Shawnee mayor charged with felony perjury reaches deal with DA to resolve her case
Shawnee Mayor Michelle Distler must complete 150 hours of community service as part of a diversion agreement with the Johnson County District Attorney, in order to resolve a felony perjury charge brought against her late last year.
According to the order, which was obtained by The Star through a Kansas Open Records Act request on Wednesday, the mayor must also submit to drug and alcohol testing upon law enforcement request.
Distler declined to comment, referring questions to her attorney, Robin Fowler. Fowler said diversion was an appropriate way to resolve the matter.
“She looks forward to moving on with her life in a constructive way, and plans to do her part to try and make her community a better place to live,” Fowler said in a statement. “She also wishes to express her heartfelt apology to anyone impacted by these events.”
Last March, the mayor allegedly filed an open meetings act complaint with the Kansas attorney general. But rather than signing her own name on the complaint, she used Ray Erlichman’s name, under penalty of perjury, investigators claim. Erlichman is a frequent blogger on Shawnee City Hall matters.
Erlichman informed Shawnee police after receiving an email saying he had filed an online complaint, though he had not. He said he did not discover it was Distler who used his name until late November, just before charges were filed.
An investigator with the district attorney’s office obtained an IP address associated with the complaint, which led them to Distler, according to court documents. Police searched Distler’s home in June and seized an iPad she said was involved in the incident.
In a July interview, Distler told investigators that she believed the open meetings act was violated after an email chain formed with four City Council members. The Kansas Open Meetings Act, or KOMA, is meant to ensure the public can watch elected officials discuss most city business openly.
Still, it is unclear why Distler filed the complaint under Erlichman’s name. And Distler and her attorney have so far declined to discuss the case.
“I feel that diversion is probably the appropriate course of action for the DA’s office and the courts to take in this matter,” Erlichman told The Star on Wednesday, adding she did not commit an act of violence, pilfer public funds or abrogate her fiduciary duties. “She appears to have made a very irresponsible decision, which is a violation of the law but nothing that would, in my opinion, justify a jail term or anything stronger.”
Distler, 47, was released on a $2,500 bond from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in early December.
Emails obtained by The Star through a Kansas Open Records Act request show the email chain began with former Shawnee resident Mike Egan, who now lives in Missouri’s Ozarks region but still regularly contacts Shawnee officials.
He sent a March 5 email to Distler, four council members and other City Hall watchers criticizing Distler for not breaking a 4-4 tie to choose a council president last January. Distler said at the time that she didn’t want to cast the deciding vote because she worried “it would make the Council appear even more divisive.”
When two council members responded, Distler forwarded the email chain to Shawnee city attorney Ellis Rainey, wondering if the communication violated the open meetings act.
“There are 4 councilmembers on this chain of emails discussing council president and 2 of them have commented,” she wrote at 3:48 p.m. March 7, matching a description of the email in an affidavit supporting criminal charges against Distler. “Isn’t THIS a KOMA violation?”
After Distler was charged with perjury, a criminal complaint listed more than 30 names as witnesses to the incident. Many of those apparent witnesses were copied on Egan’s email.
Distler appeared in court for the first time in early January. A hearing was scheduled for Feb. 10, but court records show that has now been canceled.
Distler has served as mayor of Shawnee since 2015 and was reelected to a second term in November 2019. She previously served on the City Council.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 11:17 AM.
