GOP candidate for Missouri House charged with conspiring to plant cocaine on opponent - CBS News

The Justice Department announced Thursday that Ross is charged with one count of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance. The alleged target was Louise Secker, who lost to Ross in the Republican primary for Missouri's House District 161 last month. The scheme never reached Secker because the former campaign manager, whose name was not released, contacted the Joplin Police Department instead of carrying it out.

The charge comes from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri. If the allegations hold up, the plan was apparently to eliminate a rival he was barely beating anyway.

For anyone watching Missouri politics, this is about as brazen as it gets. A candidate allegedly tried to have a competitor framed with drug charges rather than simply outrun her at the ballot box, and the person he trusted to do it turned him in to police instead.