Leavenworth — Basehor Mayor John Pfannenstiel was convicted Friday night on three counts of unlawful sexual activity with inmates at a state prison where he worked as a guard.
The Leavenworth County District Court jury acquitted Pfannenstiel on a charge that he brought contraband in the form of a watch battery and blue jeans into the state prison at Lansing, Kansas City television station KMBC reported.
Jurors deliberated five hours before returning the verdicts shortly before 10 p.m.
Pfannenstiel, 39, is seeking another term as mayor. In the Feb. 27 primary, he finished second to challenger Bill Hooker, 62, a retiree. The two face off again in the general election on April 3.
Testimony at the trial focused on an audiotape that the state said incriminated Pfannenstiel. Only short fragments of the tape, which included considerable background noise, were played for the jury.
Pfannenstiel had been a sergeant at the Lansing Correctional Facility and he was accused of committing the crimes between February and September of last year. Pfannenstiel was fired from his prison job in September.
The mayor's attorney maintained that he was being set up by prison inmates. On Thursday, inmate Kenneth A. Gardner testified that the charges resulted from a conspiracy by other prisoners.
Gardner, who is serving a term for first-degree murder, said the inmates hatched a plot in hopes of getting investigators to drop various drug violations that they had accumulated while in prison.
Eventually, he said, the plot turned into a scheme in which the prisoners would sue Pfannenstiel for $250,000.
City council members had called on him to resign or take a leave from his job as mayor, but he refused to do so and filed for a second term. He was unopposed when he ran in 1997.
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