Attorneys for former St. Louis Circuit attorney Kim Gardner are hotly disputing a second legal ethics case against her that has its roots in the 2018 prosecution of former Gov. Eric Greitens.
A three-person panel heard a full day of testimony Tuesday in a hearing that could ultimately lead to additional discipline for Gardner. That panel will make a recommendation to the state Supreme Court, whose judges will have the final say.
The conduct in question stems from Gardner’s 2022 admission that she violated attorney ethics rules in the prosecution of Greitens. She was reprimanded and ordered to pay a $750 penalty and reimburse the state for the costs of the disciplinary hearing.
Neither the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel nor Gardner deny that she received checks from the circuit attorney contingent fund to cover the $5,004 she had to pay. But they disagree on whether her behavior broke the law and violated state ethics rules.
A 2024 diversion agreement Gardner reached with the U.S. Department of Justice forms the basis of the state’s complaint. Although she did not admit any guilt, she accepted responsibility for using public funds to cover costs she had personally faced.
Even without official criminal charges, the use of that money constituted a criminal act, said Andrea Spillars, the deputy chief of the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel. That meant Gardner violated a Supreme Court rule “which states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to ‘commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on a lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects,’” she said.
“She could have, had she wanted to, at any time had a check issued directly from the contingency fund, for the full amount, to pay those fees and costs,” Spillars told the panel.
But Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan, who helped Gardner with the case against Greitens and represented her in negotiations with federal prosecutors, said one key thing was missing in the conversation — intent.
The office had routinely used the contingency fund for a variety of expenses that fell outside the grounds outlined in state law, Sullivan said. But Gardner went a step further and asked a prominent legal ethics attorney if she could use her budget to reimburse the disciplinary costs.
“She wanted to check. She wanted to be sure,” Sullivan said. “What more might we ask?”
That lawyer, Michael Downey, wrote in a letter that he believed it would be appropriate for Gardner to be reimbursed, an assertion he repeated during Tuesday’s hearing. Downey was Gardner’s attorney in her 2022 ethics case.
Several times in the hearing, Sullivan echoed a familiar complaint from Gardner’s time in office – that the disciplinary complaint was the equivalent of a witch hunt.
“In all the years prior nobody, not a single solitary human being not named Kimberly Gardner was ever challenged for using this contingency fund. Not a one. Only her,” he said.
The panel’s recommendation could take several months. Its decision could range from dropping the charges to disbarring Gardner.
