Independence City Councilman implicated by federal felon in apparent car title fraud
A federal convict claimed this week in a court filing that a member of the Independence City Council was involved in an alleged auto title fraud scheme.
An attorney for Jeremy Ploeger, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to two counts of bank fraud, said in a federal court filing that his client was involved in an apparent ongoing fraud scheme involving an Independence tow truck company and Independence City Council member and mayor pro tem Mike Huff.
The scheme, according to the filing, involved getting a clean salvage title on an automobile by falsely claiming to the Missouri Department of Revenue that it had been abandoned and then presumably selling it for profit.
“This is just another slimy little stunt to really — I would call it to steal a vehicle,” said Bernard Brown, a lawyer whose law practice includes consumer fraud cases and reviewed the filing at The Star’s request. “That’s what it appears to me from reading this.”
Ploeger is on federal probation from his 2018 conviction. According to a filing by Ploeger’s attorney, the FBI became aware of the apparent scheme and told the probation office about it, resulting in a probation violation report. Ploeger appeared Friday before a federal judge, who extended Ploeger’s probation for another six months.
Ploeger and his attorney, John Osgood, declined to comment after the hearing. An FBI agent also declined to comment.
“We stand by our memo,” Osgood said.
Reached by phone, Huff said he didn’t know anything about the alleged scheme.
“I don’t have anything to say about it,” Huff said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
Osgood’s memorandum, filed on Monday, describes how Ploeger’s wife financed the purchase of a 2015 Toyota minivan from a dealership in Texas for $41,000, which required monthly payments of $807.
At some point, the Ploegers stopped making payments on the minivan and assumed it would be repossessed by Toyota, which had loaned the Ploegers the money to buy the vehicle. When the Ploegers moved back to Independence from Texas, they did not tell Toyota Finance that they had moved.
In 2018, Huff hired Ploeger to work for him as a construction worker. According to Osgood’s memo, the two first met when Ploeger worked for Huff’s 2018 city council campaign “in a minor capacity,” which Huff denied on Friday.
“He worked for me for a couple weeks and he couldn’t do what he said he could do,” Huff said of the construction work. “I don’t know anything about the campaign thing, he never worked for me in no campaign.”
Late in 2018, Ploeger told Huff that he had a minivan that was likely up for repossession.
Huff allegedly told Ploeger he had a friend who could check on whether it was up for a repossession and could pick it up if Ploeger supplied him with a vehicle identification number.
“Mr. Ploeger did not fully understand the process and admits he should have looked further into it because it sounded suspicious,” Osgood’s filing said.
Ploeger gave Huff the VIN number and later discovered that the owner of King Towing LLC, a tow truck operator in Independence, had submitted paperwork to the Missouri Department of Revenue declaring the Toyota abandoned, which Ploeger’s attorney said was not true.
“Mr. Ploeger never saw this form, was unaware of this having occurred, and did not know the owner,” Ploeger’s attorney said in a filing. “But again, his actions put this in motion and he should have been more circumspect about it and in fact should have contacted Toyota Finance directly instead of trying to work with Huff and the tow people on something that should have prompted further inquiry.”
Brown, the consumer fraud attorney, said it was unclear to him how the scheme could have benefited the Ploegers.
“That’s kind of nutty. How could it be a worthwhile deal for them?” Brown said.
Jordan Vaughan told The Star he and his father in-law just purchased King Towing in January. He said he did not know Huff or Ploeger and said he knew nothing of the alleged scheme until contacted by reporters this week.
“I can assure you nothing like that is happening now,” he said, “nor would we ever condone it.”
The filing said the FBI learned about when it started interviewing Independence officials in November 2019 in connection with allegations of public corruption. The Star reported that some council members were questioned by FBI agents about transactions involving Independence Power & Light, the city-owned electric utility.
“During the investigation the FBI learned of a possible scheme going back two years that would allow a car title to be re-titled as a salvage vehicle,” Osgood’s filing said.
The filing said Ploeger should have known better, that he violated probation conditions and that he did contact Toyota Finance about the issue and will attempt to pay the remaining mortgage on the minivan.
Independence City Council member Dan Hobart attended Friday’s hearing.
“It’s a logical conclusion that Mike Huff may be the target of an FBI investigation,” Hobart said. “As a criminal defense attorney, that’s my assumption.”
This week’s disclosure is the latest among several of suspicions of corruption in Independence.
Last year, a federal grand jury subpoenaed city records that involved a contract to decommission an unused power plant in Missouri that belonged to Independence Power & Light, as well as a separate transaction involving the former Rockwood Golf Club, which resulted in a new solar farm for IPL.
No one has been charged or formally accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement.
“It’s embarrassing,” Hobart said of the disclosure of Huff’s alleged involvement in the title scheme. “It hurts our already diminished reputation in the city. It’s disappointing.”
Ploeger has some history in the Kansas City area.
He ran unsuccessfully for the Missouri House in 2010. The Missouri Ethics Commission fined Ploeger for using his campaign committee’s funds for purposes unrelated to his campaign, including for a trip to Mexico and for teeth whitening. He was also accused of failing to properly document cash contributions and expenditures from his campaign.
He was the former owner of the short-lived Kansas City Renegades indoor football team. The Renegades played one season in the Champions Indoor Football League before ceasing operations.
Ploeger filed for bankruptcy in 2014, having owed $206,189 to creditors at the time.
In 2018, Ploeger pleaded guilty to two charges of bank fraud for nearly $40,000 worth of fraudulent transactions he made at Enterprise Bank and Trust.
Ploeger received a one-day sentence, along with three years of supervised release, because he was a cooperating witness in a federal corruption case involving a former Jackson County official.
The Star’s Kevin Hardy contributed to reporting to this story.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 5:18 PM.
