St Louis’ woke former DA took nursing classes during her taxpayer-funded working hours before being fired over soaring crime.
Former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who was backed by progressive billionaire George Soros, spent 34.5 days attending classes at St Louis University in Missouri over two years instead of doing her public sector job.
That’s according to a state audit released on Tuesday by State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick in a damning 71-page report.
The review also found widespread staff turnover, misuse of public funds and a large drop in the number of cases filed, referred and closed before she resigned in 2023.
Gardner quit after Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey took steps to remove her from office after she let too many cases, including homicide, go unpunished.
She told auditors she had been pursuing a family nurse practitioner post-master’s certificate ‘to improve the office and bring mental health awareness’ to the office.
Other issues cited in the audit include $58,000 being spent on flowers, a DJ, car detailing, an office picnic, a chili cookout and her own legal expenses.
Auditors also found difficulty in obtaining information from her office while she was in charge.
Former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner spent 34.5 days attending classes at St Louis University in Missouri over two years instead of doing her job
The review by state auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, seen here, found widespread staff turnover, misuse of public funds and a large drop in the number of cases filed, referred and closed
Employees denied or delayed requests by auditors for two years until they had to respond due to court subpoenas.
The audit said that ‘full access to documents, personnel, and the office itself was only given after the new administration took over’.
An additional $1.9 million was found to have been used to pay contracts for outside legal representation, new software, consultants, and office equipment.
She told auditors that some of the purchases, which also included $5,180 at a bar and grill and $2,585 in pizza were to ‘boost morale’, according to the St. Louis Dispatch.
Gardner, a Democrat, had took office in 2017 and quickly faced accusations of running a dysfunctional office.
She was part of a movement of progressive prosecutors who sought diversion to mental health treatment or drug abuse treatment for low-level crimes.
Gardner pledged to hold police more accountable, and sought to free incarcerated people who were wrongfully convicted.
The St. Louis attorney’s office was drastically understaffed during Gardner’s leadership.
When she took office there were 60 attorneys, but when she left, there only around 30 remained.
Under her watch, murder in St. Louis, seen here, hit a 50-year high and the city saw less and less felonies prosecuted
The audit said that ‘full access to documents, personnel, and the office itself was only given after the new administration took over’
In 2018 she charged former Governor Eric Greitens then a rising star in GOP politics, with felony invasion of privacy, accusing him of taking a compromising photo of a woman during an affair.
The charge was eventually dropped, and Greitens would resign from office in June 2018.
Scrutiny of the case led to the conviction of her investigator and Gardner received a written reprimand from the state Supreme Court.
That was related to how her office was handling documents in the case, it was later found she used $5,004 to pay a fine related to the case.
In a statement, Fitzpatrick said: ‘On the same day Kim Gardner should have been in a courtroom performing her duties as Circuit Attorney she was instead in a classroom pursuing her nursing certification.
‘The judge at the time said Gardner was the captain of a ‘rudderless ship of chaos’ and our report backs up that claim by detailing how the performance of the Circuit Attorney’s Office declined significantly because of her neglect and mismanagement.
‘Taxpayers should be outraged by how this office was run into the ground by Gardner at the same time she was using tax dollars to throw parties for her staff, and to pay for personal legal fees that were a result of her own incompetence.’
One of the final cases that Gardner oversaw was a Cinco de Mayo shooting, which she refused to press charges against the suspected woman for due to a ‘lack of evidence’ despite surveillance images of the suspect wielding a gun.
According to Gardner’s office the suspect – Amber Booker, 33 – wasn’t charged due to a ‘lack of evidence’ and the victims not cooperating with the investigation.
The Democrat-elected prosecutor won her seat in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020.
Gardner was backed by billionaire George Soros and received about $116,000 from Soros-backed PACS his Vera Institute of Justice.
Under her watch, murder in St. Louis hit a 50-year high and the city saw fewer and fewer felonies prosecuted.
