KC police officer who ran anti-crime charity indicted for wire fraud, money laundering

A Kansas City police officer faces 16 felonies, including wire fraud and money laundering, for allegedly collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of an anti-crime charity to use on himself, federal prosecutors said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri says Aaron Wayne McKie, 46, was indicted on the charges for a fraud that spanned 14 years. He is accused of taking more than $300,000 over that time.

The indictment was unsealed Friday after the longtime police officer was arrested. During a hearing in the downtown federal courthouse, McKie pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on bond.

Prosecutors did not seek to hold McKie in pretrial detention. Such actions are typically reserved for criminal defendants believed to pose a risk of flight or danger to the larger community.

Justin Johnston, McKie’s defense attorney, said in a statement: “We will contest these charges before the court and a jury.”

McKie, who joined KCPD in April 2000, has spent much of his tenure with the police department’s Crime Free Multi-Housing unit, where he was assigned from 2002 to 2023.

From 2009 to 2023, he was also president of Mid-America Crime Free, Inc., a nonprofit that claimed to promote anti-crime programs and train staff in the rental housing industry.

McKie defrauded the nonprofit throughout his tenure with the organization, according to the federal indictment.

He advertised that money raised at an annual golf tournament was going toward seminars for rental property owners and to train police officers. But the police department actually paid for those expenses because they were part of McKie’s job, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Authorities have identified more than 120 donors. Contributions from businesses and individuals amounted to $387,620, and prosecutors allege $320,060 went toward “personal purposes.”

McKie allegedly spent nearly $126,000 on travel, entertainment, restaurants and bars; $57,278 on retail and luxury items and $23,298 on household expenses.

Other examples of alleged fraudulent activity include transfers to his personal bank account, repairs made on a Lexus sedan and a $351.34 purchase at the Caesars Palace casino and resort hotel in Las Vegas.

Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a spokesman for KCPD, said the department learned of the potential fraud in September. McKie was suspended, and investigators forwarded the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

McKie remains employed with the police department, DiMartino said Friday.

The department’s Crime Free Multi-Housing program was designed to keep rental properties free of illegal activity and each patrol division had officers assigned to the initiative.

In December 2021, members of the Board of Police Commissioners, the governing body that oversees the police department, commended McKie for bettering an apartment complex. His work was cited as an example of outstanding community policing efforts, according to recorded meeting minutes.

Little financial information for Mid-America Crime Free, Inc., is publicly available. The nonprofit organization’s tax-exempt status was automatically revoked by the Internal Revenue Service in 2010 for failure to file returns over three consecutive years, online records show.

After the charity’s loss of tax-exempt status, paperwork continued to be filed with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office. In May 2022, the last available report, McKie is listed as the organization’s president and one of its three board members alongside two other Kansas City police officers.

DiMartino, the KCPD spokesman, said no other police officers were placed on leave and the investigation “centered around one member.”