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Kansas Gov. Brownback supports AG Schmidt’s request for sheriff to investigate destruction of abortion evidence

Nov 12, 2011

By Kathy Ostrowski, Kansans for Life Legislative Director

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt

As we reported on Wednesday, 49 of 107 charges against Kansas City suburban Planned Parenthood were withdrawn because the prosecution was hamstrung by evidence destruction not only in 2005 by the department of health (KDHE), but also in 2009 by the office of the former Attorney General .

That afternoon, Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced that he has secured an independent investigation of the evidence allegedly shredded under his predecessor.

Schmidt asked the Shawnee County (Topeka) Sheriff’s Office to conduct an investigation into the destruction of documents of “Induced Termination of Pregnancy” compliance forms (called ITOPs). These are submitted monthly to the state by abortionists, with a copy required by law to be kept in the patient medical file.  ITOPs do not include the patient’s name or other personal identifiers, but they do include critical information about late-term viability and the medical reasons that banned abortions were performed.

Planned Parenthood allegedly failed to keep patient file copies of ITOPs and then allegedly committed the more serious felony-level crimes of recreating the forms when they were requested.  Until he was gagged from testifying in the case, District Judge Richard Anderson had said in open court that a police forgery expert backed up those suspicions.

“The KDHE deferred all comments on the case to Gov. Sam Brownback’s office, which described Wednesday’s revelations into the case as ‘deeply concerning,’ and supported Schmidt’s decision to appoint an independent investigator,” the Topeka Capital Journal reported.

“[Shawnee County Sheriff Dick] Barta said Schmidt wanted to have Shawnee County investigate the case because the documents allegedly were destroyed by offices housed in Topeka, and because of the conflicts of interest Schmidt’s office has with the case,” according to reporter Aly Van Dyke. “Those conflicts include the fact that Schmidt’s office, under his predecessor, is accused of destroying the documents and because the state’s investigative arm, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, is a division of the attorney general’s office.”

In a letter to Sheriff Barta, attorney general Schmidt wrote, “It is critical that Kansans have confidence in the independence and integrity of this investigation and that the facts be clearly established.”

The 107 total criminal charges against the Kansas City suburban Planned Parenthood had been originally filed in 2007 by then-Johnson County District Attorney, Phill Kline, using state records he obtained under court order in 2004 when he was Attorney General.

Two weeks ago, Johnson County DA Steve Howe dropped the bombshell that only recently had it been discovered that the evidence for this case (the original ITOPs from 2003) had been shredded in 2005 by the KDHE.

Noteworthy is that KDHE had never volunteered– in defense filings or personal court appearances– that the paperwork had been shredded as the case dragged on for years with interventions from past attorneys general and the state Supreme Court.  There has been no comment yet from the KDHE defending the destruction of records which were known to be part of an ongoing investigation.

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Categories: PPFA