Steve Stenger: From County Executive to Federal Prison

Steve Stenger is the former St. Louis County Executive who resigned in April 2019 after a federal grand jury indicted him on public-corruption charges, pleaded guilty days later to three felony counts of honest services bribery and mail fraud, and was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for steering county contracts to campaign donors.¹ He had held the office since January 2015 and had won a second term just months before the charges became public.

The Pay-to-Play Scheme

Prosecutors described a sustained arrangement in which Stenger directed county contracts and land deals to people who gave money to his campaigns. The scheme ran through multiple corners of county government and relied on a loyal appointee at the agency that handled economic development.

John Rallo’s Contracts

Businessman John Rallo and his associates gave roughly $50,000 to Stenger’s campaigns, including $2,500 quarterly donations as part of a “trustee” program.²³ In exchange, Stenger directed that Rallo’s companies receive a $100,000 consulting contract from the St. Louis County Port Authority and land-sale contracts for properties known as Wellston Industrial and Plymouth Industrial. An additional $30,000 from the consulting arrangement was illegally funneled to another Stenger supporter.

Sheila Sweeney at the Economic Development Partnership

Stenger appointed Sheila Sweeney in 2015 as CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. Sweeney awarded contracts to Rallo’s companies at Stenger’s direction and concealed Rallo’s status as a campaign contributor from the Port Authority board. In one email cited in the indictment, Sweeney told Rallo to remove his name from company records: “Got to cover him [Stenger]. And me too!!!!”³ A later state audit found that Stenger set Sweeney’s salary at $260,000, 45 percent higher than her predecessor’s, and that Sweeney oversaw $348,000 in unauthorized bonuses to herself and other employees in 2016 and 2017.⁴

The Lobbying Contract

A separate strand involved a $149,000 state lobbying contract for the Partnership that was steered to a firm identified in court filings as “Company One,” reported to be John Bardgett & Associates. The firm and its owner had given $17,000 to Stenger’s initial campaign, $32,000 between 2015 and 2016, and $59,000 more from January 2017 through November 2018. Chief of Staff William “Bill” Miller Jr. and policy advisor Jeff Wagener pressured Sweeney and the board to award the contract over a competitor. On a federal recording, Stenger told Miller, “It’s the art of how do I work with people I trust and know,” and Miller replied, “It’s the art of staying in power.”⁵

How the Case Came Together

The FBI relied on cooperating witnesses, many of them county employees. Special Agent Lindsay Wegge later said “the culture in the government was so toxic that people were willing to talk to us about it.”² Agents built the case with search warrants, witness interviews, and tens of thousands of emails, text messages, and federal recordings of meetings involving Stenger, Miller, and Wagener.⁵ The FBI, Postal Inspection Service, and IRS Criminal Investigations all participated.⁶ Special Agent Andrew Ryder explained the line prosecutors drew: “When Rallo donated with the clear understanding that he would receive county funds in return, that’s where it crossed the line into public corruption.”

Indictment and Guilty Plea

A federal grand jury returned a 44-page indictment on April 25, 2019, charging Stenger with three counts of honest services bribery and mail fraud. The case was filed as No. 4:19-cr-00312-CDP in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith prosecuting.⁷⁶ When the indictment was made public on April 29, 2019, Stenger resigned within hours.⁸ Four days later, on May 3, he pleaded guilty to all three counts before U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry, five days after his arraignment.

The Sentence

On August 9, 2019, Judge Perry sentenced Stenger to 46 months in federal prison, the top of the advisory guideline range of 37 to 46 months. She also imposed a $250,000 fine (the statutory maximum), three years of supervised release, a $300 special assessment, and $130,000 in restitution to the St. Louis County Port Authority.¹

Judge Perry treated the corruption as ingrained rather than episodic. “Look at how long this went on — months, years. This was your whole way of life,” she told Stenger. She rejected the defense’s argument that remorse should reduce the penalty and noted that, unlike most defendants, Stenger had the resources to pay the maximum fine.⁹ Stenger was ordered to report to prison on or after September 21, 2019.

The Co-Defendants

Four other people pleaded guilty for their roles.

William “Bill” Miller Jr., Stenger’s chief of staff, pleaded guilty on May 31, 2019, to aiding and abetting honest services wire fraud and bribery. Judge Rodney Sippel sentenced him on September 6, 2019, to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release, rejecting a request for probation. “You undermined the public trust,” Sippel told him. Miller said, “I lacked the courage and discipline to tell Steve Stenger no,” and surrendered his law license.¹⁰¹¹
Sheila Sweeney, CEO of the Economic Development Partnership, pleaded guilty on May 10, 2019, to one count of misprision of a felony. She was sentenced on August 16, 2019, to probation and a $20,000 fine.¹²
John Rallo pleaded guilty on July 16, 2019, to three felony counts of honest services bribery and mail fraud. Judge E. Richard Webber sentenced him on March 5, 2020, to 17 months in prison and two years of supervised probation, saying Rallo had “intentionally pushed himself into a scheme” with Stenger. Prosecutor Goldsmith called him the second most culpable participant, “the quid” to Stenger’s “quo.” Rallo’s report date was delayed to late June 2020 because of the pandemic, and he later contracted COVID-19 in prison and requested home confinement.¹³¹⁴

