photo by: Bremen Keasey/Journal-World

Former Deputy DA Joshua Seiden addresses the Lawrence City Commission during public comment Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024.

A former deputy district attorney in Douglas County facing a state ethics complaint told the Lawrence City Commission Tuesday that he believed he was the right person to get the Community Police Review Board “off the ground,” despite his name having been recently removed from the board nomination list.

Joshua Seiden, who abruptly departed the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office in June after he was caught on video in costume mocking a man whom the DA’s office had prosecuted, spoke during the commission’s general public comment period Tuesday and outlined his qualifications for the position and his reasons for having applied.

As the Journal-World previously reported, Seiden was listed last week as one of several potential appointees that the City Commission was set to consider for the Community Police Review Board. But Monday, Seiden’s name was gone from the list, a change that happened between Friday and then.

When the City Commission on Tuesday approved the new appointments to nine advisory boards, Seiden was not included.

During public comment, Seiden told the commissioners he owned up to the controversy he created and that led to his departure from the DA’s office.

Seiden told the commissioners that he “proudly worked” for this community while at the DA’s office and was a part of a team who worked directly with Lawrence police officers — work that he felt was particularly “germane” to his application to the CPRB.

Seiden also said he felt he was capable of “getting the board off the ground,” and he felt that the possibility of working on the board was a way to get back in good standing after leaving the DA’s office.

“When you’ve made some mistakes, what better way of getting right with the community than to serve that community?” Seiden said.

As the Journal-World previously reported, Seiden abruptly left DA Suzanne Valdez’s office in June after footage from a security camera in the county’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center showed him dressed as Justin Spiehs, a controversial public commenter who had been prosecuted by Valdez’s office. Spiehs was charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault and one count of interference with a law enforcement officer; in 2022 he entered a plea agreement and was instead convicted of two misdemeanors, endangerment and endangerment of a child, as the Journal-World reported.

Valdez is seen laughing and pointing in the video, though she has denied that she was a party to Seiden’s conduct and said that the incident played a role in Seiden no longer being in her employ.

Spiehs has since filed an ethics complaint against Seiden and Valdez with the Kansas attorney disciplinary office, alleging multiple violations of the Kansas Rules of Professional Conduct.

After Seiden addressed the commission Tuesday, a few commenters expressed their frustration over the initial nomination of Seiden. The commenters, including Spiehs himself, also asked pointed questions of the commission on why no one has publicly said who nominated Seiden in the first place, especially so closely on the heels of the public mockery of Spiehs and Seiden’s consequent job loss.

Spiehs claimed Tuesday that Amber Sellers was the city commissioner who had nominated Seiden. Sellers did not previously respond to Journal-World questions about the nomination.