In the News

Leslie's office a revolving door

By Bill Wilson
The Hutchinson News
Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Reno County Sheriff Larry Leslie's courthouse office was a revolving door in a law enforcement center beset by security problems, the sheriff's secretary testified Tuesday during a court hearing.

And, Reno County's former district attorney vented his frustration at the refusal of federal officials to investigate claims that Leslie was receiving laundered money from the county's jail annex.

Those were the two major storylines Tuesday as attorneys for Leslie, Hutchinson attorney Gerald Hertach and MgtGp Inc. began their efforts to get bribery charges against the defendants thrown out of Reno County District Court.

The hearing resumes at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Mike Gillespie, representing Leslie, and Steve Joseph, representing Hertach and MgtGp, have filed a joint motion seeking the suppression of documents taken from Leslie's office by Sheriff's Detective Howard Shipley.

Those documents are the core of 34 counts of bribery filed by the Kansas Attorney General against the three defendants.

The documents allege that Hertach paid Leslie almost $285,000 over three years in exchange for the sheriff's influence with the Reno County Commission. In 1997, the commission hired Hertach's MgtGp to operate the county's jail annex.

Gillespie and Joseph claim Shipley violated the sheriff's "reasonable expectation of privacy" by entering the office one night in late 1998 or early 1999.

While there, he found and photocopied a variety of financial records purportedly linking Leslie to Hertach and MgtGp.

A 'wide-open office'

Owston, who manages the sheriff's office staff, appeared to damage the defense's privacy claims.

She called Leslie's office a "catch-all" for the department, one frequently used by "any law enforcement employee."

Owston said Leslie's office is home to the department's only fax machine and serves as a storage room for a variety of supplies.

As a result, Leslie maintained an "open-door" policy until the bribery charges surfaced against him.

"The door was generally left open," she said. "It was only closed if there were meetings going on inside. But lately, he's been shutting it."

Leslie's office also is home to a cabinet containing coffee cups and party supplies, a binding machine used by both police and sheriff's deputies, and a conference table used by employees for a variety of reasons.

"Lots of people came through that office," Owston said.

Once inside, visitors would find what Owston called "a very messy desk" covered with a wide variety of paperwork.

"Larry's never been good about putting things away," she said, to laughter from Leslie and his attorneys.

An angry district attorney

Reno County District Court Judge Tim Chambers, the former district attorney, backed Owston's description of a law enforcement center beset by security problems.

In fact, Chambers said he had to ask Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt to restrict officers' access after hours to the district attorney's office.

"I had reason to believe people had been in my office," Chambers said, referring to frequent late-night visits by police to check DA records.

Chambers said he became more concerned about his office security as efforts failed to get the U.S. Attorney's office in Wichita and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate Leslie's financial relationship with Hertach and MgtGp.

That financial relationship began as rumor in 1993 when House Arrest Inc., also connected to Hertach, opened at the Kansas State Fairgrounds, Chambers said.

And it intensified as House Arrest ended its two-year run as a jail for DUI offenders, giving way in 1997 to MgtGp's operation of the jail annex.

"Basically, I felt both of them were illegal operations," Chambers said.

So did people throughout the Reno County Courthouse, he said, many of whom talked privately about their belief that Leslie had been collecting money characterized as "kickbacks" from both House Arrest and MgtGp.

"Any number of people told me," Chambers said. "Other police officers, the police chief, a District Court judge, Buck Lyle. It was a general conception."

Chambers said Lyle told him that Leslie and his cronies greeted the 1993 awarding by Reno County of the House Arrest contract with a celebration.

"He told me that after the contract was signed, the sheriff and his people were involved in a celebration at the Quest Center over their good fortune," Chambers said.

Third time a charm?

Chambers also testified at length about two failed attempts to get federal authorities to investigate the Leslie-MgtGp ties.

After Shipley forwarded his concerns to Chambers via an anonymous letter in March 1999, Chambers tried to interest U.S. Attorney Jackie Williams' office and the FBI in the case.

But Deputy U.S. Attorney Deb Barnett declined.

"She told me there was no smoking gun," Chambers said.

And the FBI also passed on the case, citing a department policy against investigations involving a confidential informant, Agent William Seck testified.

Despite that testimony, Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Larry Welch - a 25-year FBI veteran - testified Tuesday that he'd never heard of such a policy.

So a frustrated Chambers told Welch to tackle the case - or he would take Shipley's information to Jim Bloom, editor and publisher of The Hutchinson News.

"At that point, I had spent since April of 1999 trying to get somebody to investigate, and I wasn't sure anybody would," Chambers said. "I didn't feel like this was information I should keep to myself."

© Copyright The Hutchinson News 2001