checks from the county’s motor vehicle account, the first one for $7,000 dated Dec. 26, 2002, to buy out Carty’s employment contract. Cline said the second check was for $14,915 and was dated Jan. 2, 2003. Cline, who had served as county treasurer from 1989 to 2003, resigned under threat of an ouster proceeding.

The father of a Confederate medic, Dr. John R. Brinkley, right, opened a 16-room clinic in Milford in 1918, making house calls for influenza patients. When a male patient told Brinkley that he was sexually weak, Brinkley joked that he wouldn’t be weak if he had a pair of goat testicles transplanted in him. According to a biography he commissioned, Brinkley then performed the operation for the man for $150. After his first patient fathered a child, Brinkley’s goat testicle operation was advertised as a cure for infertility and dozens of other ailments. Several patients died after undergoing the surgery, largely due to Brinkley’s unsanitary methods, and he faced more than a dozen wrongful death lawsuits. Brinkley would go on to own several radio stations and unsuccessfully run for governor of Kansas three times. Fighting court battles in his later years, he died in poverty in 1942.

Longtime Topeka politician Harry L. “Butch” Felker III was elected to three terms as mayor before, in 2003, he was saddled with formal and informal allegations that he abused his authority, violated campaign finance laws and turned a blind eye to problems in city government. “In light of the prospect of continued litigation, which is disruptive to the efficient and effective operation of the municipal government of the City of Topeka, I, Harry L. ‘Butch’ Felker, resign as Mayor of the City of Topeka, Kansas, effective forthwith,” Felker announced in a letter on Nov. 7, 2003.

A $2 million ticket-scalping scheme at the University of Kansas began when an athletic department official began stealing tickets and giving them to her husband and five other employees to sell. Details of the five-year scam emerged in 2010. Seven people were convicted in the scheme that reportedly involved nearly 20,000 basketball and football tickets. Revelations of the ticket scam angered many prominent donors who had been meeting exorbitant dollar demands for the privilege of buying premium tickets in always sold-out Allen Fieldhouse. Under an unpopular system imposed to raise money, seating was allocated on a points system based on how much a fan donated to the Williams Educational Fund. The best seats were supposed to go to the people who made the biggest donations. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Alan LeDoux, right, of Holton, was the head of the Kansas Water Office when, on Sept. 24, 2002, he turned on a radio and heard that he had been charged with rape, sodomy and kidnapping. The office of Shawnee County District Attorney Robert Hecht accidentally released a news statement about charges against LeDoux, 55, before his arrest later that day. LeDoux was found guilty in May 2003 of entering a southwest Topeka home between 1 and 3 a.m. on May 23, tying up an adult occupant, and sexually assaulting her. He served a decade in prison before being released in September 2013. LeDoux had long been prominent in northeast Kansas politics, serving as a member of the Republican State Committee in the early 1990s, chairman of the Jackson County Republican Central Committee and later as the vice chairman of the Jackson County Republican Party. He also had been a civic and church leader in Holton and Jackson County.

Fletcher Bell, a Republican from Lawrence, was first elected insurance commissioner in 1970. Six weeks after he retired in 1991, he received a worker’s compensation award worth $94,469. Bell said he had injured his back lifting a heavy briefcase from the trunk of his car. The disclosure of the award in 1993 led to worker’s compensation reform and to criminal charges by then-Attorney General Bob Stephan. Stephan charged Bell with two counts of theft by deception, but a Shawnee County judge dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. The Kansas Supreme Court later upheld the dismissal, but Bell eventually gave back part of the award. When Democrat Kathleen Sebelius ran successfully for insurance commissioner in 1994, she promised to reform the office and often cited Bell’s case. Photo: Forrest Springer and Commissioner of Insurance Fletcher Bell discuss an upcoming insurance forum in April, 1983. (The Capital-Journal)

