Monopoly Boy

Marc Conklin gazes out the courtroom's third-story window, at the American flags flapping in the fall breeze. Conklin, the 43-year-old chief administrative officer of the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, glances down at North Seventh Street to the entrance of the Wyandotte County Courthouse. An hour earlier, a judge unsealed two 57-count indictments alleging that Conklin and Rodney L. Turner, a 68-year-old lawyer, had stolen more than $400,000 from the water and electric company.

Conklin, stout with spiky, graying hair, is minutes away from being fingerprinted and photographed. He'll be released on a $25,000 bond. So will Turner, who served as a Wyandotte County counselor in the 1980s.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman alleges that when Conklin was the BPU's general counsel, Conklin knowingly approved payment of phony bills for legal services that Turner had submitted between September 1, 2003, and April 30, 2008. Gorman wouldn't say whether Conklin and Turner split the money.

"All we're saying is there was a claim presented that's not right, and that claim was allowed knowing that it wasn't right," Gorman said at an October 3 press conference. As a result, he said, the BPU was missing more than $400,000. "We're alleging that money was taken, and that they had no right to take that money."

A statute of limitations allowed Gorman to charge Conklin and Turner only for submitting false legal bills within the last five years.

But The Pitch has obtained invoices submitted by Turner from 2000 through the indictments. The bills show that the BPU paid Turner $59,321 in 2003 (for the months prior to those included in the indictments) as well as $81,000 in 2002, $72,103 in 2001 and $58,979 in 2000.

If the allegations are true, the indictments are the beginning of the end of a surging career that made Conklin one of the most powerful players at the utility. Conklin served as the utility's general counsel for 10 years and also managed the human resources department until his promotion to chief administrative officer. Conklin was in line to succeed Don Gray as the next general manager of the BPU, according to a former manager at the utility.

The BPU provides electricity to 65,000 customers and water to 51,000, in Kansas City, Kansas. The utility is essentially a monopoly, owned by ratepayers with no other choice than doing business with the BPU.

The lobby of the BPU building at Minnesota Avenue and North Sixth Street in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, is often full of people struggling to pay their water and electric bills. But the utility company is run by a close network of associates living large off those same ratepayers.

In November 2006, The Pitch exposed Conklin's excessive spending on his utility-issued credit card. Conklin and other managers had spent about $15,000 on food, drinks and tickets to sporting events in Kansas and Missouri. A review of BPU managers' use of the cards from January 2004 to September 2006 found that Conklin, BPU General Manager Leon Daggett (who was fired from the BPU in December 2005 and is now director of Independence Power & Light) and lobbyist Joe Dick had spent thousands of dollars on lunches at the Savoy Grill and the Cigar Box in downtown Kansas City, Missouri (“Lunch Money” November 30, 2006). None of Conklin's receipts detailed his purchases, only how much he spent. But Conklin didn't have to worry about any punishment for abusing the company credit cards. According to BPU policy, Conklin was the one in charge of investigating abuse of the cards and determining the disciplinary action. Turner's name showed up on many of those receipts as Conklin's lunch buddy.

In January 2007, the tab for the spending spree went before the utility's ethics commission, whose members found that Conklin and other high-ranking BPU officials had abused company credit cards. The commission sent a letter to the BPU on January 11 of that year, citing "significant abuses" of policies and procedures. The commission members were troubled by "the failure of senior staff" — including Conklin — "to strictly adhere to procurement card policies and procedures and the lack of oversight by the board and administration."

Now, after a six-month grand jury investigation and its indictments against Conklin and Turner, Chief Judge R. Wayne Lampson of the Wyandotte County District Court has requested that a judge from outside the county deal with the BPU case because the ties that bind Wyandotte County's power players are so interwoven.

Senior District Judge Jack Lively of Montgomery County presided over the October 3 hearing and will eventually oversee a trial. Lively initially unsealed the grand jury's recommendations but resealed them after deciding that they might hurt Conklin's and Turner's chances of a fair trial.

Conklin and Turner both entered pleas of not guilty. Conklin's attorneys — former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves and Nathan Garrett — spoke of Conklin as a lifelong resident of Kansas, an attorney of 18 years and a father of two young sons.

Turner, wearing round glasses and a black suit with a blue dress shirt, approached the defense table with his attorney, James L. Eisenbrandt. Turner had spent most of the hearing fidgeting, locking his fingers and twiddling his thumbs. Eisenbrandt revealed that Turner had known about the investigation since spring 2008 and that Turner's relationship with the BPU ended in April 2008. Eisenbrandt painted Turner as a retiree who has lived in Wyandotte County since 1957, a husband, a father of two adult sons, a former Marine, and a longtime lawyer in the county.