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FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2015
Deputy questions Kent’s role in probe BY STEVE HUNTER shunter@kentreporter.com
It turned their lives upside down and continues to burn Andy and Laura Conner. How the Kent Police Department
gave an unsubstantiated accusation to the King County Sheriff ’s Office about Andy’s alleged misuse of a nonprofit agency’s funds. “For six months, they ripped my husband’s life apart,” Laura Conner said of the 2013 investigation by the
Sheriff ’s Office, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office into the deputy and The Genesis Project, a SeaTac drop-in center that helps get girls and women out of sex trafficking by getting them into school or finding them a job.
Despite allegations that he had embezzled as much as $50,000 from the more than $300,000 raised, an investigation failed to find that Conner had taken any money from the program. [ more DEPUTY page 4 ]
Deputy Andy Conner runs The Genesis Project drop-in center in SeaTac. STEVE HUNTER, Kent Reporter
Prosecutors charge man with theft from Kent Little League BY STEVE HUNTER shunter@kentreporter.com
Garbage hike Volunteers pick up litter along the Interurban Trail as part of the city of Kent’s seventh annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service
on Monday. Seventy-seven volunteers participated. ROSS COYLE, Kent Reporter
Group aims to reduce gang problems BY ROSS COYLE rcoyle@kentreporter.com
The Suburban King County Coordinating Council on Gangs, an organization created in 2011 to help stymie gang issues has begun implementing a plan to help reduce and intervene in gang problems in South King County, including Renton, Auburn and Kent.
The council members include Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke, Kent Police Chief Ken Thomas, members from the Kent School District and Mike Heinisch, executive director with Kent Youth and Family Services. According to Anica Stieve, the group is working off of a set of anti-gang strategies from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention’s Gang Model. The model implements five strategies (community mobilization, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression and organizational change) to reduce the likelihood that youth in a community will get involved in gang activity. The gang council recently finished its work
collecting data on gang activity in the South King County area. Data came from both the Kent Police department as well as various social organizations that work in the community. Randy Heath, Brad Brown, Thuan Nguyen and Chris Loftis represented the Kent School [ more GANG page 15 ]
King County prosecutors have charged a former Kent Little League treasurer with 14 counts of first-and second-degree theft for allegedly taking $226,515 over a 16-month period from the youth baseball and softball organization. Kevin L. Baker, 50, of Maple Valley, is scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 26 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Baker is not in custody but has been ordered by a judge to appear in King County Superior Court to face the charges filed on Jan. 12. Kent Police investigated the case and turned its information over to prosecutors in September. Detectives started to investigate the case in December 2013 when the Little League board president reported significant financial discrepancies in the league’s bank accounts in 2012 and 2013. Baker reportedly used some of the embezzled funds in an attempt to keep his newly acquired Benchwarmer Sports Bar and Grill afloat, according to charging papers. The bar along Russell Road has since closed.
The league’s board of directors sent a letter in September to Little League parents and volunteers that read in part, “Significant financial discrepancies were found in the management of league funds throughout the 2012 and 2013 seasons.” During a February interview with detectives, Baker admitted to stealing more than $200,000 from league accounts from May 2012 through September 2013 to try to keep his business afloat, according to charging papers. He also explained to detectives that he was the victim of a Nigerian Internet emailsolicitation scam in which he sent tens of thousands of dollars to the United Kingdom and Nigeria on the premise that the lender would provide him with a much-needed business loan he couldn’t otherwise qualify for in the United States. Baker admitted he also used league funds to pay business taxes owed for the Benchwarmer bar and used the money for personal expenses. Detectives received a search warrant for bank records for all accounts where Baker was an authorized signatory, including two with the Kent Little League, his business account and his personal account. [ more THEFT page 7 ]