Kim Gardner, a Democratic former chief prosecutor in St. Louis, admitted she shouldn’t have used thousands of dollars in public funds to pay herself back after getting fined for mistakes while prosecuting a Republican governor, federal authorities said Wednesday. Gardner resigned under fire last year after being elected the city’s first Black circuit attorney in 2016. She will avoid federal criminal prosecution for misusing the $5,004 in public funds as long as she pays them back and follows rules of a pretrial diversion agreement. Gardner was part of a movement of progressive prosecutors who sought diversion to mental health or drug abuse treatment for low-level crimes, pledged to hold police more accountable, and sought to free inmates who were wrongfully convicted, the Associated Press reports.
She was criticized by Republican leaders who cited low rates of convictions in homicide cases, high office turnover and other concerns. Before her tumultuous term came to an end in May 2023, she butted heads with police and conservatives. In 2018, she charged former Gov. Eric Greitens, a rising star in GOP politics, with felony invasion of privacy, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an affair. The charge was eventually dropped. Greitens resigned. Scrutiny of the case led to the conviction of Gardner's investigator, and Gardner was reprimanded by the Missouri Supreme Court for issues with how documents in the case were handled. Gardner’s attorney, Harvard Prof. Ronald Sullivan Jr., said that, "While Ms. Gardner was prepared to vigorously defend any allegations that may have been lodged against her, she and the government agreed to end any dispute and terminate any investigation with the pre-charge diversion agreement."
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