A judge ordered former Neosho County Attorney Linus Thuston to stand trial on three felony counts of perjury after a preliminary hearing earlier this month.
Linus Thuston is charged in Neosho County District Court with three counts of perjury, all felonies, and two counts of witness intimidation, both misdemeanors. The perjury charges each have alternative counts alleging less-severe charges in some instances.
After a preliminary hearing on May 6 in Chanute, retired Judge Meryl D. Wilson ordered Thuston to stand trial on the three perjury charges. Arraignment and trial dates have not been set yet, according to special prosecutor Branden Bell.
The complaint accuses Thuston of perjuring himself July 1, 2024, when he testified in a drug case that Bell also prosecuted. He testified that three people served as confidential informants to him. Thuston was still the county attorney at the time of his testimony.
Police had uncovered Facebook messages from a woman who said Thuston, “tells me everything cause he wants me.” She had relayed information from Thuston to her brother, a defendant in the drug case, about houses that were under police surveillance, and the name of an informant who was talking to police, according to a 2024 Kansas Reflector story.
Thuston defended his practice of meeting regularly with off-the-books confidential informants, sometimes at his home or in other discreet places, as he had done with the woman in this case. He also acknowledged that he had received nude photos from her, according to the Reflector story.
At the end of his testimony, Bell asked Thuston: “Are you familiar that lying to an investigator, law enforcement officer, about a felony offense is in itself a felony?” Thuston’s response: “It can be,” according to the Reflector.
Thuston was convicted in a separate investigation of two misdemeanor charges — violating the Retailers’ Sales Tax Act in 2021 and misuse of public funds in 2019 — and served time in the county jail. He retired in August 2024 as county attorney, an elected position he held since 2012.