Shawnee County Sheriff Dave Meneley, left, was ousted from office Feb. 24, 2000, following a seven-day civil trial. Shawnee County District Judges Matthew Dowd and Richard Anderson said Meneley had engaged in “willful misconduct,” perjuring himself twice and concealing evidence once. Meneley since 1999 had been ensnared by a drug scandal in the department that became public after evidence surfaced in a KBI probe and district court hearings that narcotics investigator Timothy Oblander was hooked on cocaine and was consuming drugs from the sheriff’s department property room. Meneley denied under oath that he knew about Oblander’s drug addiction and subsequently was charged with two counts of perjury. Defiant, Meneley appealed the ouster and ran for sheriff again but was defeated in the Republican primary.

By beating the nation to the punch on prohibition by about 40 years and being home to perhaps the most famous anti-alcohol crusader in American history, Kansas earned a reputation as a temperate state. The state began its own prohibition in 1880 and, despite the end of federal prohibition in 1933, didn’t repeal its ban on the manufacturing and sale of liquor until 1948. In 1900, Carry A. Nation became the face of the state’s zero-tolerance attitude when she broke up saloons in several Kansas towns with rocks and a hatchet. They called her the “Kansas Cyclone.” In the early 1970s, airline passengers were told they couldn’t consume drinks over Kansas. Vern Miller, Kansas attorney general from 1970-1974, said he always just wanted to be a sheriff, which is basically what he was, even while he was attorney general. That, and a cowboy. Miller loved a good drug raid — he said he raided KU’s campus 15 to 20 times alone — and famously raided an Amtrak train, busting it for slinging booze within Kansas borders, an act that temporarily stopped airlines from serving alcohol while jetting over Kansas skies. Photo: Attorney General Vern Miller is seen taking inventory of confiscated booze (The Kansas Historical Society).

On April 3, 2001, Capital City Bank President Clinton Odell “Del” Weidner II told Westar Energy CEO David Wittig about a $1.5 million investment in an Arizona real estate project. Wittig originally said he had had no interest in the project but agreed to loan Weidner the money if Weidner extended Wittig’s credit line by $1.5 million. When the true nature of the loan was discovered by Capital City Bank the next year, Weidner was placed on administrative leave. Weidner and Wittig were convicted on July 14, 2003, of conspiring to hide the $1.5 million loan from federal regulators. Weidner was sentenced to six years, six months in prison. Wittig was sentenced to four years in prison. Photo: Former President Harry S. Truman, protected by a plastic mask, takes part in a symbolic sandblasting operation at the dedication of the Capital City Bank, 37th and Topeka, on Nov. 30, 1964 (The Capital-Journal)

In the spring of 1855, Lecompton was named the capital of the Kansas Territory and construction began on a capitol building as the territory moved toward statehood. Also in 1855, the Topeka Constitutional Convention drafted the so-called Topeka Constitution that banned slavery in the soon-to-be state. Two years later, in 1857, a convention drafted the Lecompton Constitution, which legalized slavery in the territory. The intense debate between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces in Kansas, which often resulted in bloodshed, led the anti-slavery victors to choose Topeka as the capital when Kansas became a state in January 1861, months before the onset of the Civil War. Photo: an architect’s rendering of the proposed state capitol building in Topeka, circa 1864-1866 (The Kansas Historical Society).

When incumbent Kansas Gov. Fred Hall lost in the Republican primary during his re-election bid in 1956, he could have quietly left politics. Instead, in an attempt to remain in power, he set in motion the “Triple Play of 1956.” Around the time of Hall’s primary loss, Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice William Smith announced he would be resigning due to ill health. On Jan. 3, 1957, just 11 days before his term was to expire, Hall resigned as governor. The resignation meant Lt. Gov. John McCuish was elevated to the office of governor for the brief period before Gov. George Docking could be sworn-in. McCuish repaid the favor by immediately appointing Hall to the empty Supreme Court seat previously held by Justice William Smith. While legal, the “triple play” was seen by many in the capital as unethical and led to the adoption of a constitutional amendment the following year. Photo: the resignation letter of Gov. Fred Hall (The Kansas Historical Society).

