WICHITA, KAN. – A retired highway patrol trooper was convicted today on a charge of lying to the FBI during an investigation into illegal gambling in Wichita, according to U.S. Attorney Stephan McAllister.

Michael Frederiksen, 53, Derby, was convicted in a jury trial on one count of making false statements to FBI investigators. During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that in 2014, while Frederiksen was still a Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper, he was filmed taking part in an illegal cash poker game. On Feb. 23, 2017, he was interviewed by FBI agents investigating illegal gambling businesses in Wichita.

The FBI had a video of Frederiksen playing in an illegal cash poker game held Feb. 12, 2014, at 922 1/2 E. Douglas in the Old Town district of Wichita. The site was equipped with poker tables, a cabinet for valuables and poker chips, video surveillance equipment, liquor and snacks. Staff included dealers, someone serving food and a waitress serving drinks and giving massages to the players.

An undercover investigator was at the game posing as a gambler. At one point, the undercover officer tried to use his phone to take photos. The men running the game took him aside and told him he was making other players nervous. They allowed the undercover officer to continue playing, but moved the game to other locations after that night.

During an FBI interview, Frederiksen made false statements, downplaying his involvement in illegal poker and his relationship with the operator of the poker game.

Sentencing is set for July 30. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. McAllister commended the FBI, the Wichita Police Department, the Internal Revenue Service and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron Smith and Mona Furst for their work on the case.

BY JIM MCLEAN

Kansas lawmakers gave the go-ahead Monday to expand telemedicine services after reaching agreement on abortion language that had threatened to scuttle the move.

The bill cleared the state Senate and House by large margins, but only after eleventh-hour brinksmanship that gave anti-abortion forces the assurances they demanded.

Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion organization, fought for weeks to maintain a clause in the legislation designed to discourage a court challenge over its ban on drug-induced abortions.

The “non-severability” clause is essentially a self-destruct mechanism that would automatically wipe the entire telemedicine law off the books if sometime in the future the abortion ban is struck down.

Some lawmakers opposed to the “non-severability” language said it was redundant, that Kansas law already requires women who undergo drug-induced abortions to do so in the physical presence of a prescribing physician.

But Sen. Ty Masterson, a conservative Republican from Andover, said anti-abortion lawmakers wanted it to be abundantly clear that health care providers “couldn’t do chemical abortions via telemedicine.”

“That’s all that was,” he said.

It was more than that, said supporters of the bill.  The fight it prompted threatened a year of work on a bill needed to expand the reach of telemedicine.

“The underlying bill is so important, I hate to see us hold it hostage for something that’s already covered in law,” said Rep. Eileen Horn, a Lawrence Democrat serving her first term.

The bill would require insurance companies to pay for telemedicine services if they are the same as those covered in clinics, hospitals and doctor’s offices. Expanded access to long-distance services is particularly important in rural areas.

Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a Topeka Republican and chair of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, reluctantly agreed to reinstate the non-severability clause after the House rejected a version of the bill that didn’t include it.

“This bill is just too important,” Schmidt said, to risk losing over a fight about abortion language.

With the non-severability language restored, the bill easily passed both the House and Senate Monday. The Senate passed it 31-8. Less than an hour later, the House voted 107-13 to send it on to Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks. 

TOPEKA—Total Fiscal Year 2018 revenue receipts are 20 percent, or over $1 billion higher than last year, data from the latest collections report released Tuesday, according to a media release from the Kansas Department of Revenue.

Tax receipts for April are $293.1 million above April 2017, with individual income tax accounting for $239.2 million of that total. Sales tax receipts for the month are $202.9 million, or $10.7 million above last April.

“We anticipated higher individual income tax collections in April because last year’s state tax legislation allowed payments to be made without penalty as long as they were made before the April 17filing deadline,” Revenue Secretary Sam Williams said.

April tax receipts came in 7.6 percent or $66.1 million above newly revised consensus revenue estimates, for a total of $932.3 million in tax collections during the month.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Geologists are blaming a spate of small Kansas earthquakes on an underground pressure wave that is slowly creeping northward into the state from the Oklahoma border region.

There were 13 earthquakes that originated in Kansas last month and were strong enough to feel. There were just a combined total of 10 for the first three months of the year.

On the Oklahoma side of the border, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded another 57 quakes for April, many of which were felt in southern Kansas. Oklahoma’s quake rate has stayed consistent so far this year, averaging about 50 temblors of 2.5 and above per month.

Quakes in the two states have been tied to underground injections of wastewater from oil and gas drilling.

SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating the cause of a fire that destroyed a home in rural Saline County.

Just after 11:30p.m. Sunday fire crews responded to the fire in the vacant home in the 1100 Block of South Holmes Road, according to Sheriff Roger Soldan.

The home was destroyed and crews also had to battle the fire that spread to trees on the property, according to Soldan.

There were no injuries reported. Soldan believes the cause of the fire is suspicious and they are working  with the homeowner to determine an estimated dollar loss.