Exposing DEA agent costs KCK police detective his job
By JOE LAMBE
The Kansas City Star
Max Seifert shot men who tried to kill him and helped solve one of the area’s most horrific animal abuse cases.
But a federal judge says the case that cost the Kansas City, Kan., detective the most was his honest investigation of a road rage attack by a federal agent.
Seifert exposed the truth about a man who was beaten and charged with a crime after he wouldn’t let an unmarked car pass him on the right.
For crossing “the thin blue line,” U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson wrote, Seifert was forced into retirement.
“Seifert was shunned, subjected to gossip and defamation by his police colleagues and treated as a pariah,” Robinson wrote. “… The way Seifert was treated was shameful.”
Before Seifert started working on the beating case, she wrote, evaluations noted his “diligence and dedication.” He’d won commendations for shooting an armed man and freeing two hostages, and for shooting a man who tried to run him down with a pickup truck.
But none of that saved him from being forced out, the judge wrote.
Seifert never sued anybody.
His case might never have come to light if Robinson hadn’t mentioned his ouster from the Police Department in her recent ruling that awarded Barron Bowling, the federal agent’s beating victim, more than $830,000 for assault, battery and excessive force.
While Bowling found justice, Seifert lost part of his pension and health insurance when he was forced to leave his career early.
“That’s why he’s still working,” his wife, Mary Ann, said last week.
Seifert’s troubles began seven years ago after Drug Enforcement Administration agent Timothy McCue tried to pass Bowling on the right in a wide lane. Bowling sped up and the cars collided.
Bowling drove forward before he pulled over so he wouldn’t block traffic, the judge wrote. That’s when McCue, gun out, rushed him. Bowling was beaten unconscious by McCue and then taken to jail.
The case ended with the recent order for the U.S. government to pay Bowling for McCue’s actions, but a previous ruling outlined allegations against the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department.
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., settled its part of the case last year for $425,000 but admitted no liability on conspiracy, malicious prosecution or abuse of process.
Before that settlement, the judge issued the pretrial ruling that described how Seifert was pressured to play along with a cover-up that started soon after the crash. Officers at the crash scene failed to report or photograph Bowling’s injuries or report what witnesses said, the judge wrote.
Instead, Police Officer Robert Lane told Bowling he was going to jail because DEA agents “do pretty much whatever they want,” the judge wrote.
Bowling was accused of assaulting DEA agents by intentionally causing the crash, and Lane ordered a reporting officer to omit the evidence of the beating and witnesses’ statements, Robinson wrote.
After Seifert spoke to Bowling in jail, though, the detective told a boss that internal affairs should take the case instead. Seifert got it anyway and called Lane to ask why there were no witness reports.
“It would look bad for DEA agents,” Lane replied, according to the judge’s report, adding that police “should cover for them.”
Seifert still proceeded to record interviews with three witnesses who confirmed the beating, but the judge later noted that the tape mysteriously disappeared after Seifert turned it over to superiors.
Deputy Chief Steven Culp told Seifert he should investigate only the alleged car assault on McCue, the judge wrote, not the accusation of beating.
Seifert finished his investigation and submitted it to prosecutors. They declined to charge Bowling.
But Culp — who discussed the case over golf with a special agent in charge at the DEA — later gave the prosecutor more statements from the DEA agents and urged charges, the judge stated.
The prosecutor ended up charging Bowling with felony criminal damage to property and the misdemeanors of leaving the scene of an accident and possessing drug paraphernalia, a marijuana pipe.
Throughout the case, Culp and Maj. Dennis Ware managed it for police, the judge wrote. Police Chief Ronald Miller got updates from them but was not directly involved.
In a sworn statement for Bowling’s civil case, Seifert said his bosses managed a cover-up.
“I’ve never seen Col. Culp walk into my office and take such an interest in a case. … I’ve never been paid visits by Maj. Ware like they were.”
In the end, the judge said, the criminal case was based on McCue’s false statement that Bowling intentionally hit the DEA car, when McCue was the one who had tried to force his way into traffic.
Seifert testified for the defense at Bowling’s criminal trial, where jurors found the man not guilty of the felony, but convicted him on the misdemeanors.
But to police, the judge said, the detective was guilty.
Seifert said in the sworn statement, taken shortly before his retirement, that police started an internal affairs investigation of him and Miller made it clear he was unhappy with him.
Miller told him that he alone would determine whether Seifert got a reserve commission to do police work after he retired, Seifert said, which is something that officers typically rely on. He didn’t get it.
Seifert, 60, and his wife still live in Kansas City, Kan. His wife said he was forced to retire less than a year before he would have been fully vested. That meant the detective who helped solve the 1997 torture and killing of Scruffy the dog — whose case led to “Scruffy’s Law” — lost health insurance and 2.5 percent off his pension, she said.
Jody Boeding, chief counsel for the Unified Government, said the government “respectfully disagrees with Judge Robinson’s conclusions about the actions of the police commanders” and believes they acted appropriately.
Miller has left the force and is now the police chief in Topeka. He did not return phone calls.
As for Lane, he became an Edwardsville councilman. He left the Police Department in 2007 after he pleaded no contest to four misdemeanors associated with a drunken-driving ticket-fixing scheme. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and probation and is no longer on the council. He could not be reached for comment.
Culp is now the executive director of the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training. He declined to comment on details of the judicial rulings, which he said he had not read.
Ware has retired from the force and now works for the police in a civilian capacity. He did not reply to an e-mail request for comment.
Kansas City, Kan., Police Chief Rick Armstrong said the judge’s depiction of the case does not reflect past or current attitudes in the Police Department.
“This Police Department vigorously investigates allegations of misconduct,” he said.
Wyandotte County prosecutors declined to comment.
McCue is still a DEA agent, a spokesperson said. The DEA and federal attorneys representing the agency declined comment. They said they are still studying the ruling.
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