Politics & Government

Former Brentwood City Administrator Scheduled for Sentencing Wednesday

In court documents, Seemayer's attorney asks for mandated treatment for a gambling addiction instead of prison time.

Three months after admitting he embezzled from the city he once ran, former Brentwood city administrator Chris Seemayer is set to be sentenced in federal court on Wednesday.

The sentencing is set for 1:30 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry in the downtown St. Louis federal courthouse at 111 S. 10th Street. Seemayer, 52, pled guilty on June 29 to embezzling $30,000 from city coffers to fund a personal gambling habit at the Casino Queen in East St. Louis.

The money came from grants delivered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice, documents note.

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The theft was the result of a gambling addiction, noted Seemayer's attorney, Ronald Jenkins, in court documents. Between 2009-11, Seemayer lost more than $60,000 of his own money at the Casino Queen, documents note. Then he started spending the city's money.

"Mr. Seemayer's addiction cost his family as much, or more, than it did the City of Brentwood," Jenkins states in the documents.

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Calls to Seemayer from Patch haven't been answered or returned for several weeks.

All of the thefts took place between Jan. 1, 2010, and March of this year, notes court documents. Seemayer withdrew cash advances on his city credit card for gambling money.

In court documents, Jenkins asks the judge to consider mandating treatment for Seemayer's gambling addiction instead of sending him to prison.

"He does not need to be imprisoned in order for him to have the type of correctional treatment he needs," Jenkins said in the documents. "Making this treatment a condition of probation would certainly be the most cost-effective manner of providing this assistance."

Seemayer could face six months to one year in prison, reports Robert Patrick of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Seemayer worked as city administrator in Brentwood for 22 years before abruptly resigning on March 11 without any explanation or notification to the public. City officials had been silent about his resignation, citing the matter closed to the public because of personnel matters.

Following the plea, Mayor Pat Kelly spoke more about what happened. He credited city accounting staff for discovering that something was wrong.

An internal audit at the beginning of the year tipped city employees off. In March, those employees contacted Brentwood police, who looped in federal prosecutors, .

"The staff noticed that documentation was not being submitted, which coincided at the first of the year when we start our audit process," Kelly said.

Receipts should be turned in monthly, but Seemayer hadn't been submitting documents.

Kelly approached Seemayer on March 9 and placed him on administrative leave. On March 10, the board of aldermen met in an emergency special session that was closed to the public to discuss a personnel matter. Seemayer resigned the next day.

Seemayer had an annual salary of $129,929.10 when he resigned.

"In any organization, things can slip through the cracks," Kelly said. "It wasn’t a huge amount of money stolen."

With an annual budget of $10.7 million, $30,000 amounts to how much the city spends for maintaining equipment in the sanitation department or hosting the annual golf tournament.

Seemayer will repay the stolen funds in full, "including interest and accounting fees [Brentwood] incurred in this investigation," Jenkins said in court documents.

Michael McAvoy, of McAvoy and Bahn in Fenton, also represents Seemayer. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith has represented the federal government in the case. 

Sentencing was originally scheduled for Sept. 14, but it was delayed until Wednesday at Seemayer's request.


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