Former director pleads guilty

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The former director of a Kansas City housing agency has pleaded guilty to misusing federal grants, bringing a close to an investigation that led to convictions of more than two dozen people.

Bob Brim, 59, entered his plea Tuesday, hours before his trial was scheduled to begin. He admitted embezzling more than $87,000 in federal funds.

through his agency, the Citizen Housing and Information Council, and bribing then-state Rep. Vernon Thompson, a Kansas City Democrat.

The investigation that led to Brim's plea began in the mid-1990s. It led to the convictions of three Kansas City Council members, the speaker of the Missouri House, another House member and the chairman of the Jackson County Legislature.

Federal authorities investigated Brim's agency after auditors found irregularities surrounding a $600,000 federal grant the agency received to develop an industrial park.

Investigators later determined that Brim had paid Thompson a $7,500 bribe from project funds in exchange for his political influence on behalf of Brim's agency.

Thompson had been prepared to testify that Brim paid him more than $50,000 in kickbacks from 1993 through 1995, according to court records.

Thompson was not charged in connection with Brim. But in 2000 he was sentenced to one year in federal prison in a separate $250,000 federal embezzlement case.

The charges against Brim also alleged that Brim used about $80,000 from the grants either for himself or for agency expenses not authorized by the government. The indictment gave no details of the spending irregularities.

As part of his plea agreement, Brim admitted misapplying only $30,000 in federal funds but agreed that all other conduct outlined in the charges could be held against him in calculating his sentence.

A preliminary estimate in Brim's plea bargain shows he could spend as little as 12 months in prison. The maximum sentence is 10 years.

Mismanagement ultimately forced the Citizen Housing and Information Council to close its doors. Founded in 1971, the council was one of Kansas City's oldest community housing agencies, spending millions of dollars in federal funds to build and rehabilitate inner-city homes and construct large apartment developments for needy families and the elderly.