Former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is still not responding to attempts to contact her, according to a report prepared by the Missouri state auditor.
On May 6, Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, a Republican, announced he cannot complete an audit of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office until he finds Ms. Gardner.
Ms. Gardner began her term leading the office in charge of prosecuting offenses inside the city limits of St. Louis in 2017. She was reelected in 2020.
On May 16, 2023, she fled just hours before she was due to give a deposition in a quo warranto case filed by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. She had previously committed to resigning her office in June 2023.
Nearly a year after her disappearance, Ms. Gardner continues to elude state authorities.
“Right now her location is unknown and all efforts to reach out to her have been unsuccessful,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said in a release. “However, we will do everything we can to locate her and get the answers to our inquiries that only she can provide and that taxpayers deserve.”
The state auditor’s office is looking to interview Ms. Gardner to complete an audit of her time as the circuit attorney. According to the office, the report is nearly complete. However, Ms. Gardner’s testimony is necessary to understand why she took the actions she did during her tenure.
So far, the office tried contacting Ms. Gardner’s attorneys, “made repeated daily calls to telephone numbers associated” with Ms. Gardner, contacted close associates and former co-workers, and made numerous attempts to serve her a subpoena.
The audit was requested by the City of St. Louis’ Board of Aldermen in 2018. A predecessor of Mr. Fitzpatrick, former State Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, began her inquiry in June 2021. Mr. Fitzpatrick took over the investigation in 2023.
According to the state auditor’s office, the subpoena led to the release of some of the relevant documents, but Ms. Gardner did not fully comply with Mr. Fitzpatrick’s requests.
“This is a pattern of behavior with Kim Gardner, who hasn’t shown a willingness to be transparent or accountable,” said Mr. Fitzpatrick. “Without question, she knows our audit is ongoing and that we want to speak with her about her time in office, but she has made no effort to comply with our requests or respond to our inquiries.”
Previous Report on Gardner’s Tenure
In January, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told The Epoch Times he believes Ms. Gardner is liable for both civil and criminal charges related to her time in office. At the time, he said the state was continuing to collect information to bring a case against her.Ms. Gardner’s time in office was characterized by rising crime in St. Louis, according to Mr. Bailey’s assessment. Statistics reported by the Metropolitan Police Department of the City of St. Louis to the Major City Chiefs Association showed homicides spiked to 264 incidents in 2020 from 188 in 2016.
In 2023, according to the police department’s statistics, 158 homicides were reported.
Mr. Bailey’s report on Ms. Gardner blasted her office for failure to prosecute crimes. He said between 2021 and 2023, 96 percent of the cases it received were not prosecuted. When she left office, there were more than 4,000 pending cases yet to be reviewed by the circuit attorney.
In May 2023, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, appointed Mr. Gore to finish Ms. Gardner’s term. In November 2023, Mr. Bailey praised Mr. Gore’s leadership of the office.
