Tag: Courts

Two Olathe men, one Blue Springs man charged in Capitol riot

A photo in the affidavit showed William Chrestman at the Capitol riot, according to court documents.

Two Olathe, Kansas, men and one Blue Springs, Missouri, man were arrested on Thursday morning by the FBI on federal charges related to the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.

William Norman Chrestman, Olathe, Christopher Charles Kuehn, Olathe, and Louis Enrique Colon, Blue Springs, were arrested by federal agents and members of the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force.

On Jan. 6, Congress was certifying the Electoral College results of the presidential election.

Chrestman was charged with conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds.

Chrestman was taken into custody without incident, according to an FBI spokesman.

Kuehn was arrested on federal charges of conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds.

Kuehn was taken into custody without incident, the spokesman stated.

Colon was arrested on federal charges of conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds.

Colon also was taken into custody without incident, the spokesman stated.

Affidavits in the cases contain photos of the defendants at the Capitol riots. The affidavits also go into detail about events that happened there.

Although the defendants were from Olathe and Blue Springs, they were allegedly affiliated with a chapter known as the “Kansas City Proud Boys,” a chapter of the Proud Boys, according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, about 81 members of the Capitol police and 58 members of the Metropolitan Police Department were assaulted during the riot. One person was shot and killed while trying to enter the House chamber through a broken window.

The federal complaints are online at https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases.

Business fined $30,000 in consent agreement on alleged counterfeit vaping products

A Wyandotte County business has been ordered to pay $30,000 in penalties for allegedly selling counterfeit e-cigarette products, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said today.

Vinodbhai Patel, operator of Jay Ganesh, LLC, and the company were ordered to pay $30,000 in civil penalties in a consent judgment approved Tuesday in Wyandotte County District Court by Judge Constance Alvey. The defendants also were ordered to reimburse $1,912.50, the cost of the attorney general’s investigation into their business practices.

Patel is a resident of Johnson County, and the business is located in Bonner Springs, according to court documents.

The attorney general alleged that the defendants knowingly misled consumers by falsely representing e-cigarette products to be authentic branded merchandise when in fact they were not. The alleged counterfeit products involved in this case included vaping devices and vaping liquids.

In the consent judgment, the defendants did not admit that there was a violation of the Kansas Consumer Protection Act.

The consumer-protection judgment is the third reached by Schmidt’s office in the past six months addressing counterfeit e-cigarette products discovered by the attorney general’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit.

In September 2020, Veneeth Kanti, Gayatri Kanti and Morani, Inc., doing business as Logan 66, were ordered to pay $7,500 in civil penalties and the costs of the attorney general’s investigation in a case filed in Franklin County.

In October 2020, Aaron Dune and Smoke Stax, LLC, were ordered to pay $5,000 in civil penalties and the costs of the attorney general’s investigation in a case filed in Sedgwick County.

Additional investigations into counterfeit vaping products remain pending, according to the attorney general’s office. Copies of the consent judgments can be found at www.InYourCornerKansas.org/judgments.

Ex-KU Med Center official pleads guilty to tax and embezzlement charges

by Dan Margolies, Kansas News Service

Michael Ahlers was the administrator of the med center’s occupational therapy education department from around 2001 to 2015.

A former administrator at the University of Kansas Medical Center pleaded guilty on Tuesday to bank fraud and tax evasion after he was accused of embezzling more than $500,000 from KU.

Michael Ahlers faces up to 30 years in prison on the bank fraud count and three years on the tax evasion count, although he’s likely to serve only a fraction of those sentences in exchange for pleading guilty.

Ahlers was the administrator of the med center’s occupational therapy education department from around 2001 to 2015. While his plea agreement suggests he began embezzling funds shortly after he started working there, he was charged with embezzling funds only from 2009 to 2015 based on available bank records.

Neither Ahlers nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Ahlers diverted the money from a KUMC Credit Union into which KUMC employees contributed funds for office parties, sympathy flowers and other office functions, according to his plea agreement. Unbeknownst to KU, however, Ahlers began depositing student fees and other funds into the account and then withdrawing them in the form of cash and cashier’s checks payable to himself, his business or his relatives.

The scheme came to light after Ahlers left KU to take another job. A student who had been paid twice contacted Ahlers’ successor, who discovered a credit union account Ahlers had opened before leaving KU. A subsequent internal audit revealed the embezzlement.

Ahlers most recently was employed as a revenue cycle analyst at Cerner Corp., according to his LinkedIn profile. The profile has since been deleted.

Ahlers and his wife also owned and operated a retail liquor store in Shawnee, Kansas, called Smooth Liquor.

Bankruptcy court records indicate Ahlers filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2019 and received a discharge of his debts later that year.

On his bankruptcy petition, he listed debts of more than $1 million, including nearly $456,000 in delinquent federal and state taxes.

As part of his plea, Ahlers has agreed to reimburse KU at least $500,000 and pay the IRS $124,215.

Dan Margolies is senior reporter and editor at KCUR. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanMargolies.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.

See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-02-09/ex-ku-med-center-official-pleads-guilty-to-tax-and-embezzlement-charges.