An investigation is underway after St. Paul’s police chief made a complaint against Mayor Kaohly Her, with his attorney saying in a letter that her “conduct has extended beyond isolated incidents and has included sexual harassment of subordinate city employees, including members of the St. Paul Police Department.”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office, Matt Wagenius, said the city will not comment on the matter due to the ongoing investigation.
“To protect confidentiality and the integrity of the process, the city will not comment on an active investigation,” he said Tuesday. “The mayor has deep respect for city employees and regrets any unintended impact her actions may have had.”
Attorney Chris Madel, representing Police Chief Axel Henry, wrote in a letter to St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao that Her “has used one or more mobile phones to communicate inappropriate, and, indeed, unlawful text messages.”
Chris Madel, an attorney for St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, included a screenshot in a letter to the St. Paul city attorney on April 1, 2026, saying it was a text message that St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her sent to a city employee. (Screenshot from a copy of the letter).
Madel included a screenshot in the letter of a text message, saying Her sent it to a city employee. The screenshot, which was partially redacted, said, “Happy Weiner Wednesday!” and that she wished she was having hot dogs “with you all.”
Some police department staff bring in hot dogs for a small group of other department employees on some Wednesdays, which became nicknamed, “Weiner Wednesdays.”
The redacted photo with the screenshot was a picture of an officer, who sometimes works on Her’s security detail, photoshopped onto a swaddled baby, according to a person who previously saw the image. Included in the message was: “When she wraps you up in her blanket after you gave her a good weinering.”
The photo and wording is a meme that’s been shared on social media in recent months.
Police chief files formal complaint
The letter, sent by Madel to Kao on April 1, became publicly known Tuesday and the Pioneer Press obtained a copy. Madel referenced a conversation between him, Kao and Henry on March 30.
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, joined by representatives from other metro area police departments, speaks during a news conference in the state Capitol rotunda in St. Paul on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
During the call, Kao asked Henry if he wanted “to be a formal complainant against Mayor Her regarding her misconduct,” Madel wrote. “You further indicated that the City had determined to investigate Mayor Her’s conduct regardless of whether Chief Henry filed a formal complaint against Mayor Her.”
Madel continued that Henry had decided “to designate himself as a formal complainant against Mayor Her for illegal employment practices against city employees, including himself.”
The city “is on notice that Mayor Her has engaged in illegal conduct towards city employees,” Madel wrote. “Litigation is ‘reasonably foreseeable.’”
“Accordingly, we hereby demand that the City immediately take all steps necessary to perform a full filesystem extraction of each of Mayor Her’s mobile phones,” Madel wrote of preserving documents, photos, videos, contacts, emails and messages including “potentially deleted information within apps.”
In a statement Tuesday, Madel said Henry would have no further comment.
“Chief Henry just helped crack a triple homicide in under four hours — that’s the work he’s focused on right now: keeping citizens safe. No comment beyond that.”
Neither the St. Paul police department nor Henry issued a comment Tuesday.
Potential legal questions in past
This is not the first time that Her, who unseated former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter last November, has faced potential legal questions over personal and professional boundaries. Her, who came to the United States as a child refugee, made history as the city’s first Hmong and first female mayor.
In January, a legal referee tossed out a petition for an emergency restraining order filed by Her’s former friend and confidante, who had accused the mayor of asking intrusive questions about her sex life, oversharing about her personal life and texting at all hours.
Her, in turn, had questioned the woman’s sanity in messages to mutual friends, and said she worried the woman perhaps needed to be psychiatrically committed. In rejecting the petition, the legal referee said the wording did not rise to the level of an overt threat.
Her has had a busy month preparing the city’s 2027 budget proposal. The details are expected to be released in her budget address on Aug. 13 at Allianz Field in the Midway, and she’s put city departments on notice that closing a $26 million budget gap through a combination of funding cuts, staff layoffs and property tax increases is more than likely.
As a result, the mayor has dug heavily into the police department budget, alongside the budgets of every other city department.
“All options are on the table,” said Her, during a budget outreach event last month.
