SCREENGRABS
Sheriff William E. Jones, Sheriff Jeff Burkett, and Sheriff Clay Chism have all found themselves on the wrong side of the law in the last year.
This morning, numerous media outlets reported that the sheriff of Iron County and two of his deputies had been arrested for taking part in an attempted kidnapping plot, making them the three most recent law enforcement officials from Missouri to wind up on the wrong side of the law.
According to the Post-Dispatch, prosecutors allege that Sheriff Jeff Burkett, deputy Matthew Cozad, deputy Chase Bresnahan and a fourth man from Washington County named Donald Gaston comprised a "criminal street gang" that attempted to kidnap Gaston's daughter after Gaston got into a fight with the girl's mom over a bottle of liquor.
Burkett allegedly lied to a 911 dispatcher that the mother had kidnapped Gaston's daughter and that the daughter was in danger.
Last week, Burkett's office posted to Facebook that while he was sick battling COVID-19, Iron County officials launched what he called a frivolous coup attempt against him. The post states that Burkett "battled back."
"It is no secret that Sheriff Burkett is an outsider," the post reads.
A week after that statement, the outsider is now inside a jail in neighboring Washington County.
Burkett is the latest sheriff in the state to wind up on the other side of a pair of handcuffs.
In January, prosecutors charged former Louisiana, Missouri, Police Chief William E. Jones with felony murder after 24-year-old Gabriel Thone fatally overdosed at his home.
Louisiana is a town of about 3,300 along the Mississippi River near Bowling Green.
Jones is also charged with drug trafficking and stealing evidence.
Last November, prosecutors charged Callaway County Sheriff Clay Chism with driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest charges. He'd been arrested in October after driving into a concrete barrier at a fast food restaurant. Police found him passed out in his truck alongside an open bottle of a Mike's Harder product and a puddle of vomit.
Former Piedmont police officer Woodrow Massa never became a sheriff, though he only lost the 2020 election in Wayne County by 68 votes. He was federally indicted in October for arresting people "despite the absence of an arrest warrant or probable cause.”
Closer to St. Louis, Sunset Hills police Chief Stephen Dodge was arrested for boating while intoxicated last June at the Lake of the Ozarks, not far from where St. Charles Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving a few weeks prior.
Now retired, O’Fallon Police Chief John Neske kicked off the year-long trend of top law enforcement officials getting in hot water. He was pulled over in May by an officer who described him as "hammered drunk." No charges were filed but the incident created an uproar when body cam footage of his the non-arrest came to light a few months later.
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