JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General has amended his petition in a quo warranto case against St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, the latest effort to remove her from office.
Bailey originally filed a writ of quo warranto against Kim Gardner on Feb. 23, accusing her of neglecting her duties as circuit attorney. A judge granted Bailey more time to amend his quo warranto last week, and he met Tuesday’s deadline for filing it.
The new filing comes after Gardner barely met a deadline to file her response to Bailey’s original motion to have her removed as circuit attorney. Gardner called the Missouri Attorney General’s ongoing effort to oust her from office a “gross power grab” in legal filings and has maintained her office, despite political pushback to resign.
Bailey says his office, over the past three weeks, has interviewed multiple witnesses, reviewed court files, and analyzed more than 30,000 documents and pieces of data from the St Louis City Circuit Court and the Comptroller’s Office. He says the amended 121-page petition asserts that Gardner has knowingly and willfully failed to do her duties as a prosecutor in many ways.
“This is about protecting the people of the city of St. Louis, restoring the rule of law, and finding justice for victims,” said Bailey in a statement on the amended petition. “We brought this suit to remove a prosecutor who has refused to perform her duties to the people of St Louis. The evidence is shocking and deeply disturbing, and we remain committed to removing Circuit Attorney Gardner from office.”
Bailey alleges in his amended petition that Gardner failed in her duty to review warrant applications with at least an eight-month backlog, caused cases to be dismissed by the court for failure to prosecute and failed in her duty to properly present many cases to the grand jury, among other things.
New allegations, per the court documents, also include:
- Data suggesting that “the number of issued cases has declined precipitously”
- Gardner “burdened the City of St. Louis with excessive and unwarranted legal fees”
- More than $100,000 spent on outside legal fees from 2011-2016
- More than $500,000 spent on outside legal fees from 2017-2022
FOX 2 has reached out to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office for comment and awaits a response.
Outrage against Gardner stems from an incident last month, in which an out-of-town teenager suffered a life-changing injury due to a driver who was out on bond awaiting trial for armed robbery.
Janae Edmondson, 17, was visiting St. Louis with her family for a volleyball tournament. The family was walking in downtown St. Louis on Feb. 18 when a speeding driver failed to yield and collided with another vehicle. That second vehicle struck Edmondson, who has had both of her legs amputated since the crash.
The man accused in the crash, 21-year-old Daniel Riley, was out on bond from a 2020 armed robbery case. Last August, he was given a personal recognizance bond that required him to be tracked by GPS and stay at home. Court records show he violated house arrest dozens of times leading up to the crash.
Gardner’s office contends that prosecutors asked for higher bonds several times, though judges denied such requests. She noted the most recent effort to address Riley’s bond conditions came in January 2023, though says “there was no response” upon asking the court for a hearing date over Riley’s bond.
John Torbitzky, the special judge assigned to the case, is giving Gardner 10 days to respond to new allegations. That deadline would be March 31.
Bailey had also pushed for a June trial date of Gardner in last week’s court motion.
