Kansas employment law trial places Kansas Bureau of Investigation director in defendant’s chair

Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director Tony Mattivi, confirmed to the job in February 2023, is the defendant in a U.S. District Court trial initiated by a former KBI associate director who claims Mattivi ousted him in violation of his constitutional due-process rights. This October 2025 image is of Mattivi, who is under consideration for appointment as a U.S. District Court judge. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — Kansas Bureau of Investigation Director and U.S. district judge nominee Tony Mattivi found himself Monday in the unusual position of defendant in a civil trial playing out in the same federal courtroom where he previously prosecuted violent crimes, drug trafficking and money laundering.

Mattivi sat between two defense lawyers for start of a trial propelled by the lawsuit filed by former KBI Associate Director David Hutchings, a 32-year KBI veteran who departed the agency after a management scuffle with Mattivi. Hutchings filed suit alleging Mattivi had a right to strip him of an administrative post but violated his constitutionally protected property right by preventing him from transferring to the job of special agent in charge at KBI.

In court filings, Mattivi’s attorneys contend the KBI director in June 2023 requested Hutchings take the honorable path and voluntarily resign rather than face termination proceedings. Mattivi’s lawyers say Hutchings consented to resign but tried to reverse that decision days later in anticipation of receiving a financial settlement.

In addition, Mattivi’s defense team plans to introduce evidence there were sound reasons to move ahead with firing Hutchings over allegedly improper or illegal acts at the KBI. Court records accuse Hutchings of secretly reading employee emails, recording employee conversations, maintaining “shadow” files of private information to undermine colleagues and improperly withholding from courts incriminating evidence against law enforcement officers.

Mattivi was appointed to the KBI by Attorney General Kris Kobach. Mattivi was confirmed by the Kansas Senate as director in February 2023. In those early months at KBI offices, Mattivi defense lawyer Tom Lemon said Mattivi discovered that Hutchings was chiefly responsible for a toxic work environment that “fractured” the agency between people who supported Hutchings and the majority who didn’t.

Lemon also alleged Hutchings damaged the KBI by placing himself at the center of an effort to shield from criminal prosecution Kyle Smith, who had been a deputy director of the KBI and a friend of Hutchings. In 2014, smith pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child and was placed on probation in addition to registering as a sex offender for 25 years.

“You will hear a lot of bad things about Hutchings in this case,” Lemon told jurors. “What you’re going to hear is not kind, it’s not Christian, and it’s upsetting.”

Lemon said an investigator recommended Hutchings be prosecuted by the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office over allegedly obstructing the Smith inquiry.

Lemon laid the foundation of broader attacks on Hutchings during the trial by asking prospective jurors what they thought of workplace antagonists, toxic office situations and workers who were indifferent to requests for on-the-job improvement.

“He ran the KBI with an iron fist,” Lemon said. “The agency was in upheaval. Nothing was getting done.”

A different perspective

Hutchings’ attorneys Alan Johnson and Michael Duenes said they would prove the personal baggage drawn into the courtroom by Lemon was inaccurate and irrelevant.

“We intend to prove those things are not true,” Duenes said.

Duenes also said the jury should award Hutchings punitive damages because Mattivi understood state statute and court precedent on this significant personnel topic at the time he forced the associate director out at KBI.

“He was engaged in reckless indifference to Mr. Hutchings’ constitutional rights,” he said.

Hutchings’ lawyers made the jury aware of a Kansas law that says the KBI director, associate director, deputy director, assistant directors and any assistant attorneys general assigned to the bureau were placed within the state’s unclassified service. All other agents and employees of the KBI were classified state employees under the Kansas Civil Service Act.

The Kansas statute goes on to say that at the expiration of an administrative appointment, the KBI director, associate director or assistant director shall have the option of returning to a previous position within the bureau.

Hutchings, who began his law enforcement career in Riley County, was hired by the KBI in 1990 and promoted in 2008 to serve as special agent in charge at the bureau. These were classified positions in the civil service system with defined due process rights if confronted with possible dismissal.

In 2011, Hutchings moved to the associate director’s job, which was an at-will, unclassified position. So, Duenes argued to the jury, the decision by Mattivi to replace Hutchings as associate director at the bureau meant Hutchings had to be transferred back to the job of special agent. To remove Hutchings from that special agent’s post would have triggered civil service proceedings that feature due process, Duenes said.

Duenes also said Hutchings never said during the June 2023 meeting with Mattivi that he was prepared to resign from the bureau.

“At no time during the meeting … did Mr. Hutchings tell Mr. Mattivi that he was resigning or retiring from the KBI,” Hutchings’ court filing says.

Out-of-state judge

The jury trial lasting up to four days is being heard by Senior U.S. District Judge William Johnson, who normally works in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Kansas judge handling the case withdrew before the trial, apparently because Mattivi’s nomination by President Donald Trump to a vacancy on the U.S. District Court in Kansas could come up for a vote in the U.S. Senate at any time. Mattivi went through a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing April 15, and that committee endorsed his nomination April 30.

Johnson didn’t prohibit introduction of evidence by Mattivi’s lawyers about links between Smith and Hutchings, but he cautioned against divulging “salacious details” during opening statements to the eight-person jury.

The judge said the jury would be responsible for sorting out the key question of whether Hutchings was terminated or resigned from the KBI.

It’s an important distinction because Kansas law says certain jobs at the Kansas Highway Patrol and KBI were designed to shield employees when new leadership was elected or appointed to state government posts. In a comparable dispute involving a former KHP superintendent, the Kansas Supreme Court weighed in with analysis of state law on reassigning top-level personnel.