Betty McCray, Kinloch’s newly elected Mayor, arrived at City Hall on Thursday morning with an entourage and the intention to fire multiple city employees.
But before she could enter the building, McCray was told she was the one who was out of job.
In the parking lot, McCray was met by a half-dozen police officers and City Attorney James Robinson, who held a manila envelope under his arm containing articles of impeachment.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday said that the former mayor of Kinloch has been indicted again — this time for lying about a job in order to get out of the halfway house where he'd been placed for previous federal crimes.
Keith Conway had been transferred to the Dismas House in St. Louis from a federal prison in Marion, Ill., on May 1, prosecutors said. He was supposed to be working, and claimed to be, leaving the halfway house during his “work hours,” authorities said.
But Conway lied and submitted fake pay stubs to bolster that lie, according to prosecutors. Conway now faces four felony counts of filing false documents.
On Nov. 18, 2011, Conway was sentenced to 21 months in prison on charges of wire fraud, theft from a federal program and witness tampering. Conway was also ordered to repay $62,429 to the troubled city after admitting that he'd spent city money for Caribbean cruises, plane tickets, train trips, and personal expenses like utility bills and a $9,000 delinquent federal tax bill.
The Kinloch Fire Protection District, like the impoverished community it served, struggled for decades, scraping by on donations and suffering as the station’s lights and phones were periodically shut off for nonpayment of bills.
All the while, federal prosecutors said Thursday, Fire Chief Darran Kelley was looting more than $140,000 in district funds, using the money for gambling and personal expenses.
Kelley, 47, stole money from taxes, grant funds intended for a new pumper truck and donations intended to help the district keep that truck, prosecutors said.
He also claimed to be disabled and unable to work while being paid his salary of $640 every two weeks, officials said, meaning he fraudulently received tens of thousands of dollars that way.
A former city leader in the small North County municipality of Kinloch claims police there arrested and physically assaulted her after she called to report a burglary in her apartment complex.
Kinloch police cited Theda Wilson with a summons for resisting arrest and because she "fought with three police officers."
