A lawyer for the St. Louis sheriff’s office has been put on administrative leave after department leadership received complaints that he harassed a reporter from a local news outlet.
Text messages obtained by St. Louis Public Radio appear to show sheriff’s counsel Blake Lawrence asking the reporter for their address and threatening to send deputies to their home unless the newspaper takes down an article on the sheriff’s office’s buying a take-home Tahoe and spending $28,000 on badges.
Lawrence confirmed to STLPR that he sent messages to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, and said he sent them on St. Louis Sheriff Alfred Montgomery’s orders. Lawrence said the suspension is retaliation for his cooperation with an investigation into the sheriff…