Updated at 6:15 p.m. Thursday with comment from ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecutor Wesley Bell.
CLAYTON — A former assistant prosecutor claimed in a lawsuit filed Thursday that ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecutor Wesley Bell fired her because of her gender, age and race, and that he has cut “improper†plea deals for Black defendants.
Susan Petersen’s lawsuit says she worked for the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office for nearly 21 years and that she was among five white prosecutors older than 40 who either were forced out or quit last year in Bell’s first term as county prosecutor. The lawsuit says Bell favored hiring and promoting male employees and attorneys, noting the appointment of several men to Bell’s executive staff.
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Tim Swope, a spokesman for Bell, texted a comment attributed to Bell: Petersen’s lawyer, Jerry Dobson, “trying to litigate this case through the media rather than the courts is consistent with his irresponsible legal maneuvering. … There is a pattern here, but it’s a pattern of Mr. Dobson’s unethical legal behavior on behalf of police unions and lawyers, not a pattern of gender, age or racial discrimination in our office, the proof of which we will submit to the court if a judge hears this case as readily as the media reported it.â€
Bell intervened in two of Petersen’s cases by making plea deals with Black defendants who were charged with violent crimes against police and a white victim, her lawsuit claims. The deals were made without input from Petersen, she said.
One of those deals was with a Jennings man who got a 15-year term for shooting at four undercover police officers in 2017, the lawsuit says. The other case was a Webster Groves woman who went to prison for 15 years on a reduced charge of manslaughter for fatally stabbing a man who was white. The lawsuit claims Bell and his chief trial assistant Robert Steele, both of whom are African American, disagreed with Petersen’s charging decision and plea offer and struck an agreement without consulting her, based partly on the defendant’s claim that the man she killed had called her the N-word.
The judge who accepted the plea agreement in the Jennings case last year said at the time he was “reluctant to go along with it†but trusted the prosecutors’ knowledge of the case. The ºüÀêÊÓƵ County police union also criticized the plea agreement.
Dobson said the deals “raise a question about whether African American defendants received lenient treatment. And it is disturbing that the perspective of a veteran prosecutor like Ms. Petersen was neither sought nor obtained before these plea deals were struck.â€
Dobson called Petersen “a very accomplished prosecutor and she firmly believed and advocated for the rights of victims. It also appears clear that the new administration does not fully respect contributions of veteran prosecutors.â€
Petersen, 47, was suspended with pay in September 2019 after she complained to her superiors about Bell and Steele’s interference, the lawsuit says. The following month, Bell demoted her and sent her a written reprimand saying he had lost faith “in her ability to handle criminal cases and work with police officers on criminal cases (in) an honest, ethical and professional manner.â€
Petersen left the office on Oct. 7, 2019. Three settlements with other prosecutors Bell forced out last year cost taxpayers at least $170,000. Petersen’s suit says another veteran prosecutor resigned last year because of a hostile workplace.
Petersen, of Ladue, is now lead counsel for the , which represents police departments in the region.
Her suit seeks at least $100,000 in damages.