THEO WELLING
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, seen here on June 28, 2020, committing criminal acts.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the infamous "St. Louis gun couple," have pleaded guilty to criminal charges and are giving up the weapons they pointed at protesters on June 28, 2020.
Mark McCloskey — who is currently trying to turn the armed temper tantrum into an entire campaign platform for his run for a U.S. Senate seat — pleaded to assault in the 4th degree, a misdemeanor that will cost the mansion-having lawyer a fine of $750.
Along with Mark, Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment, a misdemeanor that carries a $2,000 fine.
As part of the plea agreement, both will give up the guns they deployed during the incident — Mark's rifle and Patricia's pistol — and which made the couple instant darlings of conservative pundits and Republican officials.
But Mark McCloskey's claim that an "angry mob marched to destroy my home and kill my family" — as he touts in a pinned post to his campaign Twitter account — was not borne out in the evidence evaluated by Richard Callahan. In a statement released Thursday, the prosecutor wrote that "there was no evidence that any of [the protesters] had a weapon and no one I interviewed realized they had ventured into a private enclave."
Callahan's statement (which was first shared on Twitter by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Joel Currier) describes the protesters as a "racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children, who simply made a wrong turn on their way to protest in front of the mayor's house."
The statement noted that "While there was a back and forth conversation that resulted from McCloskey's display or guns, upon meeting the Association's security guard further down the street, [the protesters] followed his directions and peacefully exited the neighborhood through the gate onto Lake Street."
Callahan's statement covered more than the evidence and the plea deal. He went out of his way to note that the plea agreement had nothing to do with the fact that the two defendants were lawyers — or that there has been "talk of a possible pardon" from Governor Mike Parson.
Driving his point further, Callahan finished his statement with a carefully worded message for Parson, whose office is slowly addressing a backlog of thousands of clemency applications — among them non-violent drug offenders trapped in lengthy sentences by a repealed law.
"If by happenstance," Callahan's wrote, "the governor does take the time to consider a pardon in this case, I hope it will trigger an interest in the backlog of pardon applications who may or not merit executive clemency, but at least deserve an answer."
Statement from special prosecutor Richard Callahan regarding guilty pleas today for Marc and Patricia McCloskey. pic.twitter.com/N0WoqqK8s9
— Joel Currier (@joelcurrier) June 17, 2021
Follow Danny Wicentowski on Twitter at @D_Towski. E-mail the author at [email protected]
