O’Donnell has to testify in Whipple attack ad suit, but what he says can’t be released
Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell won’t get to wait until after election day to testify in Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple’s defamation lawsuit over a false campaign attack ad released during last year’s mayoral race.
But it’s highly unlikely anything O’Donnell says under oath will be made public before voters go to the polls to decide whether he keeps his seat on the County Commission.
That was the decision Tuesday of Senior Judge John Sanders, who is handling the politically charged lawsuit.
“This court believes that planning judicial case flow around the proximity of political elections is not a proper exercise of judicial discretion or case management,” Sanders wrote in a two-page order.
He ordered O’Donnell to make himself available for Whipple’s lawyer to take his deposition no later than Oct. 15.
Also in the order, he gave a nod to O’Donnell’s complaint that sections of his testimony could find their way into the public realm and the media through court filings.
O’Donnell, the Republican incumbent, had requested the deposition be delayed until after the election arguing that it could be used to influence voters in his ongoing campaign against Democratic challenger Sarah Lopez.
“He fears damage to his prospects to retain his County Commission seat,” the judge wrote. “He further asserts that the timing of this deposition has been specifically scheduled for this purpose and that the lawsuit itself has an improper motivation.”
“The deposition may not be filed or any part thereof released or made available to the public until further order of the court,” Sander’s order concluded.
Whipple filed a defamation lawsuit to find out the identity of persons who launched the now-disproven attack ad accusing him of sexual harassment while he was a member of the state House of Representatives in Topeka.
The people responsible for the ad were hidden behind an anonymous New Mexico shell company created to launch the electoral broadside in an effort to boost the flagging re-election chances of then-Mayor Jeff Longwell.
Accusations made against Whipple were largely cribbed from a Kansas City Star/Wichita Eagle story in which former legislative interns complained of harassment by Republican senators, not Whipple, who was a House Democrat.
O’Donnell and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin have admitted they raised money that was used to finance the smear campaign. However, they have said they thought it was to be used for campaign billboards.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