After a long history in law enforcement, Paul Morrison announced in 2006 that he was switching his party allegiance from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party to challenge Republican Phill Kline for the Attorney General seat. Morrison defeated Kline, taking office on Jan. 8, 2007. He would remain in that office for only a year. In December 2007, articles in The Topeka Capital-Journal detailed Morrison’s two-year extramarital affair with an office administrator, Linda Carter. Articles included details of Morrison’s sexual encounters with Carter at the Johnson County Courthouse and in several states outside Kansas. Disclosure of the sex scandal led to Morrison’s resignation in January 2008.

On Oct. 11, 2000, federal agents raided Renaissance, The Tax People Inc. headquarters at the Fleming Mansion, S.W. 10th and Gage, seizing company records. On May 15 of the next year, a Shawnee County District Court judge shut down Renaissance, calling it a pyramid scheme. Renaissance founder Michael Craig Cooper was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, to commit wire fraud and to commit mail fraud; 17 counts of mail fraud; 11 counts of wire fraud; one count of money laundering conspiracy; 41 counts of unlawful monetary transactions of criminally derived property worth more than $10,000; and two counts of money laundering. Cooper was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2010 and ordered to pay restitution of $10.67 million to the IRS for unpaid taxes. A judge also ordered the forfeiture of $75 million.

When Alf Landon took over as governor of Kansas in 1933, two men who had easy access to him were W.W. Finney and his son, Ronald. They had contributed to his 1932 campaign, and as one state history book put it, were considered to be “among the best people in Kansas.” On the surface they were a couple of high-class swells, but underneath Ronald was anything but. His legacy to Kansas was the great Finney bond scandal, which put Topeka under martial law, with soldiers guarding the state treasury. In the summer of 1933, $1,250,000 of forged bonds and warrants were discovered in the state treasury. State Treasurer T.B. Boyd had given Ronald total access to the treasury vault, leaving him free to steal whatever bonds he wanted and replace them with forged duplicates. Boyd was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison, not much compared with Ronald’s stiff sentence of 30 to 600 years. Ronald Finney was freed in 1945, after serving 12 years. The elder Finney, also sentenced to a long prison term, committed suicide before his prison term began. Photo: the Emporia home of W.W. Finney, built by W.W. and his wife Mabel Tucker in the early 1930s. (The Kansas Historical Society)

After practicing medicine in the northeast, Charles Robinson traveled to California in 1849, was seriously wounded in a series of riots, and was elected to the California Legislature while facing charges of conspiracy and murder. Discharged of the criminal counts, Robinson traveled to Kansas in 1854, settling in Lawrence. An aggressive and combative opponent of slavery, Robinson was elected the Territorial Governor of Kansas under the Topeka Constitution in January 1856. When Kansas was admitted as a state in 1861, Robinson became its first governor but faced immediate pressure from his political rival, James Lane. Lane orchestrated impeachment proceedings for Robinson and two members of his cabinet. Though he was acquitted of the charges against him, Robinson was impeached, becoming the first and only Kansas governor to be removed from office. He later served in the Kansas Senate for eight years and was a University of Kansas regent for 12 years. Photo: a portrait of Charles Robinson, circa 1890 (The Kansas Historical Society).

On Sept. 21, 2010, four employees of the city’s water division were paid several hundred dollars in cash for scrap iron pipe taken from a city work site. The city received an anonymous tip about the matter Nov. 22, and took disciplinary action against the four employees the following month that included suspension, demotion and other financial penalties, with the combined economic loss to the employees being $11,750. One of the employees also retired. Topeka Council members voted to end city manager Norton Bonaparte’s employment after he came under fire for his handling of the incident. After leaving Topeka, Bonaparte’s job search took him to the Florida town of Sanford where, as city manager, he became embroiled in the national debate surrounding the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.