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McCloskey Charges, County ‘Extortion’ Controversy Fuel July’s Legal Roundtable

Mark and Patricia McCloskey are now facing felony charges for unlawful use of a weapon. Our legal roundtable will discuss the merits of the charge.
File Photo / Bill Greenblatt
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UPI
Mark and Patricia McCloskey are now facing felony charges for unlawful use of a weapon. Our legal roundtable discussed the merits of the charge.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the charges filed against St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey. The personal injury lawyers became a cause célèbre after brandishing guns at protesters marching past their Midwestern palazzo. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has charged them with unlawful use of weapon, a felony, even as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is attempting to intervene in the case, seeking to have the charges dropped. It’s kept cable news programs busy for weeks on end.

Or how about the case involving attorney Jerome Dobson? It’s not a national story, but it has St. Louis County in an uproar. Dobson represents St. Louis County Police Lt. Col. Troy Doyle, who was recently passed over in his bid to become chief. Over the weekend, a firestorm erupted when Dobson announced Doyle had filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging racial discrimination.

But County Counselor Beth Orwick says it’s Dobson whose actions deserve scrutiny. She accuses the lawyer of seeking to “effectively extort” her boss, County Executive Sam Page, who is running for election. The allegation has now been forwarded to federal authorities.

For our July Legal Roundtable, our panel of experts dug into these high-profile issues — and much more.

Joining us were Mark Smith, associate vice chancellor and dean for career services at Washington University; Nicole Gorovsky, a former prosecutor now in private practice at Gorovsky Law; and David Roland, director of litigation and co-founder of the Freedom Center of Missouri.

St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill and Lara Hamdan. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.

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Sarah Fenske served as host of St. Louis on the Air from July 2019 until June 2022. Before that, she spent twenty years in newspapers, working as a reporter, columnist and editor in Cleveland, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and St. Louis.