LANCASTER – The mayor of the county seat of Fairfield County submitted his resignation to Lancaster city council this morning. According to the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette newspaper Mayor Brian Kuhn is resigning effective at midnight on Friday.
“I believe I have performed the duties of Mayor in a manner that has served the city well during 2016. However, I do understand that confidence in me as a leader has diminished since taking office thirteen months ago,” Kuhn stated in the letter.
Kuhn’s resignation came after a series of Eagle-Gazette articles published regarding Kuhn’s gambling habits and questionable business practices last week. Those articles also prompted city council to call the special meeting to request Kuhn’s resignation because he had remained steadfast that he would not step down.
Kuhn first came under fire in December 2015 when his wife, Bridget, was accused and later admitted to embezzling about $350,000 from her former employers to feed a gambling addiction. She pleaded guilty to 11 charges and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Prosecutors did not connect Kuhn to his wife’s crimes, but he was indicted in a separate case involving two felonies that were downgraded to misdemeanors to reach a plea deal days before the trial was set to begin in December. Instead, the paper reported Kuhn pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of attempted failure to file an income tax return regarding his state taxes in 2013 and 2014.
Lancaster has a population of about 40,000.
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