Former Topeka interim city manager caught up in Johnson County masturbation scandal

A former Topeka deputy and interim city manager is facing an uncertain future in his current position as a Johnson County city manager after a video of him masturbating was sent anonymously to city staff, according to a report from The Kansas City Star.

Doug Gerber, who worked for the City of Topeka in various leadership capacities between 2014 and 2020, had been working as city manager of Shawnee since March of this year when an anonymous third party sent the video the various employees in the city government in late September, according to the report.

The incident was not disclosed to the Shawnee City Council, however, until reporters with The Star filed open records requests with the city government earlier this week.

The council is holding a special meeting in executive session Wednesday afternoon, presumably to discuss the matter.

Sent video showed Shawnee city manager Doug Gerber masturbating

Per The Star's reporting, several employees received an email on Sept. 29 with a video attachment showing what appears to be Gerber filming himself masturbating on a couch.

The sender was then blocked by the city's information technology department, which later sent employees a message warning them that it had come from "a disturbed individual trying to cause issues with the city."

The Star made contact with the anonymous email sender, who declined to identify themselves.

"We don’t hesitate to expose people involved in these dubious and un-Catholic practices,” the sender wrote the newspaper.

Gerber declined The Star's request for comment.

Doug Gerber had apparent allegations against him at Topeka city hall

Before he was hired in March to take over as city manager for a troubled Shawnee city hall, Gerber had been working as a client manager for JEO Consulting Group and as a county project manager for the State of Kansas Office of Recovery, per his online LinkedIn page.

Prior to that, Gerber had been an administrator in various capacities for the City of Topeka, beginning in 2014 as director of administrative and financial service. He was promoted to deputy city manager in 2015, serving in that position until it was cut in 2020. He was briefly interim city manager after Jim Colson left that position in 2016, but Gerber did not seek a permanent appointment.

Gerber was not a unanimous hire for the Shawnee city manager position, with some council members holding reservations about him.

Shawnee Mayor Michelle Distler told The Star she had heard concerns about Gerber's Topeka tenure prior to his hire in Shawnee.

“I do not have all the details of this incident,” Distler wrote The Star. “However, I was not incredibly surprised when I was notified about the KORA request from The KC Star. What I do know is during the city manager hiring process, the governing body had been made aware of previous issues and accusations against Mr. Gerber."

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Former Topeka deputy Doug Gerber facing masturbation video scandal