CLAYTON — The case against against a St. Louis County lawyer, who is accused of stealing a court document from a file, has been going on for more than two years, and it has yet to be resolved.
In February, Scott C. Ehlermann faced a court hearing on charges of stealing the document, but on the day of the hearing the prosecutor dropped the charge.
But on Feb. 16, prosecutor Robert McCulloch refiled charges. A court date has yet to be set.
The case began in 2014 when Ehlermann told a county clerk he wanted a file as an attorney working on an adult abuse case. The case file he wanted to access involved a woman who Ehlermann allegedly had a relationship with. They also had a child together.
According to court documents and a report from Clayton police, two witnesses said they saw Ehlermann remove a document from the file before returning it to the clerk. A document was also missing from the file, a special prosecutor told Clayton police.
"Nothing happened. Nothing was taken from the file," Ehlermann told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
''The events on the day in question were witnessed by a court clerk who has testified, under oath, that Mr. Ehlermann did not take any item from a court file," Ehlermann's attorneys said in a statement according to the Post-Dispatch. "He looks forward to the trial and clearing his name."
Initially, felony charges were brought against Ehlermann, but a ruling by the state Supreme Court knocked it down to a misdemeanor.
Then in February 2016, on the day that Ehlermann's trial was to begin, a St. Louis County Circuit judge made a ruling that caused the McCulloch to make a decision on whether to try the case at that particular time.
McCulloch was not ready, citing the ruling from the circuit judge that it would take him more time to try the case.
The judge had ruled that the terms, “adult abuse,” “order of protection,” “domestic violence,” and “special prosecutor” could not be used in the trial.