Wichita police won’t file charges against Kansas GOP House candidate in Reddit video

The Wichita Police Department is not pursuing criminal charges against a Republican Kansas House candidate who was recorded leaping onto a seemingly unconscious woman lying on a bed, then holding a pillow over her face in a video posted anonymously online.

Kyler Sweely, a 26-year-old first-time candidate who is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Jason Probst in a Hutchinson-area race, has strongly denied any wrongdoing. He said the video was intentionally taken out of context as a “political smear” by House Democrats, who released a statement after the video posted calling for a criminal investigation into whether it depicted “aggravated sexual assault and suffocation.”

Aaron Moses, a captain and executive officer for Wichita police, said in a written statement that all parties involved had been interviewed by police.

“On October 21, 2024, Wichita Police investigators were contacted regarding two video clips that the reporting party received in July of 2023 from an unnamed individual,” Moses said. “The Domestic Intervention and Violence Reduction Team followed up on these videos, contacting all the involved parties. Based on the interviews conducted no charges will be filed at this time.”

In a Facebook post, Sweely described the clips as “some old videos from a double date with friends — just us hanging out and being silly.”

A 24-year-old woman who identified herself as the woman lying on the bed likewise told police that no crime was committed and that she did not consider herself to be a victim, according to a police report.

Instead, she told investigators that she, Sweely and Republican Rep. Avery Anderson, one of Sweely’s friends, had been drinking and described the videos as them “just having fun.”

She did not return phone calls or text messages for this story. The Eagle is choosing not to identify her due to the sensitive nature of the video.

The video — which is two separate five-second clips spliced together — was posted on Reddit earlier this month by a user called DoctorHappy8141, an account that appears to have been created solely to post the video and comment on it. Its title was “Leaked video of KS Leg candidate with unconscious girl” and its description claimed the video was recorded by Anderson.

A man’s voice can be heard on the video encouraging Sweely to jump on the woman, who is fully clothed in the video. “Kyler, go!” the unidentified speaker says before Sweely jumps on the woman.

A later Reddit post — which has since been removed — purported to show the metadata from the video that undercut a statement released by Sweely suggesting the video was recorded in the distant past.

Sweely’s posted video statement — featuring a woman’s voice that he said belonged to the woman in the video — said, “the fact that someone held on to this video for years, only to try to use it now to attack him (Sweely), is creepy and honestly pretty disgusting.” The alleged metadata showed that the video was recorded in July 2023 near the Delano neighborhood in Wichita.

Police records suggest the video was recorded at an apartment in Wichita around July 2023. Anderson’s ex-girlfriend reported the video to police and told investigators that she “recognized the setting as an apartment at 225 Sycamore, where Avery previously resided.”

Anderson, chairman of the Transportation and Public Safety Budget committee, confirmed to police that the video was recorded in 2023. Anderson’s living arrangement in the Wichita apartment is unclear. His listed residence in 2023 was in Newton, the area he represents and where he is running for re-election. He did not return calls or text messages.

Anderson appeared to give two conflicting accounts of his involvement, according to the police report.

In an initial interview, a Wichita police officer noted that “Avery confirmed he is the voice heard in the video” encouraging Sweely.

On Wednesday, “after he received a call from the media inquiring about this incident,” Anderson called the police and said he was in another room when the video was recorded, according to the police report.

In an Eagle phone interview, Sweely vehemently denied Anderson’s involvement in the video.

“One-hundred-thousand percent also that was not Representative Avery Anderson in the video or that took the video,” Sweely said. “He was not even there.”

Anderson, in his follow-up call to police, said the voice in the video belonged to someone else, who he said recorded the video.

Anderson did not return phone calls or text messages on Wednesday.

Speaker’s chief of staff intervenes

While Sweely posted videos on Facebook and continued campaigning, Carrie Rahfaldt, chief of staff for House Speaker Dan Hawkins, worked to dissuade reporters from covering the story.

Rahfaldt, who said she was a journalism major in college and who previously worked as Hawkins’ spokesperson, sat in on an phone interview with Sweely and cut him off multiple times as he attempted to respond to questions.

“You are the literal only reporter that seems to be getting pressured by this,” Sweely said. “Everyone else dropped it in a heartbeat.”

“Because there’s nothing there,” Rahfaldt said.

At one point, Rahfaldt instructed Sweely not to answer a question about whether he regretted the videos.

Rahfaldt later demanded that the entire joint interview be “on background” — reporter speak for quotes that can be used without naming the sources of information — and “off the record” — meaning the quotes cannot be used. The reporter did not agree to those terms.

During that interview, she told the reporter to “kill the story” and said if her statements were used, “We’re going to have some problems. If you use my statement without my permission, we’re going to have some major problems.”

Rahfaldt called The Eagle after a reporter reached out to Sweely with questions about the video. She introduced herself in a voicemail as “I work in Dan Hawkins’ office.”

She later said Hawkins “has no idea about any of this” and that she was helping Sweely because he asked her for help. She said she was not being paid by Sweely or the speaker’s office or Avery to speak to reporters about the video.

“I’m just doing this out of like — I’m a mom who is — this is completely out of my scope of things that I do. Like, I’m trying to facilitate, I guess, finding out the truth,” she said. “Kyler is just a kid. And so is Avery Anderson. I hate to see this ruin their lives.”

Hawkins did not return a phone call Wednesday.

This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 2:41 PM.