The Kansas Attorney General’s Office on Friday said that while it doesn’t dispute a motion filed by lawyers for a Wichita abortion provider about records being mailed out of the state, it shouldn’t affect the prosecution of George Tiller.
Three days after Phill Kline testified in a Sedgwick County courtroom about the handling of abortion files, copies of those records were mailed to the Virginia city where the former Kansas prosecutor had taken a new job.
Most of the morning’s testimony consisted of verbal fencing between Kline and lawyer Dan Monnat, another member of Tiller’s legal team.
During the first two minutes of his testimony Kline answered “I don’t recall” 10 times.
Just before court recessed for lunch, Monnat began asking Kline about his knowledge of an affair between his successor as attorney general, Paul Morrison, and Linda Carter, who worked for Kline after he became Johnson County district attorney.
Linda Carter said she and Paul Morrison nearly broke off their affair after a heated argument over Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.
Morrison was just months into his new job as Kansas attorney general. Carter was his lover and worked with his predecessor at the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office.
Phill Kline’s broad interpretation of a law governing how health care providers report teen sexual activity fueled his investigation of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, the doctor’s lawyers said Tuesday in Sedgwick County District Court.
Tiller’s defense team is trying to persuade a judge to throw out 19 misdemeanor charges against the doctor because they say the case is based on evidence that Kline collected through abuse of his authority as the state’s top law enforcement officer.
Attorneys for abortion provider George Tiller tried to show in court Monday that former Attorney General Phill Kline was planning to prosecute Tiller even before he took office.
Tiller made a rare court appearance as he watched as one of his attorneys sparred with Kline, who launched an investigation of Tiller more than five years ago.
Phill Kline will face questioning next week by lawyers representing the Wichita abortion doctor he pursued for years as the state’s top prosecutor.
Kline, the former Kansas attorney general and current Johnson County district attorney, is on the witness list to be called by lawyers for George Tiller in a motion to dismiss misdemeanor charges related to how Tiller performed late-term abortions.
Defense attorney Dan Monnat said in a statement he was confident Six will eventually see that rather than waste taxpayer money, the only proper disposition of the “political prosecution” is dismissal.
Dan Monnat, who represents Tiller, called the request to leave the allegations unanswered “zany” during Thursday’s hearing, drawing an objection from assistant attorney general Barry Disney.
“After the defense has shown its hand, the state wants to renege on its agreement, play by a different set of rules and hide its hand,” Monnat said.
Kline also tried to orchestrate a raid by law enforcement on Tiller’s Wichita clinic to seize the medical records of women who sought abortions there, attorneys Dan Monnat and Lee Thompson said in their pleadings.
