Police lobbyist and County Executive candidate Jane Dueker isn’t giving up her lobbying license just yet. Last week, to skirt Missouri Ethics Commission rules that would have otherwise forced her to end her paid promotion of the notorious St. Louis Police Officers Association, Dueker allies Christopher Graville, a St. Louis County municipal court judge, and Kathryn Drennen, political consultant to Claire McCaskill and Russ Carnahan, launched “JanePAC” to help Dueker fundraise around state campaign ethics laws.
The only donation reported so far to JanePAC is a $10,000 contribution made the same day the political action committee was launched – from the St. Louis County Police Association PAC. The County Police PAC is administered by Jeff Roorda replacement and current business manager Matt Crecelius, and as recently as December 26, counted several contributions from Dueker herself.
However, according to the Post-Dispatch she de-registered as a lobbyist on Thursday to be free to open a campaign account for herself. This is a sharp reversal from her earlier position and she also admits that she would not rule out working as a private attorney for some of her previous clients as a “volunteer.”
Meanwhile, incumbent County Executive Sam Page reported $161,000 in campaign contributions for the first quarter of 2022, including tens of thousands of dollars from local labor unions and a whopping $25,000 single donation from McBride & Son Management, a development corporation helmed by Dueker’s own brother, John Eilermann. Even JanePAC’s deputy treasurer Kathy Drennen – who administers TheLouPAC – gave $5,000 to Page’s campaign committee in early March. Meanwhile, Republican challenger Shamed Dogan pulled in close to $50,000 for the first quarter; Katherine Pinner and Randall Holmes, also vying for the County Executive position, have yet to file their campaigns with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
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Where does Steve Roberts Jr. actually live?
While these may not have been concerns for him before, recent statements made by Roberts’ campaign staff last week have, perhaps unintentionally, revealed previously undisclosed issues for Roberts’ state campaigns, including potential eligibility problems for his 2016 and 2018 state house district runs.
Let’s start here: last week, in response to the news that Roberts did, in fact, pay at least one settlement claim to a victim, Simmone Kimble, deputy communications director for the Roberts campaign, asserted that “[a]gainst the wishes of Mr. Roberts, an insurance company reached a settlement agreement [with victim Amy E. Harms]…(neither) Steve Roberts nor anyone in the Roberts family paid anyone a dime.”
Harms immediately pushed back in the media, reminding Roberts that both he and his younger brother Christian Frazer Roberts – who has worked as an assistant prosecuting attorney for the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office since June 2017 – were both voluntarily present in the conference room when all parties signed the settlement documents in front of each other. Notably, the settlement documents were executed and signed in late fall 2019, and both Harms and her lawyer have maintained that Roberts broke the settlement agreement first, by publicly denying during a KMOV interview that he acted inappropriately toward Harms.
At the time of the alleged assault against Harms in late April 2015, public records (and the insurance company’s own correspondence) list Roberts’ residence at his parents’ Westmoreland Place home in the Central West End. This aligns with the insurance policy narrative. But this is where his timeline gets tricky — his parents’ house is in the 84th state house district, which means that Roberts had to move into the 77th state house district no later than November 2015 in order to meet the one-year residency requirement within the district in order to be eligible to run for that seat.
Otherwise, the timeline would imply that Roberts wasn’t actually residing with his parents at the time of the alleged assault against Harms, which could put him in a very awkward situation with his parents’ insurance company, which reportedly paid the bombshell $100,000 settlement to Harms.
Compounding the residency issues and timeline problems: shortly after his August 2016 primary win, the late Cora Faith Walker reported to St. Louis Metropolitan Police that Roberts allegedly assaulted her at his residence in a Downtown West loft. Roberts even acknowledged his residency to police throughout the incident report. This address also falls outside of the 77th state house district.
Roberts’ MEC reports all reflect either a P.O. Box or his parents’ Westmoreland address, and no public records connect Roberts Jr. to the 77th district at all. Fortunately for Roberts, his 2020 senate win expanded his district boundaries so he could live in the 76th, 77th, 78th, 79th, or even part of the 80th or 84th districts in order to meet residency requirements. But in consideration of Roberts’ own litigation history, where in 2016 he sued his political opponent Alderman John Collins-Muhammad on the basis of residency, his campaign’s recent comments surrounding the settlement payment have perhaps unintentionally created the need for another look.
For insurance claim-covering purposes, as of April 2015, Roberts would have had to reside with his parents in the Central West End. In August 2016 police records, however, show he lived in Downtown West. Neither residence is in the 77th district, and voters have the right to know if their elected official actually lives in the district that he’s supposed to serve and represent.
The beleaguered Roberts campaign, as it seems, has a lot more explaining to do.
