Lee's Summit city employee Daren Fristoe faces criminal charges - + KSHB.com

Lee's Summit city employee Daren Fristoe faces criminal charges - + KSHB.com



LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. - A city official is now on paid administrative leave after he turned himself in to authorities.



The Missouri Highway Patrol said 51-year-old Daren Fristoe posted bond on felony theft charges in Jackson County on Monday.



Fristoe, the Lee's Summit assistant city manager, is accused of stealing money from his former non-profit automotive industry employer, C-CAR.



The assistant city manager is on paid administrative leave from Lee's Summit until a judge and jury decide whether Fristoe is innocent or guilty of stealing more than $120,000 from C-CAR.



Fristoe called Lee's Summit City Hall on Friday with the news.



"Mr. Fristoe advised me around 3:30 Friday afternoon that criminal charges were filed against him and that was the first we had learned of that," City Attorney Stephen Arbo said. "I was surprised."



Neither Fristoe nor his attorney were available for comment on Monday.



But the Jackson County Prosecutor's probable cause statement details Fristoe stole around $120,000 from the national organization and siphoned the money into his own personal bank accounts, paid off credit cards, a telephone bill, a bank loan and paid off loans to friends.



"He was very well thought of, highly considered," Arbo described of Fristoe when the city hired him in April 2013.



Arbo described Fristoe as an exemplary employee and a civic leader who passed all his background checks.



"I think we made the right choice in hiring him based in what we knew," Arbo said.  



In 2013, Lee's Summit's Mayor awarded Fristoe the Mayoral Ethics in Business Award.



If he's convicted of felony theft charges, Fristoe faces 15 years in prison.