A newly released state audit of former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s time in office found problems that extended across all aspects of the prosecutor’s job, including misuse of office funds and spending nearly seven total weeks away from her job to take nursing classes.
“It's my sincere hope that today will once and for all close a dark chapter in the history of St Louis, and that the early progress we've seen is a sign of good things to come for the people of this great city,” Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick said Tuesday during a news conference outlining the findings. “Kim was a disaster. The city has suffered immensely due to her failure to operate the office and to show up to work.”
Gardner resigned in 2023 after a series of scandals and missteps. Gov. Mike Parson appointed Gabe Gore to finish her term; he was elected outright to a full four years in office in November.
Among the key findings of Fitzpatrick’s review:
- Gardner misspent nearly $60,000 of a circuit attorney contingency fund on items like personal legal expenses, a Sam’s Club membership and disc jockey services. Under Missouri law, that fund can only be used for expenses like bringing in witnesses from other states or printing copies of briefs. The account was maintained outside the city’s treasury, in violation of state law.
Gardner admitted last October that she misused the fund to cover the costs of her 2022 disciplinary case stemming from the prosecution of former Gov. Eric Greitens. Under a deal with the U.S. attorney’s office, she will avoid prosecution if she pays back the funds and avoids any other criminal activity.
- Gardner spent nearly seven weeks total away from her duties as circuit attorney to take graduate-level nursing classes at St. Louis University.
In one instance, Gardner did four hours of clinical work that ended just 90 minutes before she was supposed to be in court to explain why she should not be found in contempt for her office failing to show up for hearings. That prompted the judge in the proceeding, Michael Noble, to call the office a “rudderless ship of chaos.”
Gardner told auditors in an interview that she was taking the classes to “improve the office and bring mental health awareness to the CAO.” The review found no documentation to back up that claim.
- The circuit attorney’s office under Gardner filed nearly 50% fewer cases per year than under her predecessor Jennifer Joyce and took longer to move cases through the criminal justice system.
The audit notes that restrictions on court operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic “are presumed to have had an impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of the CAO.” Gardner and Joyce also had philosophical differences about what kinds of cases should be filed.
But the audit found that the decline in some performance metrics “began prior to the pandemic, continued after pandemic-related restrictions were lifted” and lasted through the end of Gardner’s administration.
While organizations can function with poor leadership, Fitzpatrick said his staff learned in interviews with prosecutors that Gardner often failed to delegate decision-making authority, setting up a bottleneck.
“She was spending a lot of her time not doing her job, and also wanted to make a bunch of decisions,” he said. “That would have made it hard for people to do their jobs. If they can’t get a decision, how are they supposed to proceed?”
- Staffing levels dropped sharply during Gardner’s tenure, with many seasoned prosecutors leaving. That likely contributed to the decline in the office’s performance.
- The office failed to keep an inventory of seized property and did not dispose of old property in a timely fashion.
- The office did not properly solicit bids for goods or services, had poor documentation procedures in place for restitution accounts, failed to ensure that office equipment was returned on time and did not have strong controls over passwords used to access the state’s case management system.
An attorney who represented Gardner at various times throughout the audit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The audit was not meant to be a personal indictment of Gardner, Fitzpatrick said, but the numbers clearly showed she was not doing her job.
“When you look at the operations of the office before she was there and then immediately after she resigned, and then compare that performance to her time in office, it becomes obvious the ship wasn't just rudderless with Kim Gardner at the helm. It was sinking,” he said.
Fitzpatrick recommended the circuit attorney have better documentation of performance, set up tighter controls over bank accounts and institute stricter limits on password sharing.
In a written response included in the audit, Gore said that he had “no comment regarding the various suggestions or allegations of wrongdoing” by Gardner and that “his efforts and the office’s resources are better focused on moving forward than looking back.”
But he disagreed with several of the specific recommendations from Fitzpatrick’s office, including the implementation of performance review standards. He also wrote that he believed the circuit attorney’s office did not have to follow St. Louis procurement laws and that it was not required to have the city manage the contingency fund.
Fitzpatrick called the responses from Gore “less agreeable than I expected” but said the office is still better managed with him at the helm.
Audit delays
The audit of the circuit attorney’s office was the last one needed to complete a 2018 request by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen for a comprehensive review of the city. The report makes it clear that Gardner’s office stonewalled both Fitzpatrick and his predecessor, Democrat Nicole Galloway.
The circuit attorney and her staff refused to schedule in-person meetings with auditors and offered limited responses to follow-up questions to video meetings. Fitzpatrick had to issue multiple subpoenas to get banking information and other requested documents. Gardner herself did not meet with auditors until June 12, 2024.
Gardner’s recalcitrance boosted the cost of the audit, Fitzpatrick said, but he did now know by how much.
Updated with comment from Scott Fitzpatrick's news conference.
