O’Donnell proposed accusing Whipple of sexual harassment, court filing shows

Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell proposed accusing Brandon Whipple of sexually harassing teenage girls during the 2019 mayoral campaign, according to a filing submitted by the embattled commissioner’s own attorney.

O’Donnell wrote out the idea on a sheet of paper with the heading “Billboard/Facebook Ads” and handed it to 21-year-old videographer Matthew Colborn last October, the filing says.

Colborn then produced an online video advertisement called “Protect Wichita Girls” that falsely accused Whipple of sexual harassment.

O’Donnell and two other Wichita Republican elected officials have been asked to resign for participating in the video campaign and engineering a cover-up plot that tried to pin the blame on GOP leaders. O’Donnell has apologized for his “lapse in judgment” and said if he wins reelection he will not accept the position.

State Rep. Michael Capps and Wichita City Council member James Clendenin, the other two officials involved, have not announced plans to step down.

O’Donnell on Monday launched a third-party suit against Colborn, claiming the young videographer lied under oath when he testified that O’Donnell provided the script for the hit piece. He said in the court filings that he’s not responsible for the bogus accusation because he thought it would be used on a billboard campaign or Facebook ad, not the video. O’Donnell’s third-party petition attempts to bring Colborn back into the Whipple defamation suit as a third-party defendant after he had been dismissed as a defendant by Whipple.

O’Donnell denies writing or approving the exact wording in the script that was eventually read by paid actresses pretending to be sexually harassed by Whipple.

O’Donnell’s ideas

One of O’Donnell’s proposed false accusations against Whipple was more explicit than any of the lines that eventually appeared in the Protect Wichita Girls video.

“Call Brandon Whipple and tell him to stop sexually harassing teenage interns,” O’Donnell wrote on a sheet of paper that he provided to Colborn, according to the filing.

The actual video said: “Protect our Wichita girls. Stop Brandon Whipple. Call this number. ... Tell him to withdraw.”

The attack ad lifted accusations from a Kansas City Star/Wichita Eagle story about alleged sexual harassment of interns by Republican senators at the Kansas Capitol and transferred them to Whipple, a former House Democrat who was not in the legislature when some of those comments were allegedly made.

The ad, launched from behind the shield of an anonymous New Mexico shell company, was quickly proven false by Eagle reporting and Whipple filed his civil lawsuit to find out who was behind it.

The latest filing is the strongest admission yet by O’Donnell that he participated in a smear campaign against Whipple. O’Donnell previously admitted only to raising money for the ad and participating in a cover-up plot that shifted the blame for the video to Sedgwick County GOP Chairman Dalton Glasscock.

O’Donnell said in the new court filing that he based the accusation on a 2017 story in the Wichita State student newspaper, The Sunflower.

That article does not contain any accusations that Whipple sexually harassed anyone.

O’Donnell also proposed saying: “Brandon Whipple provided alcohol to teenage interns in Topeka. Under age drinking is dangerous. Electing Brandon Whipple would be just as dangerous.”

The Sunflower story states that Whipple had been using college-age male and female interns as designated drivers and had allowed a female intern, whom he suspected of being underage, to consume alcohol. The former chief of staff of the Kansas House Democrats said using young female interns for such jobs was “inappropriate.”

Whipple said he doesn’t know what O’Donnell, a former state senator, was referring to with his comments about teenage interns.

“We don’t have teenage interns in Topeka who, to my knowledge, were around alcohol or provided alcohol,” he said. “I don’t know what he’s referring to.”

Capitol interns are almost always university juniors and seniors and there was “no one underage” at a legislative cocktail reception that was outlined in the Sunflower article, Whipple said.

“I guess we’ll have to play it out in court and see what happens,” Whipple said.

Fallout

O’Donnell, Clendenin and Capps are being sued by Whipple for defamation and a civil conspiracy for their roles in the falsified attack ad. Colborn was dropped from the lawsuit last month after he provided evidence in the form of an audio recording showing the others were involved.

O’Donnell and Clendenin have told Eagle reporters they raised money for the smear campaign.

The three Republican officeholders have refused calls for their resignation and are under investigation by District Attorney Marc Bennett, who will decide whether their actions constitute grounds for legal action to remove them from office.

O’Donnell is the only one of the trio who is up for re-election Tuesday. He said Saturday that he plans to resign if he wins.

In his suit against Colborn, O’Donnell claims he was one of “various individuals contributing ideas” to the project and that Colborn acted alone in writing the script.

O’Donnell has not responded to multiple phone calls and emails requesting comment.

“We have not had an opportunity to review this new filing in depth,” Colborn’s attorney, Michael Shultz, said in an email Monday afternoon. “But it appears to be a frivolous claim that is in keeping with Mr. O’Donnell’s strategy of ‘avoiding the truth at all expense’ and ‘going on the attack.’ It is not accurate. We look forward to contesting these claims vigorously.”

The Sedgwick County Republican Party, Sedgwick County Commission and U.S. Rep. Ron Estes have called for O’Donnell to resign for his involvement in the smear campaign against Whipple and the cover-up plot, which was revealed in a secret audio recording released by Shultz last month.

“Like I’ve always learned in politics, it’s always avoid the truth at all expense, right? And just go on the attack,” O’Donnell said in the recording.

Capps went on a radio show the next night and accused Glasscock of approving the ad before it was released. O’Donnell and Clendenin can be heard on the recording helping craft that narrative before Capps went on the show.

Whipple said he was surprised that O’Donnell chose to sue Colborn and not countersue him.

In an earlier court filing, O’Donnell’s attorney argued that the bogus video was not defamatory because Whipple won the election. He claimed the entire lawsuit is a political maneuver to help get his opponent, Sarah Lopez, elected to the commission. In the most recent filing, O’Donnell’s attorney said that Colborn is now seeking employment with local Democratic politicians.

Keeping a political ally in office was part of the motivation for the anti-Whipple campaign, O’Donnell has previously told The Eagle.

The smear campaign was meant to help former Mayor Jeff Longwell after The Wichita Eagle reported how he steered a $500 million water treatment plant contract to his friends.

Longwell said last month that the video likely cost him the election. Longwell has denied any involvement in the smear campaign.

O’Donnell claims Colborn’s testimony that he provided the script exposed him to “public ridicule” and has caused irreparable damage to his reputation. He’s seeking a jury trial and more than $75,000 in damages.

Contributing: Dion Lefler of The Wichita Eagle

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 1:29 PM.