ST. LOUIS — Former Missouri state Rep. Talibdin "T.D." El-Amin, who already has pleaded guilty to felony bribery charges, is facing fresh questions over his House spending account.

El-Amin sought and received taxpayer reimbursement for rent due on his district office that he never actually paid, state records and other documents show.

According to invoices and state records, El-Amin was paid more than $5,000 for rent payments in 2008 and 2009 on his district office on Union Boulevard. But the landlord reported receiving just under $3,000 in that time period.

House officials have referred the matter to Capitol police to investigate whether El-Amin, a St. Louis Democrat, misused taxpayer dollars intended to pay the cost of maintaining a local office.

"As guardian of the taxpayers' money, I'm very upset if this has happened," said state Rep. Kenny Jones, R-Clarksburg, a former sheriff who is head of the House committee that oversees lawmaker spending accounts.

Reached last week, El-Amin said he would be available later to discuss the discrepancy in rent payments. But he did not respond to subsequent requests for comment by phone, text message or e-mail.

El-Amin submitted his resignation Sept. 30, about a week after he pleaded guilty in federal court to soliciting bribes from a gas station owner he thought was seeking assistance in a dispute with City Hall.

The gas station owner, who met with El-Amin several times at the legislator's district office at 4200 Union Boulevard, was cooperating with the FBI, which was secretly recording the exchange of cash. El-Amin faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 14. The amount taken in bribes totaled $2,100.

El-Amin appears to have been suffering from money woes. Earlier this year, a judge ordered him to pay about $13,000 to a collection agency.

It is unclear if El-Amin, a former auto assembly worker, had any regular employment besides his state House position, which paid about $36,000 a year.

State representatives are allowed up to $800 a month in expenses, including the cost of maintaining a district office.

El-Amin, state records show, submitted regular reimbursement requests for $450 monthly rent on his district office. But his landlord's books show that El-Amin paid rent sporadically.

For instance, El-Amin was paid $1,350 from the state for rent due from November 2008 to January 2009. But he paid no rent until August 2009, and for only $450.

In total for 2008 and 2009, El-Amin was paid $5,400 by the state for rent payments to the building's current owner. That owner, David Luetkemeyer, provided the Post-Dispatch a ledger statement that shows El-Amin only paid him $2,950, a difference of $2,450.

Even the money El-Amin did pay, Luetkemeyer said, was often late and difficult to collect.

"Every time I talked to him, he assured me we were going to get it," said Luetkemeyer. El-Amin, Luetkemeyer said, was "very convincing."

Over about a year and a half, El-Amin wrote Luetkemeyer five checks of varying amounts, not including two checks that bounced. At least two rent checks came from the "Committee to Elect El-Amin."

The two checks that bounced, for $750 each, were also from a political fund, the First Ward Democratic Organization.

Adam Crumbliss, chief clerk of the Missouri House, said lawmaker spending accounts are intended to repay members' out-of-pocket expenses, such as office supplies, travel or phone bills. The State House allocates about $1.6 million annually for lawmaker expenses — $9,600 a year for each elected member.

"There is never a situation of which I am aware that the House of Representatives would be accepting to allow a member to essentially use this as a revolving credit fund," Crumbliss said.

After consulting with the Cole County prosecutor, Crumbliss said, House officials have asked the Missouri Capitol Police to investigate if El-Amin improperly obtained reimbursement for his rent bill.

Whether El-Amin broke the law could depend on intent, said Frank O. Bowman III, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who teaches at the University of Missouri Law School.

"If he knew at the time he was submitting the invoices he wasn't going to pay — never intended to pay — then you probably have a fraudulent representation at that point," Bowman said. But such allegations, Bowman said, could easily be thwarted by blaming sloppy bookkeeping.

A special election has been called for February to replace El-Amin, who represented a portion of northwest St. Louis.

Luetkemeyer — a distant relative of U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a mid-Missouri Republican — said he did not evict El-Amin because he hoped he would serve as an anchor tenant for the building, located across the street from an industrial park near Interstate 70.

Luetkemeyer has called and e-mailed El-Amin to collect what he says is still owed.

"You profess to be a servant of the community yet you do not follow through," Luetkemeyer's office wrote to El-Amin in July, before the legislator stepped down. "What would you tell your fellow citizens if there was a group in your district that didn't pay their bills as promised?"