The state ethics commission on Wednesday dismissed a complaint against Patrick Kucera, who ran for Kansas governor in 2018 calling himself the “entrepreneurial evangelist.”
After a more than three-hour hearing, the commission unanimously concluded that there wasn’t sufficiently clear and convincing evidence to show that Kucera violated campaign finance law during his campaign for governor.
He had been accused of paying himself more than $10,000 for personal use out of his campaign account.
The ethics complaint centered on whether his campaign used funds to repay $230,000 in loans taken out by his campaign treasurer in 2017 who later declared bankruptcy because she couldn’t personally repay the loan.
Kucera, who called himself “PK” as he crisscrossed the state in a bus during the governor’s race, held his arms upward thanking God while seated at the commission table.
The case focused on two cashier’s checks written to his treasurer – and later running mate – Patricia Reitz in March 2018. One transaction was for $9,510 and the other for $1,325.62.
Ethics investigators contended that the money was used to repay Reitz for loans that she said Kucera encouraged her to take out for a ministry he founded and was unrelated to the campaign. They said that was an impermissible use of campaign funds.
The ethics commission’s general counsel, Kaitlyn Bull-Stewart, accused Kucera of using his campaign account in this instance as a “slush fund” in violation of state law.
“We’re here because campaign funds went to Ms. Reitz that cannot be justified,” Bull-Stewart said. “The legal question here is clear. The statute has a blanket prohibition on the use of campaign funds for the personal use of the candidate.”
Kucera vigorously defended himself against the charges, saying that money sent to Reitz could have been for anything including her salary as campaign treasurer or reimbursement for other campaign expenses such as travel.
He particularly bristled at the idea that was he accused of using his campaign account as a “slush fund.” He said the payments in question were within his “character and my integrity to do things the right way.”
Kucera said Reitz’s salary – $6,000 a month – was paid irregularly and inconsistently, which would explain the differences in the amount of the checks.
He also said he was behind in the salary payments as well, another reason why there wouldn’t be even salary payments.
“My ethical reputation is on the line here,” Kucera said. “I have decades of service to people across the globe. I am on trial for trying to create a slush fund to take money from my campaign. I ran for governor because I believe in the rule of law,” he said.
He said there was no evidence to show it was for repaying a loan, something that he said didn’t exist, although Reitz had testified otherwise under oath.
Reitz told the commission that she borrowed the money at Kucera’s request in early fall 2017. She said Kucera asked her to take out the loans, and they had a verbal agreement that he would repay them within in a year.
Reitz said the money covered repayment of some of the loans that she took out on Kucera’s behalf, although she conceded that she couldn’t recall specifically if it also went for her salary as campaign treasurer.
Reitz said she wasn’t fully repaid for the loans. Reitz told the ethics commission that she and her husband declared bankruptcy because they couldn’t repay those loans.
Kucera called Reitz and her husband “dear friends” who “go way back.”
He apologized for “interactions” that caused them “pain” and yet he suggested they should have known better before the gave the money to the ministry.
Under questioning from Kucera, Reitz said she had no documents showing that the ministry agreed to repay any of the $230,000 loan.
Kucera asked whether the Reitzes took a tax deduction for their $230,000 donation to the ministry, which he said would demonstrate that it wasn’t a loan and undercut the ethics case against him. Patricia Reitz said she didn’t know.
“They knew when they gave the money, that they were doing it by faith,” Kucera said of the money the Reitzes gave the ministry. “Most people understand that a nonprofit means you donate it. You get nothing in return.”
Mark Skoglund, executive director of the ethics commission, said evidence was provided showing indications of a loan.
“The only countervailing evidence is inconsistent with prior testimony and does not exist today,” Skoglund told the commission.
Skoglund said Kucera “only now” came up with three possible explanations for the payments from the campaign account and “is not even landing on one.”
Ethics Commissioner Chris Burger struggled with the fact that the two checks paid out of the account were “radically” different amounts.
“To be a loan payment, I would expect it to be similar or consistent,” Burger said.
But Skoglund said the campaign finance report showed that payments made to any vendor were inconsistent in nature.
Kucera finished fifth in a seven-candidate field in the 2018 Republican primary for governor with about 1% of the vote.
The 2018 GOP primary for governor was narrowly won that year by Kris Kobach, who was Kansas secretary of state at the time.
The Kansas ethics complaint came after the Missouri secretary of state issued an administrative order in 2021 against Kucera and a Lee’s Summit, Missouri, resident for defrauding Missouri investors related to an alternative retirement savings plan.
The state securities commissioner ordered them to pay $488,000 in civil penalties, restitution and investigation costs.
