The ‘Godfather of Independence’ says feds were ‘vindictive’ after failed sting operation

Even before Missouri voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, the FBI had launched a sting operation aimed at ensnaring crooked politicians around Kansas City willing to cash in on what would become a billion-dollar industry.

The undercover agents spent taxpayer dollars lavishly. They leased private jets, paid informants and treated two targets of the investigation to hotel stays at a Nevada casino. They bought one of them drinks and lap dances at a Reno strip club in hopes of uncovering public corruption within Independence city government related to the highly coveted marijuana licenses.

But the previously unreported investigation fizzled. No one was arrested.

Then, federal prosecutors charged one of the investigation’s targets with criminal tax evasion, some say out of spite so as not to come up empty-handed from the sting.

That’s the gist of the allegations in a salacious new court motion filed on behalf of the defendant in that federal tax case, Independence attorney John C. Carnes, 68, who said in an interview Tuesday night that he is not the political fixer that feds believed him to be and that he is astounded at how much effort the government went to in trying to implicate him in a political scandal.

“You know I don’t think they spent this much time as they did on the ABSCAM senators (investigation) years ago,” Carnes said while referring to the 1980-era sting that led to the convictions of seven congressmen and others for bribery and corruption.

Carnes is awaiting trial on two felony counts – tax evasion and obstructing the IRS – as well as seven misdemeanor counts of failure to pay taxes. The motion suggests that anyone else facing similar tax problems would have had his case handled administratively instead of with criminal penalties.

The tax case filed in December 2022 has no direct connection to the marijuana sting. But Carnes’ defense lawyer, John R. Osgood, claims in the court motion that Carnes might not be facing prison time were it not for that investigation, which he called an “abject failure.”

Through the motion, Osgood is seeking access to government investigative records that he thinks will show that Carnes is being treated unfairly and that the case should be dismissed.

“The government had to show something for its dogged, expensive pursuit of gossip, rumors and innuendo that ultimately fizzled,” he wrote.

According to Osgood:

“The indictment smacks of frustration over the inability to prove that Mr. Carnes controls the Independence city government and that a suspected pattern of vote fixing and favoritism was going on as part of an illegal bribery scheme.”

A former Independence City Councilman and former Jackson County legislator, Carnes pleaded guilty in 1989 to bribery and bank fraud and spent two years in federal prison.

Osgood’s motion asks that District Judge Greg Kays compel prosecutors to hand over grand jury minutes, an IRS agent’s special report and the remainder of the FBI’s Independence public corruption investigative file that wasn’t included in the 6 gigabytes of material that the prosecution has already provided.

He believes that evidence will prove that Carnes was the victim of “vindictive prosecution.”

A spokesman for the U.S. District Attorney’s office in Kansas City declined to comment on Osgood’s contention or the motion’s description of the sting operation.

“Since this is related to an upcoming trial, and we will be responding directly to the Court, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to make any public comments at this time,” spokesman Don Ledford said. “Any comments we wish to make in response will be contained in our court filings.”

Prosecutors have until Feb. 20 to respond to Osgood’s motion.

Fertile ground for corruption?

That the FBI was keeping an eye on state regulators as the legal weed industry ramped up has been widely reported in the years since then. Agents even paid Gov. Mike Parson’s office a visit in 2020.

The reason for scrutiny on the state level was clear. Officials in Jefferson City were the ones who decided who got the limited number of licenses to grow and distribute marijuana for medical and later recreational use in the state’s lucrative industry that is dominated by a few key players.

But federal law enforcement’s concerns beyond state government, namely among local elected officials, has gotten little to no attention, even though potential for corruption related to marijuana regulation was there too.

Were local politicians soliciting bribes for special favors, such as zoning decisions that could potentially favor some weed companies over others? The FBI hoped that Carnes would unintentionally lead them to crooked politicians who could make that happen for a price.

“Mr. Carnes was apparently viewed by the FBI,” Osgood’s court motion said, “as the corrupt political fixer who would potentially attempt to control the marijuana industry in Jackson County, Missouri.”

In that 45-minute phone interview Tuesday evening, Carnes denied trading favors or offering bribes to accomplish his clients’ aims. He says he relies, instead, on longstanding personal relationships and political instincts to get things for his clients when conducting business with city officials, some of whom he has helped get into office.

“I helped him get on the council (in an) election years ago,” he said of one councilman. “All I’m really looking for is information. I ask them their opinion on things like, ‘Do you think this will pass? What do you think the council reaction is?’ I’m just making an assessment.”

The FBI’s focus on Independence and marijuana coincided with another public corruption probe. Members of the City Council had drawn the FBI’s attention in voting to approve the purchase of the Rockwood Golf Club for a planned solar farm at what seemed to be an inflated price. The council also had awarded a demolition contract for a city-owned power plant that had also raised suspicions because the contract did not go to the low bidder.

