Grand jury indictments lead to five arrests

About a month after a grand jury issued 12 indictments stemming from an investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Fort Scott city officials and local residents, the Kansas Attorney General's Office charged five persons in relation to those indictments.

The Bourbon County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday arrested five Fort Scott residents in connection with the indictments.

Former Fort Scott Economic Development Director Don Russell, local chiropractor and developer Charles Parsons, Parsons' employee Cindy Moyers, local insurance underwriter Tim Allison, and local restaurateur Greg Kuplen were escorted by deputy sheriffs Tuesday afternoon to the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Center.

All were released later Tuesday under their own recognizance and didn't have to immediately pay a $1,500 bond that was set for each.

The Kansas Attorney General's Office issued the arrest warrants after reviewing the indictments issued by the grand jury last month. The Bourbon County Grand Jury spent six months investigating allegations specified on a petition claiming that the city and certain local residents had engaged in illegal activity at the expense of taxpayers.

According to the charges filed by the AG's office, Russell was charged with one count of presenting a false claim to the Kansas Department of Commerce on a grant titled "Incentives Without Walls." The charge alleged that Russell falsely claimed that repairs to a building at 12 S. Main St., the address of Kuplen's business called the Main Street Chop House, were needed because of a downtown fire that occurred in March 2005.

Kuplen was charged with two counts of presenting a false claim. The first count was the same as the charge against Russell, presenting false documents to KDOC for repairs to his building at the expense of the City of Fort Scott. The second charge alleges that Kuplen presented a false invoice for building repairs in which not all of the work was listed. The documents did not list a specific dollar amount, only that it was between $500 and $25,000.

Parsons was charged with one count of committing a fraudulent insurance act, alleging that a back-dated check to Farmer's Alliance Mutual Insurance was drawn on Parson's bank account. The documents said the date on the check was March 10, 2005, the day prior to the day of the downtown fire. The amount of the check was not specified in the charges.

Allison, an underwriter for a local insurance company, was charged with one count of committing a fraudulent insurance act. Again, the charges revolve around Parsons' back-dated check to Farmer's Insurance.

Moyers was accused of making a false claim because she, in some way, handled the back-dated check.

All of the charges were non-person, low level felonies.

The charges against the five suspects total six. The grand jury issued 12 indictments, leaving the possiblility open for more charges to be filed.

Kuplen was specifically mentioned in the petition, which began circulating in August 2006 and generated enough signatures to induce formation of the grand jury. According to the petition, the city authorized payment of public funds totaling $8,000 to Kuplen, so he could fix his building supposedly damaged in the March 2005 downtown fire. The money was given to Kuplen as part of a Kansas Department of Commerce grant on which Russell was the city's point man.