UNITED STATES NEWS

Missouri ex-House speaker fined $47K for alleged campaign finance violations

May 24, 2023, 11:56 AM

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A disgraced former Missouri House speaker has been fined $47,000 for allegedly breaking campaign finance laws, according to records released Tuesday.

The Missouri Ethics Commission, which handles ethics violations by politicians, said it uncovered the alleged misconduct during an audit of Republican John Diehl’s campaign last year.

Voters elected Diehl to the state House in 2008 to represent suburban St. Louis, and he briefly served as the powerful House speaker in 2015. He resigned in May 2015 after admitting to sending sexually explicit messages to a House intern.

The Ethics Commission found that Diehl opened a bank account in July 2015 where he kept unreported campaign money. The audit discovered that Diehl had roughly $52,000 more in campaign funds than what he had reported.

Diehl used campaign money to make a nearly $7,000 credit card payment for personal expenses in 2020, the commission found. He has since repaid the funds to his campaign. The commission also found Diehl donated close to $35,000 in 2019 and 2020 without publicly reporting those gifts.

Diehl’s lawyer, Marc Ellinger, described the issues as “minor paperwork errors.”

“Over the course of many, many years, millions of dollars and thousands of transactions, there was a small number of them that there were some errors made in reporting,” Ellinger said. “We cleaned all those up, and we’re trying to put this all behind us.”

Although he was fined $47,000, Diehl only owes about $10,000 if he pays within the next month and a half. He will owe the full $47,000 if he violates campaign finance laws in the next two years.

United States News

Tracy Wodatch, from Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home, places a candle next to a photo...

Associated Press

A nurse’s fatal last visit to patient’s home renews calls for better safety measures

WILLIMANTIC, Conn. (AP) — The killing of a Connecticut nurse making a house call in October was a nightmare come true for an industry gripped by the fear of violence. Already stressed out by staffing shortages and mounting caseloads, heath care workers are increasingly worrying about the possibility of a patient becoming violent – a […]

4 hours ago

Associated Press

Vegas shooter who killed 3 was a professor who recently applied for a job at UNLV, AP source says

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Terrified students and professors cowered in classrooms and dorms as a gunman roamed the floors of a University of Nevada, Las Vegas building, killing three people and critically wounding a fourth before dying in a shootout with police. The gunman in Wednesday’s shooting was a professor who had unsuccessfully sought a […]

4 hours ago

Part of a square-mile section of state land in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park is seen, Oct. 5,...

Associated Press

Wyoming may auction off huge piece of pristine land inside Grand Teton

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Off and on for over a decade, Wyoming leaders have threatened to auction off large chunks of pristine, state-owned parcels of land within Grand Teton National Park to the highest-bidding developer to prod the U.S. government to step in and pay millions to conserve the properties. On Thursday, they might make […]

4 hours ago

An eight-week-old sea otter rescued from Seldovia, Alaska, peaks out of his enclosure at Shedd Aqua...

Associated Press

A sea otter pup found alone in Alaska has a new home at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium

CHICAGO (AP) — An eight-week-old arrival from Alaska chirps loudly before devouring ice chips in the nursery at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. He is Pup EL2306 — proper name to be determined — a northern sea otter who was found alone and malnourished in the remote town of Seldovia in October and taken to the Alaska […]

4 hours ago

FILE - Actor Cillian Murphy poses at the "Oppenheimer" premiere, July 13, 2023, in London. Some of ...

Associated Press

From SZA to the Stone of Scone, the words that help tell the story of 2023 were often mispronounced

Some of the words tied to this year’s hottest topics were also among the most mangled when it came to saying them aloud, with stumpers ranging from the first name of “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy to the singer SZA to the name of a sacred slab of sandstone used in the coronation of King Charles […]

4 hours ago

FILE - Actor Cillian Murphy poses at the "Oppenheimer" premiere, July 13, 2023, in London. Some of ...

Sponsored Content by

Some of the words tied to this year’s hottest topics were also among the most mangled when it came to saying them aloud, with stumpers ranging from the first name of “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy to the singer SZA to the name of a sacred slab of sandstone used in the coronation of King Charles […]

Sponsored Articles

Follow @KTAR923...

Valley residents should be mindful of plumbing ahead of holidays

With Halloween in the rear-view and more holidays coming up, Day & Night recommends that Valley residents prepare accordingly.

Follow @KTAR923...

The best ways to honor our heroes on Veterans Day and give back to the community

Veterans Day is fast approaching and there's no better way to support our veterans than to donate to the Military Assistance Mission.

Follow @KTAR923...

The 2023 Diamondbacks are a good example to count on the underdog

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the World Series as a surprise. That they made the playoffs at all, got past the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Wild Card round, swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS and won two road games in Philadelphia to close out a full seven-game NLCS went against every expectation. Now, […]

Missouri ex-House speaker fined $47K for alleged campaign finance violations