Missouri News Briefs

Missouri news briefs. Short and sweet.

Former top Missouri democrat accused of lavish spending with campaign dough

A former prosecutor and chairman of Missouri’s Democratic Party is set to be sentenced next month for misusing campaign funds for personal expenses and vacations.

Mike Sanders faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced Sept. 19 in federal court for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Sanders had been on a trajectory to run for statewide or congressional office before resigning two years ago as head of Jackson County government. In his guilty plea, Sanders acknowledged converting $62,000 in political campaign funds into cash in a check-cashing scheme involving a disabled friend from high school.

While some of that cash went for political purposes, Sanders admitted using $15,000 to $40,000 of the cashed checks for personal use.

 

Priest abuse victims want justice

Priest sex abuse victims are demanding that Missouri and Kansas officials conduct a comprehensive investigation into clergy misconduct and cover-ups similar to the one that revealed widespread problems in Pennsylvania.

Rebecca Randles, who has represented hundreds of victims in priest sexual abuse lawsuits, made the case for the investigation at a news conference Monday with four men who said they had been sexually abused.

Randles said the findings of the Pennsylvania investigation were “shocking” and led her to sit down to try to figure out how many priests in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas had been similarly abusive. She came up with 230 names. But she said only a handful of priests have been charged and one bishop punished.

 

Streetcar expansion plans announced

Officials have released plans for extending the Kansas City light rail southward to the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Volker Campus with stops near Westport and the Plaza.

The KC Streetcar project team announced Monday that it will advance plans to have the streetcar operate on city streets with traffic rather than in the middle of the road. The so-called outside running line configuration is how the current stretch of track that spans 10 stops from Union Station to the River Market neighborhood operates. The $227 million expansion that voters approved in June will add a total of eight more stops.

Construction is expected to begin in 2020. The expansion won’t be completed until 2023.

Kansas City residents have expressed a desire for the light rail to eventually include a route to the new Kansas City International being built in the Northland, plus routes east to fast-growing Lee’s Summit and southwest into Johnson County.

It is not known how those routes would be funded.

 

Man gets life for attempted rape of college student who was walking home from campus

A judge has sentenced a man to life in prison for attempting to rape a Missouri State University student.

Stephen Goodwin, 55, was sentenced for a first-degree attempted rape conviction. Goodwin entered an Alford plea, which allows defendants to acknowledge there is enough evidence to convict them without admitting to committing the crime.

The student victim says she was walking home from campus Feb. 10, 2016, when Goodwin came up behind her and tried to rape her. She says Goodwin fled when a bystander arrived at the scene.

Prosecutors say Goodwin was named in several police reports involving inappropriate sexual activity before the attack. The other incidents didn’t result in charges.

The woman says it has been frustrating waiting more than two years for the case to finish.