Missouri candidate allegedly wanted campaign manager to plant cocaine in opponent’s car

A candidate for the Missouri state House is accused of trying to plant cocaine and Adderall on a political rival.

Thomas Christopher Ross, 37, was charged Thursday with one count of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance after the person who authorities say he asked to plant the drugs — his former campaign manager — contacted authorities, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Missouri’s Western District said in a news release.

Officials say he tried to plant the drugs on his opponent, Louise Secker, in the Republican primary last month.

Ross beat Secker by less than three dozen votes to become the GOP candidate in the House contest in Missouri’s 161st District.

Neither Ross nor his attorneys immediately responded to requests for comment Thursday. Secker also did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the state GOP chairman said Ross should immediately drop out of the race, calling the allegations “serious and deeply troubling.”

According to a probable cause affidavit, the former campaign manager gave local police a black nylon glove that Ross is alleged to have provided in June. The glove contained a small bag of cocaine and Adderall, the document said.

After Joplin police reached out to the FBI, the campaign manager told federal authorities that Ross wanted the drugs planted in Secker’s car or purse while Ross was on vacation in South Carolina, the affidavit alleges.

In a series of texts Ross is alleged to have sent to the campaign manager while he was in Myrtle Beach, he offered the campaign manager luck “getting the substance of the matter sorted this week” and later said: “Any luck with the substance of the matter? I wont be gone much longer.”

“Taking it no luck with the substance of it all?” he is alleged to have texted a few days later.

In an earlier text to the campaign manager that the affidavit identified as a reference to the drug-planting plot, Ross said Secker planned to meet with Republican women at a local restaurant and wanted “it” to happen beforehand.

“I was hoping we could make it happen before THIS Thursday,” he is accused of saying. “Which would be extreme egg on the face.”

Later, during a conversation between the campaign manager and Ross that was secretly recorded by the FBI, Ross suggested that they call in an anonymous tip that Secker had drugs in her car, according to the affidavit.

“If you can pull it off,” Ross allegedly said, “pull it off.”