The Missouri Supreme Court has terminated the probation of personal injury attorney Mark McCloskey who had his license suspended after he and his wife Patricia McCloskey were arrested and charged with misdemeanors three years ago for brandishing guns in front of their St. Louis residence while George Floyd demonstrators marched toward former Mayor Lyda Krewson's home nearby.
“Respondent having filed a motion for an order of successful completion of probation and in consideration of the response of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel to said motion, it is hereby ordered that Respondent has successfully completed the probationary period set forth in the Court’s order dated February 8, 2022, and Respondent’s probation is ordered terminated,” wrote Chief Justice Paul Wilson in his Feb. 9 order.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, the McCloskeys found it difficult to find an organization with which to complete 200 hours of pro bono legal work that would count toward completing their probation requirements.
In December 2022, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri finally offered the law couple the volunteer opportunity of writing formal legal memorandums. McCloskey completed his final brief on Jan. 30.
“They gave me research assignments and I ended up doing three fairly extensive research projects for them,” he said. “I would have preferred to actually help the indigent, but they didn't think it would be a good fit to allow me to actually talk to people.”
The McCloskeys still are struggling with the courts for the return of their guns.
“We’ve got the motion for reconsideration and the motion to amend the judgment to conform with a statute pending right now and the formality is that you file the post-trial motions and if the court doesn't rule on it within 90 days, it's presumed overruled and then you get 10 days to appeal it,” McCloskey said in an interview. “We will do that."
Last week, McCloskey negotiated a settlement for a Villa Duchesne student who was accused of making a racist comment and being racist by another student because she had a Thin Blue Line sticker on her laptop. Villa Duchesne is a Catholic school in Frontenac.
"The school, rather than investigating and finding out if she really said it, spent all their effort in trying to convince her that she was racist because she was white," McCloskey added. "It was demonstrably not true because they had it on video and they could tell she didn't make a racist comment."