LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A former Bullitt County official who was the subject of a WDRB Investigation is now wanted by police.
The Hillview Police Department said it needs help finding John Schmidt. The department posted on social media calling him a person of interest in a case related to abuse of public trust over $100,000 and theft by unlawful taking of more than $10,000.
In January, WDRB Investigates told you about Schmidt. He's a former Bullitt County master commissioner and county public administrator.
He was in charge of peoples' trust funds and there are lawsuits still pending against him.
Numerous audits of Schmidt's office documented missing money - $67,000 in 2005, for example - while a 2011 audit included an agreement that Schmidt would reimburse $52,000 to the master commissioner account. Two years later, an audit found $30,000 that was improperly withdrawn and noted no resolution to the missing funds from 2005.
Schmidt was quietly removed from his court-appointed position in 2019. Since then, two lawsuits filed in Bullitt Circuit Court claim he stole more than $400,000 from estates he was managing. And in 2021, a state commission that oversees court conduct found that Schmidt was guilty of misconduct and had misappropriated $81,000 in proceeds from a foreclosed property.
Laura Landenwich, an attorney for the Gaston Family Estate told WDRB in January, "over the course of decades, Mr. Schmidt was lining his own pockets that either belonged to his clients or the state of Kentucky."
She represents the beneficiaries of the estate of Leo Gaston, a Shepherdsville furniture store owner who died in 1990. Schmidt, who was managing the trust, is accused in an ongoing lawsuit of stealing nearly $200,000 from the Gaston Family Estate.
Schmidt was ordered by Bullitt Circuit Court to step down as trial commissioner on Dec. 10, 2019. On that same day, it was reported that Schmidt had gone missing, and that the then-63-year-old may be in need of "life-sustaining" medication.
Anyone with information on where Schmidt is can contact the Hillview Police Department.
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