Lindemuth sentenced in felony criminal threat case

Just before he was sentenced on Thursday, Topeka businessman Kent D. Lindemuth, who was convicted of threatening an Oklahoma businessman, a felony, was asked whether he wanted to say anything.

“Where do I begin?” Lindemuth said. “I’m disappointed (a Topeka police detective) was allowed to lie. I didn’t threaten anybody.”

Lindemuth then said he would appeal his conviction.

On Sept. 28, jurors convicted Lindemuth of one count of making a criminal threat and acquitted him of a second count of the same charge. The conviction followed a three-day trial in Shawnee County District Court.

District Judge Nancy Parrish on Thursday sentenced Lindemuth to six months in jail and suspended that sentence, then placed him on 12 months of supervised probation. Making a criminal threat is a low-level person felony.

Because the conviction is a felony, Lindemuth is forbidden from carrying a firearm, the judge said. During the trial, testimony surfaced that Lindemuth was carrying a holstered pistol during the incident. As part of his probation, Lindemuth isn’t to consume alcohol or illegal drugs and isn’t to have contact with the victim.

After Lindemuth has completed probation and another three years has passed, he can seek expungement of the conviction, Parrish told the defendant. Immediately after sentencing, Lindemuth met with his probation officer.

Lindemuth originally was charged with a third count of criminal deprivation of property, but following a preliminary hearing on March 10, the deprivation charge was dismissed, court records said.

Lindemuth, 64, of Topeka, had remained free on bond following the conviction.

During the trial, Lindemuth took the witness stand to deny he threatened to shoot Mike Matthews, an Oklahoma trucking firm owner, during a dispute on Oct. 17, 2014, centering on a trailer and cargo valued at more than $500,000.

During cross examination by a prosecutor, Lindemuth denied he threatened to kill Matthews and said he was neither “angry” nor “aggressive.”

Prosecution witnesses said Lindemuth made specific demands that Matthews, owner of Wellco, a trucking firm, pay him $20,000, $25,000 or $30,000 for return of a truck trailer and cargo valued at $555,000. The driver of the truck had parked the trailer in a parking lot in the 3100 block of S.E. 6th.

The trailer was hauling four railroad traction motors, which power locomotives. Wellco transports cargo for BNSF Railway Company. The traction motors were en route to a broken-down locomotive hauling coal in Alliance, Neb.

Lindemuth testified he hauled away the trailer and cargo after he found it unattended and parked in his lot without permission.

Lindemuth, who was wearing a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic pistol in a holster on his hip when the parking lot incident occurred, testified he didn’t mention a gun or filling Matthews “full of holes.”

During a series of phone calls Matthews made to Lindemuth, Matthews was “agitated,” “aggressive,” “irritable,” “upset,” “belligerent” and “threatening,” Lindemuth testified.

Topeka police were called to the scene, and Matthews recovered the trailer about six hours after it was hauled from the East Topeka lot to a Lindemuth property in the 200 block of S.W. Jackson. Matthews had flown from Oklahoma to Topeka to recover the trailer and cargo.

Meanwhile, Lindemuth also faces a pending case in U.S. District Court charging him with 103 counts of bankruptcy fraud, in which he is charged with purchasing 103 firearms after he filed for bankruptcy.

After he filed for bankruptcy, Lindemuth purchased more than $80,000 worth of handguns, according to federal court documents.

All the firearms were handguns, including revolvers and semi-automatics ranging from .22-caliber to .45-caliber.

Contact reporter Steve Fry at (785) 295-1206 or @TCJCourtsNCrime on Twitter.