Stenger, Sweeney, and Rallo were each ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution to the St. Louis County Port Authority.¹²

Loss of Licenses

On the same day he pleaded guilty, Stenger petitioned the Missouri Supreme Court to voluntarily surrender his law license. On May 28, 2019, the court ruled en banc that his name be “stricken from the roll of attorneys in this state” and his license terminated. The order did not include a timeframe or possibility for reinstatement. Chief Disciplinary Counsel Alan Pratzel cited Stenger for committing a criminal act reflecting on his honesty and fitness as a lawyer, engaging in conduct involving dishonesty and fraud, and implying an ability to improperly influence a government official.¹⁵ The government’s sentencing memorandum noted that Stenger also surrendered his CPA license.⁷

What Changed in St. Louis County

Hours after Stenger resigned, the County Council appointed Council Chairman Sam Page as his replacement by a 5-0 vote, with Councilwoman Hazel Erby voting no over the lack of public comment. Page, an anesthesiologist who had led the anti-Stenger bloc on the council, was sworn in the same day. “County government has been dysfunctional for too long,” he said. “The best interests of St. Louis County have taken the backseat to the personal desires of our past county executive.”¹⁶ Voters elected Page to the remainder of the term in 2020.¹⁷

Stenger had been designated the inaugural “metro mayor” under the Better Together proposal, a plan backed by financier Rex Sinquefield to merge the city and county governments. After a federal subpoena hit Stenger’s administration in March 2019, Better Together revised its petition to remove him from the role, then scrapped the merger entirely on April 8, 2019, with Stenger’s legal troubles cited as a primary factor.¹⁸¹⁹

The scandal drove a series of reforms. In August 2019, the Council unanimously voted to revoke pension benefits for elected officials and county employees convicted of public corruption, a measure that applied to Stenger.²⁰ In September 2019, Page signed four executive orders creating an employee code of ethics that requires workers to report corruption or face termination, a county data portal for spending and contracts, conflict-of-interest disclosures for appointed officials, and a Sunshine Law policy favoring disclosure.²¹ The county also tightened procurement: RFPs over $100,000 now require Council approval before solicitation, selection committees must include at least three subject-matter experts certified by the Procurement Director, and candidates may not accept donations from anyone bidding on a county contract from 90 days before solicitation through 90 days after the award. A September 2020 state audit concluded that inadequate oversight by both the Council and the county auditor’s office had enabled the abuses and rated the reviewed areas “Poor,” citing lingering problems with personnel policies, record-keeping, and oversight.¹²

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Former St. Louis County Executive Steven V. Stenger Sentenced to Federal Prison for Pay-to-Play Scheme
2
FBI. Missouri Public Corruption Ring Disrupted
3
St. Louis Magazine. Steve Stenger Bribery Scandal: Everything We Know
4
Missouri State Auditor. Audit of St. Louis County Finds Inadequate Oversight Enabled Former County Executive and His Appointee
5
St. Louis Public Radio. Former County Executive Stenger’s Chief of Staff Pleads Guilty in Pay-to-Play Scheme
6
U.S. Department of Justice. St. Louis County Executive Indicted in Pay-to-Play Scheme
7
St. Louis Business Journal. Government’s Sentencing Memorandum, USA v. Stenger
8
St. Louis Public Radio. Stenger Pleads Guilty; Sentencing in August for Former St. Louis County Executive
9
St. Louis American. Stenger Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison and Max $250K Fine
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St. Louis Public Radio. Stenger’s Former Right-Hand Man Gets 15 Months in Prison for His Role in Pay-to-Play Scheme
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former St. Louis County Chief of Staff Sentenced in Pay-to-Play Scheme
12
Missouri State Auditor. Audit of St. Louis County
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St. Louis Public Radio. Campaign Donor in St. Louis County Corruption Scandal Gets 17 Months in Prison for Bribery
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Missouri Lawyers Media. Businessman in St. Louis Bribery Case Gets Coronavirus in Prison
15
Call Newspapers. Stenger Is Disbarred Ahead of Sentencing
16
St. Louis Public Radio. Page Picked to Succeed Stenger as St. Louis County Executive
17
Spectrum Local News. Sam Page Seeks Four-Year Term as St. Louis County Executive
18
St. Louis Public Radio. Better Together’s New City-County Merger Plan Removes Stenger as Metro Mayor
19
Governing. St. Louis City-County Merger
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St. Louis Public Radio. Stenger Scandal Prompts St. Louis County Council to Block Pensions for Those Convicted of Corruption
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Call Newspapers. As Stenger Goes to Prison, Page Signs Ethics Executive Orders