St. Louis sheriff made deputy roll golden dice to keep his job—then fired him days later

An aldermanic candidate whose law enforcement background is a key part of his campaign was fired last month from the St. Louis Sheriff’s Office after a set of bizarre circumstances in which he says he was made to roll golden dice to keep his job.

Tony Kirchner, who is currently challenging Anne Schweitzer for a seat on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, says that on January 22 he came to talk to Sheriff Alfred Montgomery about taking an extended leave. Kirchner’s father had just died. He had the campaign to focus on. Kirchner says that previous conversations he’d had with Montgomery led him to believe this sort of leave wouldn’t be an issue. 

That’s not how things went. 

“He breaks out a pair of golden dice,” Kirchner tells SLM. “Two dice. They’re gold. He says, ‘I’ll tell you what Tony, if you could roll a seven, you can take your leave. If you don’t, you resign.’”

On Tuesday, Montgomery flatly told SLM “no,” when asked if dice were involved in Kirchner’s dismissal. He did say that the previous sheriff, Vernon Betts, left behind a pair of golden dice that staffers came across while cleaning up. 

“The previous administration left a bunch of different stuff here. We were cleaning out the office. There were some dice on the table and I’m talking to him, and Tony was playing with the dice,” Montgomery says. “That was it. Tony was just, it was something that was on the table.” He says Kirchner was fidgeting with them as they spoke. 

However, on Wednesday, Kirchner shared with SLM audio of that interaction that seems to bolster his version of events. 

What sounds like a pair of dice hitting a table can be heard, followed by Montgomery saying: “You got two tries. Roll a seven and we’ll go with whatever you want.”

In another audio clip, Kirchner protests that he did nothing wrong. Seemingly indicating the dice, Montgomery says, “That’s your wild card. You can do whatever you want with that. … Two tries.” 

Kirchner seemingly demurs. “I mean, rolling this, I understand, but there’s not—”

“Before I make bad decisions, I always roll those,” Montgomery says. “And it always gives me good advice, every time.” You can then hear the dice being shaken and rolled before Kirchner says, “Seven!” 

“Give him whatever leave time he needs,” Montgomery can be heard saying on the tape. “We’ll go from there.” 

Montgomery, who took office in January, has been mired in an unrelated controversy. Last Friday, he ordered the City Justice Center’s acting commissioner Tammy Ross to be put in handcuffs and briefly detained. The city’s sheriff doesn’t run the jail, as is the case elsewhere in Missouri, but his office does control detainee transport between the facility and city courts. It’s been widely reported the FBI is investigating the incident between Montgomery and Ross. 

Montgomery was in the jail that day investigating an alleged sexual assault committed by a sheriff’s deputy on a female detainee. Montgomery later told KMOV that the city’s Department of Public Safety had authorized him to interview the detainee who was the victim of the alleged assault. That department’s head, Charles Coyle, responded to that interview by issuing a statement, saying in part, “[Montgomery] lied, repeatedly. At no time and under no circumstance did I give a directive to allow Sheriff Montgomery or his staff to interview a detainee.”

The golden dice incident with Kirchner predates that controversy by about three weeks. On January 22, Kirchner says he was in Montgomery’s office in the Civil Courts Building—there, Kirchner thought, to talk about a leave of absence—when Montgomery told Kirchner he’d been sent photos of Kirchner campaigning in his uniform, which is barred by state law. Montgomery said Kirchner had only two choices: resign or be fired. 

Kirchner protested that those were neighborhood meetings he’d attended in uniform, not campaign stops. Montgomery’s predecessor, Betts, encouraged deputies to go in uniform to meetings to be a presence in the community, Kirchner tells SLM. 

“Kirchner, I’m a fair guy. I’m very fair,” Montgomery is heard saying in the tape provided by Kirchner. “Here’s one option. Here’s two options.” This is when what sounds like dice hitting a table can be heard. “There’s three options. You got two tries. Roll a seven and we’ll go with whatever you want.”

“This is your wild card. You can’t fall from the bottom,” Montgomery is heard saying. Presumably referring to the dice, he says, “You can do whatever you want with that right there. That’s where we are. That’s the best deal I can give you.”

Audio captures some back and forth as Kirchner pushed back.

Then he seemingly affected his fate and rolled. He says his first roll was a six. His second: a seven. 

Kirchner thought he was good to go, until about a week later when this reporter called him seeking comment about him being fired from the sheriff’s office. “As far as I know, I’m still with the sheriff’s office,” he said at the time, calling the situation “bizarre.” 

Last Monday, Kirchner posted on Facebook that his 12-year career as a deputy sheriff may have come to an end. “I use the word ‘may’ because, despite my repeated inquiries, my employment status has not been formally disclosed to me—yet, it has been disclosed to the media,” he wrote.

The sheriff’s office has not commented publicly on Kirchner’s termination other than to say he is no longer employed by the office. However, a letter recently drafted by an attorney for the sheriff states that Kirchner was discharged for “among other things, working secondary during office hours, campaigning for elected office in uniform, letting papers expire, and not properly serving papers in his work for outside services.”

The letter was drafted as part of a legal battle over a house in the Shaw neighborhood that was sold at auction in July 2024 after its owner, Marilyn Hinton, accrued delinquent taxes. Hinton has claimed she was not properly served notice that her house was going to be sold. She wrote to the judge that she has been in the home since 1977. While acknowledging she got behind on taxes, she says only learned of the sale when a neighbor informed her. 

Unusually for this type of case, the sheriff’s office has interceded on Hinton’s behalf. A Feb. 6 court filing made by the office states that, under Betts, the sheriff’s office did in fact fail to properly give notice to Hinton. Those filings put a good deal of the blame on Kirchner, saying that among other things he failed to post proper notice on Hinton’s property.

Kirchner says it was his opponent, current Ward 1 Alderwoman Schweitzer, who sent Montgomery the photos of him in sheriff’s uniform at neighborhood meetings. 

She doesn’t dispute this. “I’ve told many people what he’s doing. It’s against state law,” she says, referring to a state statute about police not campaigning while in uniform. Schweitzer says she’s even had constituents hand her highlighted printouts of the law. Schweitzer shared with SLM a photo she took of Kirchner in a sheriff’s hat speaking at a neighborhood meeting. “I knock on doors in clothes I paid for myself,” Schweitzer says.

Kirchner is adamant he never spoke at such meetings, or ever campaigned in uniform. 

An attorney for Kirchner says there is more audio of that January 22 meeting that will be released at a later date.