Topeka ? A criminal case against a high-profile abortion provider was seriously flawed, and the state’s former attorney general acted unethically while trying to prosecute him, a top aide to the current attorney general said Wednesday.

Spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett disclosed that Attorney General Paul Morrison is not pursuing 15 of the 30 charges filed against Dr. George Tiller, of Wichita, by Morrison’s predecessor, Phill Kline. She wouldn’t discuss the other 15 charges.

Tiller is among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortions and has been performing abortions in Kansas since 1973.

For four charges, Kline cited the wrong records, Anstaett said. For another 11, Kline obtained but omitted evidence favoring Tiller under circumstances she described as “unethical.”

Kline accused Tiller of performing illegal late-term abortions and – in the charges discussed by Anstaett – failing to properly report details about the procedures to state health officials. Kline filed his case in December in Sedgwick County, but a judge dismissed it the next day for jurisdictional reasons.

Anstaett also said Kline was “careless and irresponsible” in handling records of patients at Tiller’s clinic. After a legal dispute lasting more than two years, Kline received copies of those records in October, edited to remove patients’ names and other identifying information.

Kline called Anstaett’s statements false and suggested Morrison was handling the case as if he were defending Tiller, not investigating him. A leader of Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said Morrison’s comments are a sign he does not intend to prosecute Tiller.

“Attempt to confuse the public and take another swipe at Mr. Kline – I think that’s what’s going on here,” said Mary Kay Culp, the group’s executive director. “They seem to be laying the groundwork.”

Morrison plans to announce today or Friday whether he’ll pursue any criminal charges against Tiller. Abortion opponents have been trying to build public pressure on him to revive Kline’s case, an effort Anstaett called “misinformed and irresponsible.”

“Our investigation was far more thorough than Kline’s,” she said during an interview, adding that an assistant attorney general reviewed more than 10,000 documents and interviewed new witnesses.