photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Deputy District Attorney Joshua Seiden is pictured on April 23, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A former deputy district attorney in Douglas County who is facing a state ethics complaint is back as a nominee for a city board that reviews police conduct complaints — one week after his name was removed from that list.

On Thursday afternoon, attorney Joshua Seiden was once again listed as one of three people the City Commission was set to consider appointing to the Community Police Review Board, according to the commission’s meeting agenda for next Tuesday.

Seiden first appeared last week on a list of seven potential appointees to the CPRB. But by Monday, the agenda had been amended to remove his name and two others from the list, and when the commission approved new appointments to nine advisory boards on Tuesday night, Seiden was not one of them.

If Seiden were appointed to the CPRB, he would serve a one-year term on the board.

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 public comment on Tuesday, telling the commission that he thought he was the right person to get the Community Police Review Board “off the ground.”

As the Journal-World previously reported, Seiden left DA Suzanne Valdez’s office 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 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 his initial nomination. The commenters, including Spiehs himself, also asked the commissioners why no one had publicly said who nominated Seiden in the first place. Spiehs claimed Tuesday that Amber Sellers was the city commissioner who had nominated Seiden; Sellers did not previously respond to the Journal-World’s questions about the nomination.

Along with Seiden, one of the other two people who were previously removed — Douglass Miller — is now back on the list of potential appointees. The other one who was removed, Alex Kerr, has not returned; the third name on the new list is Adam Kellogg.