Topeka ? The city failed to report traffic violations to the state, possibly resulting in lenient charges and sentences for repeat offenders, according to claims in a lawsuit against a Municipal Court judge and the city.

Shawnee County Dist. Atty. Robert Hecht filed the lawsuit Wednesday against the city and Municipal Court Judge Neil Roach on behalf of the state. Roach is responsible for forwarding traffic records to the Kansas Driver’s License Control Bureau.

Information in the bureau’s depository can be used to determine what charges and sentences should be levied against traffic offenders. If an offense isn’t reported, a repeat offender could be charged as a first-time offender. Hecht said that could mean the difference between being charged with a misdemeanor or a felony.

Hecht alleges that over a 2 1/2-year period, Roach failed to report to the state as many as 10,000 “major offenses,” such as convictions for drunken driving, reckless driving and suspended driver’s licenses.

The lawsuit claims Roach’s actions are grounds for his removal. It also seeks compensation for “a substantial increase in expenditure of attorney and staff time” to investigate and determine appropriate charges and sentences against those brought before the court for traffic violations.

Roach did not return a phone message left at his office Thursday morning by The Associated Press.

City attorney Brendan Long said the failure to report cases to the state was not intentional.

“What I understand is we were undergoing a software conversion, and it didn’t go over well and we had difficulty reporting information to the state,” he said. “It’s been something Judge Roach has been trying to work out. We have had a consultant working on the problem since the beginning of the year, and last I was aware, the city was in compliance with the state.”

Hecht said a number of people had approached Roach during the past two years about the problem.

Only when threatened with civil litigation did the city comply, Hecht said. Within “a few days or only several weeks” the city was able to deliver two years worth of records to the state, which makes the noncompliance even more inexcusable, he said.

Long said he believed the timing of the D.A.’s threat of filing a civil suit and the city working out the computer problems was a coincidence.