Court blocks judge's disputed money

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- An appeals court issued an emergency order Wednesday blocking a judge's attempt to release some disputed funds under his control to help pay for legal services for poor people.

The Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District in St. Louis issued the order preventing Cole County Circuit Judge Thomas Brown III from potentially turning over as much as $750,000 to four organizations, including the St. Louis-based Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.

The money is part of a $2.75 million pool of disputed funds controlled by Brown and Judge Byron Kinder. The money is left over from four old court cases.

The appeals court ruling was in response to challenges from State Treasurer Nancy Farmer and Attorney General Jay Nixon.

Farmer and Nixon have filed unsuccessful lawsuits to try to take away control of the money from the judges. They contend it belongs in the treasurer's unclaimed property fund.

In his order, Brown noted last week that to deal with a budget shortfall, Gov. Bob Holden vetoed $750,000 of a $1.5 million appropriation for the state's legal services program.

The four legal services agencies that had petitioned Brown for the money handled more than 30,000 cases for poor clients last year. The cases involved consumer fraud, domestic violence, evictions and homelessness.

Brown cannot release the funds until the court case filed by Nixon and Farmer is concluded, officials said.

Utility bill interest

Nixon's office sued Brown and Kinder in June contending they had illegally diverted about $3 million in interest from money collected in state cases involving utility bill overpayments and an insolvent insurance company.

The judges used the money to remodel courtrooms, build an additional courtroom and to pay additional salaries to courthouse secretaries.