Ex-Missouri police chief guilty of violating woman’s rights

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former southeastern Missouri police chief has pleaded guilty to violating a woman’s civil rights by forcing her to give her children to their paternal grandmother without a court order to do so. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 54-year-old Marc Tragesser pleaded guilty to the federal misdemeanor Thursday. Prosecutors say Tragesser was the police chief of Marble Hill in November 2018 when he went to the woman’s home and falsely told her he had a court order to take the children. Prosecutors say when the woman demanded to see the court order, he cuffed her in a violent arrest and only agreed to let her go if she agreed to turn the children over to their grandmother, who did not have custody or visitation rights.