ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Attorney General’s Office is ordering city courts, schools, police and even a local skydiving company to turn over records as part of a lawsuit seeking to remove ӣƵ Sheriff Alfred Montgomery from office.
The seven wide-ranging subpoenas filed last week seek records including video footage, employee files, emails, memoranda and even license plate reader results. They come days after the first hearing in the removal suit and provide a peek into the case Attorney General Bailey’s office seeks to build against Montgomery.
One of the subpoenas asks for any video showing Montgomery in the downtown city jail at the time he is accused of illegally ordering the handcuffing of a top jail official. Another asks city public schools for footage from a pickup area where Montgomery is accused of sending a deputy to retrieve his kids.
But other requests are more general. In one document, Bailey’s office orders the 22nd Judicial Circuit to turn over communications and documents related to deputy hiring. In another, it asks the sheriff’s office itself for a laundry list of policy documents, including data retention, official vehicle use and use of official equipment.
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Jack Gieseke, a spokesman for Montgomery’s office, said the office planned to comply with the subpoena.
Bailey’s removal suit, called a “quo warranto,” was filed last month. It accuses Montgomery of — among other things — hiring his half-brother as a deputy, misusing public money, refusing to transport inmates from the city jail for medical treatment and skydiving while his office was refusing to transport inmates.
Last week, Judge Steven Ohmer set a timeline for trying the case. He initially set a trial for Nov. 10 but changed that date Monday to Nov. 18 after discovering a conflict, according to court records.
Ohmer last week urged Bailey and Montgomery’s offices to seek records and interview potential witnesses as quickly as possible.
Bailey’s office filed the slew of subpoenas last week with a deadline of July 22.
After referencing a Post-Dispatch article about the sheriff's recent controversies, Alderman Michael Browning questions Sheriff Alfred Montgomery on budget requests. Video courtesy of the City of ӣƵ, edited by Jenna Jones.
