Bribery, endangerment claims against UG commissioner won’t be resolved by election
The Wyandotte County District Court and the local government’s ethics commission will likely not reach resolutions on bribery and child endangerment claims filed against District 6 Commissioner — and political candidate — Philip Lopez until after the Nov. 4 general election.
The pending claims come as weeks dwindle to the general election that will determine whether Lopez will represent all of Wyandotte County as an at-large commissioner.
Amanda Watson, a Kansas City, Kansas, resident, is suing Lopez, his business and Royal Estates Mobile Home Park for a series of allegations, including that Lopez has intentionally avoided exchanging insurance information with Watson after one of his employees damaged her home’s roof after dropping tree limbs on it. Watson is also saying that Lopez tried to use his political position to promise her financial incentives for her small business in order to get out of an insurance claim.
She’s also pursuing a negligence claim, both civilly and criminally, after an employee — named only in court documents as “Dustin” — allegedly allowed her young son to feed branches through a wood chipper. The child was not harmed, although Watson maintained he likely would’ve been if not for her jumping in to move him from near the chipper.
She’s suing the mobile home park for negligent hiring of Lopez’s business.
During a Friday morning hearing, District Judge Constance Alvey requested that Watson amend and re-file her petition against Lopez and that involved parties reconvene Nov. 10. The suit includes a mix of civil and criminal allegations, and Alvey can only rule on the civil claims whilst handling a case that’s filed as civil.
Watson is representing herself in this case, although Alvey advised her to reconsider that so she’d be able to file a more clear complaint. Watson said she can’t afford an attorney; she later told The Star that she asked three attorneys to take the case and they all declined in light of Lopez’s involvement.
Alvey also instructed Watson to attempt to access Lopez’s insurance information through his attorneys, although it wasn’t immediately clear whether Lopez had liability insurance.
“The last time he was in front of me, he had no insurance,” Alvey said, although one of Lopez’s attorneys, Hale Weirick, said he believed Lopez did and that he’d confirm.
As of publication time, Mark Molner, another one of Lopez’s attorneys, had not confirmed whether Lopez’s counsel was able to locate proof of insurance.
Lopez did not appear in court Friday.
Ethics review
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and KCK’s legal department transferred allegations that Lopez attempted to bribe Watson to its ethics commission.
Reed Partridge, the government’s legislative auditor and the former interim ethics administrator, confirmed that the ethics commission was reviewing the claim, as well as a separate claim involving whether Lopez made lewd gestures during a public meeting.
Partridge said those claims were still pending and that the bribery claim would not likely be resolved until after the election. He said the ethics commission has said it wants to avoid influencing Watson’s civil case and the upcoming election. The commission may meet in late October, so it could still be possible for the claim to come up in conversation.
As of publication time, the new ethics administrator, Misty Brown, had not returned calls and voicemails from The Star.
Criminal case
Watson told The Star that she filed a police report with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department alleging child endangerment against the business and employee named only as “Dustin” in her lawsuit. She said the internal affairs department transferred the case to the Kansas Bureau of Investigations given Lopez’s role in the local government.
As of publication time, KCKPD had not immediately confirmed whether the case had been transferred to KBI, but the department said it would circle back when possible. A KBI spokesperson as of publication time had not immediately returned a call, voicemail and email from The Star.
