Council candidate threatened one wife and assaulted another, police reports allege
An Independence City Council candidate's fitness for office is being questioned by his opponents over past allegations of domestic abuse.
Mike Huff, a former Independence Power and Light manager, is vying for one of two at-large seats on the Independence City Council that voters will fill in next Tuesday's election.
Huff’s first wife got a protection order against him after he threatened to kill her in the midst of divorce proceedings two decades ago, according to police and court records. More recently, in 2012, his second wife lost a tooth and suffered multiple lacerations to her face and legs, according to a police report, after Huff threw her into the side of a vehicle in their driveway.
Once considered a top contender in a field of four candidates, Huff entered this final week of the campaign already facing criticism for having once filed for bankruptcy, failing to pay his taxes on time and being cited on multiple occasions for code violations on his rental properties.
But this week’s disclosures about his alleged violent past — including the allegation that he once beat up his next door neighbor with his fists and a beer bottle — has his three opponents and a political action committee supporting two of them questioning Huff’s fitness for office.
The treasurer of another political action committee supporting Huff, meanwhile, called the late-breaking news "dirty politics" on the part of the activists who dug up the police reports and provided them to The Star.
"Why are they bringing it up all of a sudden now?" said former Independence councilwoman Renee Paluka, treasurer of Taxpayers for Accountability. "Why didn’t they ask about this at the candidate forum?"
Paluka said those past allegations against Huff were news to her. Huff did not respond to phone calls and a text message requesting comment.
His opponents said that regardless of the timing, the information should be germane to voters.
"If you struggle to make decisions on a personal level, then it calls into questions how you will handle decisions for the community," said write-in candidate Matt Medley.
"It was a shock to me," said incumbent councilwoman Karen DeLuccie, who is seeking a second term.
Brice Stewart, who is also on the ballot, said he was surprised to learn of the allegations in the police reports and a lawsuit, but said that the allegations, "if true, are disturbing."
The political action committee Citizens for Effective Leadership put out a handbill this week that endorses Medley and DeLuccie, but also urges voters to reject Huff. Among the reasons, the flier cites his chapter 7 bankruptcy filing in 2010, the delinquent taxes, code violations and a lawsuit accusing him of assaulting his neighbor.
It does not mention the verbal and physical assaults alleged by the two ex wives, neither of whom pressed charges.
Citizens for Effective Leadership president Joyce White declined to comment beyond praising Medley and DeLuccie as the best candidates in the race.
Taxpayers for Accountability was formed in January to support Huff’s candidacy. The bulk of its financing has come from political operative John Carnes, a former councilman and county legislator who was convicted in 1989 while a legislator of bank fraud and bribing an Independence councilman in a zoning matter.
Carnes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Huff, 58, was not charged in either of the incidents involving his ex wives, but a judge ordered him not to make contact after allegedly calling his first wife in the middle of the night and saying "you are going to die."
His second wife declined to file charges for the physical assault that knocked out one of her top front teeth. Police said her other injuries included "a large bloody laceration to her right eye brow, blood under her right nostril, blood and a laceration to the right side of her upper lip" as well as lacerations to her right knee and the middle toe on her left foot.
No charges were filed in the alleged assault of his neighbor Gary Maglinger, either, but Maglinger filed a lawsuit claiming that he suffered cuts, bruises and other injuries after Huff attacked him on his front porch with his fists and a beer bottle.
Huff told police that Maglinger slapped him first during an argument. The case was dropped after Huff filed for bankruptcy, making whatever damages Maglinger might have been awarded uncollectable.
This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Council candidate threatened one wife and assaulted another, police reports allege."