(PatrioticPost.com)- Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who stood on their property brandishing firearms as Black Lives Matter protesters descended on their gated community last year, are now facing a possible six-month suspension of their law licenses.
Alan Pratzel, the state’s chief disciplinary counsel, filed a motion for each McCloskey with the Missouri Supreme Court last week, which, if the court agrees, would suspend their law licenses for up to six months.
In his motion, Pratzel, who is responsible for attorney discipline in Missouri, said that both McCloskeys “admitted committing a criminal act that shows indifference to public safety and involved moral turpitude.”
In backing up his case for disciplinary action against the pair, Pratzel cited previous disciplinary cases in which the state Supreme Court took action against attorneys for such things as drunk driving, assault and misdemeanor stealing.
In entering a guilty plea, Pratzel wrote, McCloskey was admitting to the “purposeful criminal conduct” of placing others in physical harm by “waving his automatic rifle in their direction.”
Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty on June 17 to one count of misdemeanor fourth-degree assault. His wife Patricia pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment. In August Republican Governor Mike Parsons pardoned both McCloskeys.
Pratzel makes mention of the pardon in his motion, but argues that in the state of Missouri a pardon may clear the conviction, but it doesn’t clear the person’s admission of guilt.
The motion for suspension also notes that McCloskey admitted during interviews that if faced with the same circumstances as those from last summer’s BLM riots, he would do the same thing. Pratzel believes those statements should be factored in when the state Supreme Court decides the McCloskeys’ fate because they “demonstrate his lack of respect for the judicial process that he had recently participated in.”
After they were pardoned by the Governor, the McCloskeys sued to recover the two firearms they surrendered to authorities as well as the fines they paid to the state after entering their guilty pleas.
It is unclear when the state Supreme Court will rule on Pratzel’s motions.
