New judge assigned in Piercy manslaughter case
The criminal case involving Brandon Ellingson’s drowning at the Lake of the Ozarks while in Highway Patrol custody has a new judge.
The Missouri Supreme Court assigned Judge Roger Prokes to preside over suspended Trooper Anthony Piercy’s first-degree involuntary manslaughter case in Morgan County. Prokes is the current circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit, based in northwest Missouri’s Nodaway County.
Piercy had just detained Ellingson, the 20-year-old from Iowa, for boating while intoxicated in the early evening of May 31, 2014. While driving his patrol boat back to shore, Ellingson went overboard, slipped out of his life vest and drowned with his hands cuffed behind his back. A jury ruled his death accidental at a coroner’s inquest in September 2014.
Records ABC 17 have obtained throughout two years of investigating the issue show Piercy put on the wrong type of life vest. Depositions indicate he drove around 40 miles and hour into incoming wakes, which may have contributed to Ellingson’s falling overboard.
Piercy also faces a federal civil lawsuit filed by the Ellingson family. He is currently appealing Judge Nanette Laughrey’s decision not to grant him summary judgment based on “qualified immunity.”
Special prosecutor William Seay filed the charge on December 18, 2015. The Highway Patrol suspended Piercy indefinitely that same day. Since then, three judges have been assigned to the case. Prokes’ assignment makes it the first judge outside of the circuit handling the criminal case. Piercy is currently out on bond.
Both sides are expected to be in Morgan County court on November 21 for a case management hearing.
