Judge plans to stay decision on trooper’s firing

Former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper Anthony Piercy may not get his job back any time soon.

Cole County Judge Patricia Joyce said she planned to stay her June decision reversing Piercy’s firing by Col. Sandra Karsten. The attorney general’s office said it planned to appeal the decision, and said the Department of Public Safety’s revocation of Piercy’s peace officer’s license made it impossible for the patrol to take him back.

Piercy’s bid to come back to law enforcement, after admitting to negligent operation of a vessel in Brandon Ellingson’s death, is tied up in two court cases. Piercy first sued the Highway Patrol in January after Karsten fired him, despite a patrol panel’s recommendation to transfer him out of mid-Missouri. After Joyce ruled Karsten overstepped her authority in firing him and ordered she reconsider the punishment, Piercy lost his peace officer’s license when DPS director Drew Juden revoked it.

The stay would only apply to Joyce’s ruling on reconsidering Piercy’s punishment, the judge said in court on Friday. Both sides will continue to gather information and argue over whether Piercy should be paid for the time he lost at the patrol.

Piercy was placed on unpaid leave in 2015 after a special prosecutor charged him with involuntary manslaughter for Ellingson’s death. Piercy later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor crime, admitting he placed the wrong type of life vest on Ellingson when he arrested him at the Lake of the Ozarks on suspicion of boating while intoxicated. Piercy, a new trooper to the water after the Highway Patrol and Water Patrol merged, hit a wake going more than 40 mph., sending a handcuffed Ellingson overboard and his improperly fastened life vest off his body.

Karsten, who became superintendent of the patrol in February 2017, announced that she will retire on Sept. 1. If a new superintendent is not picked by the time Piercy’s case is resolved, it will be up to Lt. Col. Eric Olson to decide on Piercy’s punishment.