Carnes had a role in both deals. His tax evasion indictment alleges that he earned more than $200,000 in fees from representing clients in the Rockwood and power plant deals.

Fruitless private jets and lap dances

According to Osgood’s motion, the Independence sting began when Carnes got a call from a stranger in the fall of 2018.

The man said he controlled marijuana farms and dispensaries across the United States and wanted in on the ground floor of Missouri’s legal medical marijuana industry.

Might Carnes help?

According to Osgood’s court motion, Carnes went to dinner with the caller and another man who “held themselves out to be, for want of a better description, ‘high rollers’ with unlimited funds to invest in the potential burgeoning marijuana business in Missouri.”

The men were actually undercover FBI agents.

Several days later, Carnes and one of the undercover agents “spent the better part of an afternoon” looking at potential medical marijuana dispensary locations.

As they drove around Independence, the agent “repeatedly tried to ensnare Carnes with innuendo in conversation suggesting they were prepared to spend (a) large amount of money in Missouri,” the court filing said.

Five weeks after the ballot measure passed, the two agents flew Carnes and one of his clients to Reno, Nevada, on a private jet outfitted with secret recording equipment, the court motion said. The purpose of the trip was to look at marijuana farms.

But according to the court filing, the trip wasn’t all business. The agents put Carnes and the other man up in a casino hotel, bought them drinks and treated the unnamed client to lap dances at a strip club that first night.

The next day during the tour and on the flight home, the agents continued to press Carnes, but according to Osgood the only incriminating thing Carnes said was that he smoked a joint once while he was in high school in the early 1970s.

“Needless to say,” Osgood wrote, “at no time did Carnes make any incriminating statements or suggestion that for money he could put the fix in with the City Council or pay bribes to any public officials to assist the undercover agents in cornering the marijuana business in Eastern Jackson County.”

The ‘Godfather of Independence’

Carnes has been a high-profile figure in the city’s political scene since, at age 23, he won a seat on the nonpartisan Independence City Council in 1978.

He went onto win reelection to become a dominant influence on the council and in county Democratic politics. In 1984, he launched a bid to replace the retiring Democrat Richard Bolling, who’d been Kansas City’s congressman since 1949, and came close to winning the party’s nomination to replace him, losing out to now retired congressman Alan Wheat.

His fall from power came five years later. He was charged with six counts of paying and soliciting bribes, while he was on the Independence council, the Jackson County Legislature and as a private citizen between 1982 and 1998.

In an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to one of the bribery counts, which involved paying an Independence city councilman for his vote in a zoning matter. He also pleaded guilty to bank fraud.

After serving two years in federal custody, he went into political exile. But after regaining his law license in 2006, his profile rose as he once again began representing clients who did business with Independence city government.

According to the court filing, he’s come to be viewed by some in the community as “‘the boogeyman’ of Independence, or the political boss, or Godfather of Independence.”

A witness in an unrelated court case said Carnes’ influence was such that as recently as 2019 he was allowed to vet applicants for the city’s internal auditor job.

Carnes denies that he is anything but a lawyer who knows how to get things done in a fair and legal fashion.

“I don’t consider myself a fixer,” he said

No corruption charges filed

But Osgood claims that Carnes’ influence is overblown, calling his power broker image a “wives tale.” Osgood, interestingly enough, was the federal prosecutor who put Carnes in prison 35 years ago and now considers him a friend.

Power broker or not, Carnes was open about his ability to swing deals with city officials in 2018 when he said he would be interested in helping clients gain an advantage in the fledgling weed industry, if the ballot measure passed.

Carnes went so far as to suggest, Osgood said in the court motion, that he might be able to help clients lock out competitors by convincing the city council to pass restrictive zoning ordinances.

The council did just that in the summer of 2019, passing restrictions that went far beyond the state’s rules on where dispensaries and marijuana farms could be located. But the city backtracked after facing a court challenge.

No evidence was presented in that lawsuit alleging that the city passed the original ordinance to benefit any particular applicant, and it is unclear what role, if any, Carnes might have played.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the same month that the council passed the restrictive marijuana ordinance, federal investigators got a court order to install video and audio surveillance equipment in the lobby and conference room of his law office on Independence Square.

Osgood’s motion doesn’t speculate on what the FBI’s aim was in doing so, but he notes that no current or former Independence city officials have been charged with any form of public corruption as a result.

“After nearly a full eight years of investigation, the only person indicted to date is Mr. Carnes,” he said.

That indictment alleges that Carnes avoided paying nearly $350,000 in income taxes between 2012 and 2018, and he is also accused of hiding money for personal expenses by keeping it in an account intended solely for representing clients.

His jury trial is set to begin at 8 a.m. on April 29.

Carnes hopes to prevail, but was fatalistic:

“I’ll probably work until I drop in the grave,” he said, “and these feds who never leave me alone will probably dig me up and take me to a grand jury.”