Thursday, August 07, 2008

Suspended sentence for former Kinder chief of staff: Feltner must stay off internet...except for business purposes


Eric Feltner, 40, former chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder pleaded guilty this afternoon in Cole County Circuit Court to two counts of attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.

Judge Richard Callahan sentenced Feltner to 60 days in jail, then suspended the sentence and placed Feltner on unsupervised probation for two years.

Feltner will be required to complete 100 hours of community service within the next six months. He has already paid a $122 fine. From an article in today's Kansas City Star:

A probable cause statement filed in May by police says Feltner believed he was contacting a 13-year-old girl over the Internet, but that person really was an undercover officer. Feltner was accused of graphically discussing masturbation and sexual stimulation in the written Internet messages.

Feltner was charged May 21, but Kinder has said he did not learn of the charges against his employee until June 6, when they were publicly reported. Feltner resigned that same day.

According to the original charges and probable cause statement, Feltner used the screen name “thebestinmo” for a sexually explicit Internet chat on May 25, 2007. The court documents alleged a second sexually explicit Internet conversation occurred in July 2007.


Another stipulation of Feltner's probation is that he stay off the internet "except in the ordinary course of employment for a business purpose."

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