Former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner met with Auditor's staff Wednesday

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - For months, Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick and his office has been attempting to locate and meet with former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner .

That search has now come to an end as sources tell KMOX the former St. Louis Circuit Attorney met with investigators Wednesday after repeated failed attempts to contact her.

Fitzpatrick told reporters in May his offices had unsuccessfully attempted on numerous occasions to contact or find the former Circuit Attorney of St. Louis.

Some of attempts to reach Gardner include repeated daily calls to telephone numbers associated with Gardner, contacting close associates and former coworkers, and an attempt to serve Gardner with a subpoena. Fitzpatrick has said that process servers went to an address they believe Gardner resides in 10 times.

Fitzpatrick said his office had also reached out to the attorneys who represented Gardner when their audit first began, but they told his office they no longer represented Gardner and referred them to a law firm in DC. That law firm never returned a call to the Auditor's office.

While he has not gone into specifics, some of the subjects Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick believes only Gardner can answer include decisions she made as Circuit Attorney and potentially inappropriate expenditures.

Auditor Fitzpatrick couldn't say if criminal charges could be filed against Gardner based on their findings but did say Gardner did have a pattern of behavior of avoiding transparency and accountability.

"Without question, she knows our audit is ongoing and that we want to speak with her about her time in office, but she has made no effort to comply with our requests or respond to our inquiries," said Fitzpatrick in May.

Gardner resigned abruptly in 2023, on the same day Auditor Fitzpatrick's team was set to go to court and ask for a subpoena to compel Gardner to cooperate with his investigation.

Gardner faced mounted criticism during her time as Circuit Attorney, from the handling of high-profile cases , seeing numerous staff attorney resignations leading up to her resignation and seeing the relationship between the Circuit Attorney's Office and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department being strained under her tenure.

An audit was first requested by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in 2018 and began under previous auditor Nicole Galloway.

Gardner's refusal to meet with Fitzpatrick and his office led to the final report into the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office being delayed for release to the public, but Fitzpatrick promised one way or another the report would be released this year with or without Gardner's cooperation.

KMOX will keep you updated as more information becomes available.