I’d personally like to stop writing about St. Peters Mayor Shawn “Skippy” Brown. But, he has one of the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease ever seen.
Last week, before Thanksgiving, Mayor Skippy chatted with another reporter about his latest scandal regarding the Missouri Ethics Commission turning him into Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon for prosecution. He and his wife, Rhonda “Mrs. Skippy” Brown, are under the equivalent of an indictment for setting up an illegal PAC to funnel large contributions from builders to themselves in violation of the campaign finance contribution limits. Shawn told the reporter that Jay Nixon’s office, when interrogating his wife, said that she didn’t need to worry about the charges, that “they were no big deal.” Shawn claims that he’ll clear this up: “We’ll pay the fine and move on.”
Remember, Shawn Brown has made a political career of skirting the law. First, he got kicked off the ballot for not paying his property taxes, but he got Adolphus Bush’s high price lawyers to resolve his little “tax evasion” problem.
Then, during the campaign, news broke that Shawn was wanted by the law for filing a false police report, but Adolphus’s lawyers got those records sealed.
Next, we discovered that he had stiffed his creditors, but apparently that was made legal with the help of a good bankruptcy lawyer.
More recently, Shawn and his partner with a questionable background, Chris Blevins, set up a haunted house to make a quick buck. But Shawn apparently lost money on his carefully orchestrated scheme. After going to a great deal of trouble to hide his involvement by giving misleading information under penalty of perjury to the Secretary of State, specifically giving a misleading reason for his abstention before the Planning and Zoning Commission, and stating quite clearly that he intentionally mislead the public and the Board of Aldermen because “no one needed to know it was the Mayor,” he made a number of bad business decisions in relation to his Haunted House of Fraud. He hired a convicted burglar, wanted by the State of Illinois, to work on the premises. This burglar stole several thousand dollars in equipment on Halloween. Luckily, the St. Peters police recovered the equipment but apparently it was not enough to put things in the black. Reportedly, the Haunted House of Fraud was a money losing proposition.
It seems that Shawn did not have much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving this year. Well, I suppose he is thankful for all those lawyers getting him out of trouble, or actually, I bet he is most thankful for the wink wink, nudge nudge legal system that seem to be willing to allow him to flagrantly violate the law without holding him accountable for his “criminal” conduct.
There is a fairly well-known legal principle that seems to fit Skippy’s pattern: Ignorantia juris non excusat. Translated from Latin, the phrase means “Ignorance of the Law is no Excuse.” This is a common response when you tell the nice police officer that you aren’t from around here and didn’t realize that the speed limit dropped so dramatically around that curve, so you didn’t know and didn’t really mean to speed – the nice police officer hands you a ticket and says that’s too bad but you’re still responsible to follow the law and the posted speed limit is the law.
Apparently Shawn has been playing the “aw shucks, I’m the new guy in town and I don’t know the rules card” with alarming frequency. That excuse might have worked during his first few months in office, but certainly not halfway through his second year. I guess Shawn is doing the best he can for the people of the City of St. Peters – wink wink, nudge nudge.
Recently, allegations surfaced that Shawn was accused of taking money from at least one builder in an effort to influence how their projects would be handled in St. Peters. An investigation was conducted by the Prosecutor’s office. Even though it was reported that the builder in question, Esteem Homes, made a rather generous contribution to Brown’s illegal PAC and co-sponsored a fundraiser to support his re-election, the Prosecutor indicated in a letter closing the matter that no campaign contributions were made to Shawn by Esteem Homes. Shawn reportedly told his supporters that it was no big deal and he worked it out. Apparently with a wink wink, nudge nudge.
Then, Skippy and the Misses found themselves in trouble with the Missouri Ethics Commission. What may appear on the surface to be a minor paperwork issue is actually a carefully orchestrated conspiracy to skirt campaign finance contribution limits. And, there is certainly no acceptable reason for using your City Hall fax machine to conduct campaign business. The Brown’s arrogant and brazen attitude toward breaking Missouri’s campaign finance laws in an effort to line their coffers with ill-gotten gold may finally land them in some hot water…although, according to Shawn himself, the Attorney General says its no big deal – wink wink, nudge nudge. It seems that Shawn has “worked it out” with a wink wink, nudge nudge.
The latest chapter in this sordid tale is the most disturbing. Even this staunch conservative has always thought well of Jay Nixon. If he would protect the sanctity of life with the same zeal that he protects the consumers of the State of Missouri, then the GOP would be in much bigger trouble next year. (My wife has always been a great fan of the No Call List.) The Attorney General’s legal career is quite impressive, yet he has had trouble moving up in the world of politics – it remains to be seen whether he will be a viable opponent for our own Governor Blunt. One might suggest to Jay Nixon that he avoid delving into the political muck of Shawn’s world, and I hope that he doesn’t let Skippy slide on this one! Politics is omnipresent in these situations, and the result is often a wink wink, nudge nudge investigation.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. But in fact, ignorance is the excuse Skippy has given every step of the way. At some point, you would think that Shawn would worry about the consequences of always claiming to be ignorant. However, ignorance is bliss after all, and a nod is as good as a wink to a blind man.
