JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled in favor of Sen. Paul Wieland Aug. 31 regarding a year-old legal battle with the Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC).
In 2015, attorney JoAnn Karll of High Ridge, Missouri filed multiple ethics complaints against Wieland in his campaign for the 22nd Senate District. The MEC dismissed all but one of the complaints, finding that Wieland had gotten a gift by receiving “free legal services.”
Although an MEC hearing asked only that Wieland amend his financial disclosure reports, he refused to settle and took the case to court in Sept. 2015.
Beetem found that the case was a “no brainer” and that the MEC had engaged in “a series of legal and semantic gymnastics” to say the legal help Wieland had received was a gift.
“Representing your uncle in a DWI or your sister in her divorce without expectation of payment is a gift,” he said. “Representing an indigent client without expectation of payment is pro bono because of the public benefit. Petitioner’s arrangement with his attorneys is neither.”
Beetem went on to say there was no discernable proof that Wieland’s attorneys offered their services for free.
Wieland said that he felt “vindicated” by the court’s findings.
“I am delighted… that I continue to have a completely clean record with the Missouri Ethics Commission,” Wieland said in a statement. “All along I knew by listening to the case made by my attorney, Tim Belz, that the decisions by both the Missouri Ethics Commission and the Administrative Hearing Commission were in error.”
Weiland added that he felt Karll had wasted Missouri taxpayer money with “frivolous complaints.”
